Back during the election, and transition, we heard a lot from the Biden camp about helping folks harmed by the COVID shutdowns. We were promised a $2,000 check, and got $1,200. ( I know what the response will be to this, but the reality is that Biden did promise a $2,000 check after the $12,00 checks had gone out.)
One of the things that was done was a program called the PPP, it was a way to help business owners pay the employees they'd been forced to lay off because their business had been shut down. This program wasn't perfect, and wasn't really enough, but it was something. After stringing business owners along for a while, there was finally a second draw from the program. That second draw money was supposed to last through May 31st of 2021. Unfortunately, it ran out around May 5th, 2021. What's interesting is that despite some degree of outcry, the Biden administration has remained silent on their intentions of proposing additional funding for this program. One thing to consider is that the businesses who need this funding are trying to get out of a hole caused by the federal/state government shutting down large segments of the economy. Even though things are opening back up in terms of the government shut down, the reality is that these businesses and their employees are still incredibly far behind because of things beyond their control. It looks like this is just one more thing that the administration talked a good game about, but isn't actually doing much to accomplish.
I know that the "blame the GOP minority" crowd will behave predictably, and ignore the fact that the administration and the DFL majority hasn't proposed any legislation or even talked about proposing any legislation to deal with this. I'm just not sure how it's possible to blame the GOP, when the administration/DFL hasn't even offered a solution.
I'm also a dissapointed in the GOP on this. At a very minimum, a GOP sponsored bill to re fund the PPP program would be a political "win" for them. Especially if the DFL didn't jump on board.
Mostly, I'm just bothered by the relative silence on the matter.
19 comments:
I'm sorry. I just can't get past the idiocy of shutting down the economy in the first place.
Obviously the shutdown caused massive amounts of economic damage and probably could have been handled better. My problem is more with how they’ve handled the business that the shut down damaged. I’ve said from the beginning that if the government prevents businesses from operating normally, then the government should compensate those harmed with “fair market value” of what the government shut down cost them.
The reality is that we can’t change the past, so the questions all revolve around how much of the harm the government will dump off on business owners. My guess is that the Biden administration will ignore or put off replenishing the PPP funds and that will just continue the harm inflicted on small business owners.
We're screwed one way or another. Either we lose businesses, businesses come back after a long struggle or the taxpayer gets bit in the ass once again to bail out the government's massive mistakes. I could deal with the latter...the option most likely to occur if any of them do...if they would hold up all other spending, such as their ludicrous "infrastructure" spending spree and crap like that. It's going to be hard to hold out until the mid-terms and we'll be dependent upon the two or three Dems in the senate to block the most egregious of Biden's many bad ideas.
Art,
Ultimately I'm conflicted. On the one hand there is ample legal precedent that says that when the government deprives you of something that is yours, that the government needs to fairly compensate you at market value. One the other living up to that principle in these circumstances will be difficult or impossible.
In the case of the PPP loans, they aren't even an attempt to fairly compensate business owners for what they were deprived of by the government, at best they're a bare minimum to allow business owners to pay some employees and cover some of their expenses. Which leaves the actual business owners slightly less deep in the hole than before.
My point isn't to suggest that it's even possible to fairly compensate people for the losses inflicted on them by governments. I'm simply pointing out the silence from those in power when the programs they've already enacted aren't funded to the level to do what they promised. Months ago the rhetoric around passing these "relief" bills was about how desperate people were and how much they were suffering, now that the "relief" was inadequate we don't hear anything.
I understand that the real purpose of the "relief" bills was political and that those who benefited the most were the politicians. I further understand that once the politicians see a benefit for themselves in dealing with this it will magically become a crisis again. Unfortunately, that leaves people who've really been hurt by government actions un-helped.
And thus, We're screwed one way or another.
I’d argue that maintaining the principle of the takings clause, and mitigating the harm done by government is preferable. To set the precedent that the government has the ability to shut down businesses and deprive the owners of their livelihood is just going to be worse if left unchecked.
Again, it doesn’t really matter since it’s about scoring political points, not principles with this bunch.
I recently read that a majority of Americans are pleased with Joe's handling of the pandemic, and I'm thinking, "What has Joe done to handle the pandemic?" Did I miss something? It looks like "I'll do whatever my predecessor was doing."
As with virtually everything else since he's been elected, I can't see any difference between how Joe has handled COVID and how trump was handling it. The only real difference is that Trump was POTUS during the development of the vaccine, and Biden gets to "reap the benefits" of the work done during the Trump administration.
I also have to note that the number of things Trump was right about/the media lied about continues to grow.
????
Posted some responses in the wrong place.
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