‘Doing Something Very Significant About It’
After some 15 laborious hours of the Senate mired in vote-a-rama, Kamala Harris on Friday cast her first tiebreaking vote, setting the stage for Democrats to forge ahead on Joe Biden's stimulus plan.
As The New York Times recounted, Harris "arrived early in the morning to the dais... and the Senate adopted the resolution along party lines, 51-50, at about 5:30 AM." Later, it cleared the House 219 to 209.
Chuck Schumer called it "a giant first step," and it came one month after Raphael Warnock
Nice to see lawmakers actually working instead of posturing. Perhaps this Congress will actually do what they were elected to do.
I’m thinking the lawmakers (the GOP) were posturing late into the night, not actually working. After all, the vote was along party lines (I don’t understand how the GOP gets away with this). But it’s nice you gave them the benefit of the doubt
I’m not sure the income thresholds make sense to manage “stonks” syndrome. Unless you’re going to come up with some sort of actual need based distribution dropping the threshold just means people in cities will get nothing and people in rural areas will get payments. $50k in a major metro area is very different from $50k in Fargo. That and the stimulus portion is meant to stimulate the economy as much as anything else, to help offset things like rising food costs and covid tests which I would dare say hit pretty much everyone in the 75k range just as hard as the 50k range. I really hope they do not let the GOP perspective color their decision when going the 51 route.
Great job, Dems…!
As for the minimum wage, Manchin, Synema, Tester, and perhaps Collins, Murkowski, and or Toomey could be key as both Manchin and Collins have stated opposition to an increase to $15.
As for the Republicans complaining about lack of bipartisanship, they can … “Talk to the hand…”
Nothing will cure stonks syndrome but some experience with stonks stinking.
Those wins in Georgia were monumental in their repercussions. It’s so refreshing to see that the Democrats can and will tell the Republicans to pound sand after years of obstruction and do-nothingism. Still a long way to go (infrastructure and green energy stimulus next year?), but it’s a helluva lot better start than what might have happened had Trump not cost Republicans the Senate.
Biden is right, as far as cushioning the blow they really cannot do too much. If it turns out the aid turns out to be “too much” as the virus gets under control quickly and the economy shifts up quickly what happens? OMG, inflation goes up, the Fed raises short rates substantially and gets back real monetary tools… totally not a disaster by any means. Main Street will do well, holders of assets that suffer from higher interest rates (real estate- maybe/maybe not , large cap growth definitely, bonds you bet, gold only if real rates rise not nominal) get hit. Cyclical sectors do well most likely as we see a great rotation in equities. We will run a giant trade deficit but such leakage is to be welcomed not shunned. It will reflect high demand. You would also have to think the dollar would be stronger….