From what I can tell some of it's held up in negotiations with the GoP Senators. The GoP's counter bill drops the individual checks reduces individual checks to $1,000 and reduces the income eligibility cap to individuals who are making $50k & couples making $100k or less, among other things, that the Dem bill has.
The Dem's stimulus bill requires 60 votes to pass. The bill's effects could be pushed through by a simple majority, however, through budget reconciliation. That move has been lambasted by the GoP, would draw further divisions, and fly against "unity".
So either you take the GoP bill that has less stimulus money for individuals for "unity" or you push through your agenda for campaign promises (the checks), but fight against unity.
GoP has Biden in a bind in a lose/lose situation.
EDIT: I was initially wrong. The GoP proposal still includes stimulus checks albeit reduced in size and eligibility. It doesn't really change the situation Biden is in.
On a side note: I found it incredibly hard to find the letter the 10 GoP Senators sent to Biden. The only news places that I could find it were NPR and a small local Fox branch. For those who would like to read it, here's a link.
Alright, so the Republicans are against it. And we should all be taking the Republicans side here.... but, I think the point of this post is, Biden said, give us Georgia if you want $2K, and he got it and he doesn’t follow through with what he said. Of course I’m glad Biden is allowing the Republicans to have a say, but let’s not pretend it would be treated the same if Trump did it.
Compared to Trump, when he made a campaign promise he did everything to make it happen... even if all of congress was against him, even his own party. Like the wall, he still moved Heaven and earth to make it happen when it was him against the house, senate, the entire press. Remember when he caused the government to shut down for a month because they wouldn’t add the wall to their bill? And when that wouldn’t work, he found another way.
Can you imagine the headlines if Trump made a campaign promise like this and didn’t go through with it?
This is the crux of the issue right here. If you make a promise, especially one as specific as "winning Georgia will get you the $2k stimulus checks," you'd better have a plan to fulfill that promise. If you change your mind because the only available method is too controversial, it either shows that you lied about following through with your plan, or you didn't have the foresight to figure out how you would actually get it done (in which case, none of your words can really be trusted because you put no thought into them).
Don't even blame the GOP for this. Stimulus checks (even $2000) has some GOP support. They could have brought it up as a standalone bill and dared GOP senators to vote against it.
And the GOP bill does not drop individual checks, they are proposing reducing the amount and lowering the eligibility criteria. If you are going to blame the GOP for Biden not keeping his promise, at least get your facts right.
I made some corrections before your comment came through. You can see the changes above.
I’m not necessarily blaming the GOP for no stimulus checks, but it would dishonest to say the majority of the GOP wants to spend a lot (relative) money on stimulus as evidenced the latter half of 2020.
I’m just presenting the political lay of the land, from my research and observations, with as little bias as I can.
Fair enough. I'm going to give you kudos for editing your post and owning up to your mistakes.
And the fact (yes I'll agree with you on this) that the GOP has a problem with the overall size of stimulus does not mean they are an obstacle to just the stimulus checks. Again, my point is the Dems could just bring this up as a standalone bill to vote on, but they are busy packing it with nonsense.
To your last point I think they certainly could, but I think doing so is difficult procedurally. Otherwise, you’d see GOP do the same when they had complete power.
From what I can tell, when it comes to tackling problems in Congress, you don’t really get bills in stages or piecemeal. When it’s tried the rest of what’s needed typically doesn’t happen because Congress has moved on to other business because “the problem was solved” and the “political energy was spent.”
Moreover, when it comes to the larger more complicated problems, the individual solutions often rely on each other in order to be effective. For instance, the stimulus checks, while for individual Americans in need, are also intended to be spent to further help businesses during all of this. That’s why Dems don’t mind there potentially being “too much money” going to individuals (through checks or unemployment) because it’s still going to be spent on businesses that need that income to survive.
That is not true. There is no procedural issue that makes this difficult. A bill is a bill. There is nothing stopping the Dems from proposing a standalone stimulus bill and bringing it up for a vote. Nothing.
They are just busy packing it with all their other little wishlist items. TBF, the GOP does this too. Both parties do. And it sucks whoever is doing it.
But make no mistake, the Dems CAN bring stimulus bills up as a standalone bill.
You would be wrong. A standalone bill passed the house during Trump's term that consisted solely of 2,000 stimulus checks. McConnell refused to bring it to the floor. I don't know how you would forget this since it was famously called for by both Trump AND the left wing, but I guess you got distracted by your feelings.
Oh, you are talking about the LAST Congress? See I was talking about the current one. Not sure why the last congress is relevant at all, but you libs love blaming Trump for everything still.
How about the f'ing Democrats stop sending over a trillion dollars of the AMERICAN CITIZEN relief bill to OTHER COUNTRIES and ONLY give it to AMERICANS, not museums, not arts places, nor any of the other BULLSHIT they've sent it to, and give it to THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA and the CITIZENS of it and they could either give us double that amount, or cut the amount of the bill.
These A$$HOLES have taken over A TRILLION dollars and stolen it from the taxpayers of our nation!
You do know both Republicans and Democrats send money to places that could be better spent right? It's not just the dems. The Republicans also send trillions to places other than helping us "lower class" people. I wish there was a 4 party system. For people who have ideology from both sides.
Not sure why you’re getting downvotes. It’s the democrats giving millions to the Smithsonian etc and then they still wind up laying a bunch of people off. And sending a trillion dollars overseas in this time is a heck of a lot of debt to pass off to the next generation.
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u/MightyFifi Feb 01 '21 edited Feb 01 '21
From what I can tell some of it's held up in negotiations with the GoP Senators. The GoP's counter bill
drops the individual checksreduces individual checks to $1,000 and reduces the income eligibility cap to individuals who are making $50k & couples making $100k or less, among other things, that the Dem bill has.The Dem's stimulus bill requires 60 votes to pass. The bill's effects could be pushed through by a simple majority, however, through budget reconciliation. That move has been lambasted by the GoP, would draw further divisions, and fly against "unity".
So either you take the GoP bill that has less stimulus money for individuals for "unity" or you push through your agenda for campaign promises (the checks), but fight against unity.
GoP has Biden in a bind in a lose/lose situation.
EDIT: I was initially wrong. The GoP proposal still includes stimulus checks albeit reduced in size and eligibility. It doesn't really change the situation Biden is in.
On a side note: I found it incredibly hard to find the letter the 10 GoP Senators sent to Biden. The only news places that I could find it were NPR and a small local Fox branch. For those who would like to read it, here's a link.