"Gov. Cuomo angrily challenged Republicans to force hard-hit states to
declare bankruptcy instead of giving them stimulus aid to cope with the
coronavirus crisis.
“Pass the law. I dare you,” he raged. “You want to send a signal to the
markets that this nation is in real trouble? .... I dare you to do
that.”
The governor tore into Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
(R-Kentucky) for suggesting that the GOP wouldn’t fund “blue state
bailouts” for New York and other pandemic-stricken states.
He reminded McConnell that New York gives more money to the federal
government than it takes back -- while Kentucky is near the top of the
list of “taker” states.
“New York has bailed you out every year, every year,” Cuomo said,
showing flashes of his legendary temper. “Mitch McConnell is a taker,
not a giver. New Yorker is a state of givers.”...."
Andrew Cuomo's Press Conference: April 24. Maybe more than you want to know, but more informative than the guy who wants us to drink a glass of clorox.
Andrew Cuomo's Press Conference: April 24. Maybe more than you want to know, but more informative than the guy who wants us to drink a glass of clorox.
Oh yes. That was a good one. Delicious, actually. Is Cuomo doing the attacking for Biden because I haven't heard much from Biden?
ReplyDeleteNow, now. Trump, as this Trumpista and impartial paragon of credibility notes, did not encourage anyone to drink bleach.
ReplyDeleteNo, he suggested that we look into injecting it, possibly into our lungs, like a cleaning.
https://dbdailyupdate.com/index.php/2020/04/24/no-president-trump-did-not-advise-anyone-to-drink-clorox/
Yeah, where is Biden? Still in his Safe Room trying to figure out Face Time?
Trump is campaigning for Biden. All he has to do is talk and say stupid sh#t. Which he does, all day long. Anone who votes for Trump now is just proving they're as separated from reality as he is.
DeleteOh, wait, it was all a sarcastic joke to a reporter. God help him.
DeleteMitch is setting us up for national bankruptcy. Move your money to a Swiss bank stat.
ReplyDeleteWhat are Mitch's chances of being beaten in the fall?
DeleteHis opponent is Amy McGrath...McConnell will have tons of money, and apparently she is doing well with Democratic small donors. This Wash Post article says those Dems should spend their money where it might do more good
Deletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/03/09/small-donors-democrats-flip-senate/
However...remember a Dem took the governership in November against the well-funded incumbent, and is doing quite well with Kentucky's coronavirus epidemic, i.e., keeping things under control. Beating McConnell would be a big feat, but think of the satisfaction!!
What is Biden doing now? According to this article in the LA Times, "...he’s been nearly totally eclipsed by news of the coronavirus outbreak and President Trump’s widely criticized handling of the crisis. "...he said he spends up to seven hours a day on the phone — talking with governors, senators, House members, mayors, policy experts and hospital officials. And of course he talks to his own policy and political staffs, who also are mostly working from home, spread along the Eastern Seaboard."
ReplyDeleteAn idea, which he hopes to launch on Monday, "..would be to provide briefings as a counterweight to the now-daily briefings that Trump has been holding at the White House."
I guess he could get doctors and policy-makers unconstrained by having to kiss Trump's ample behind to come in and discuss things. But there is a danger in exhausting people with info about sickness.
DeleteSome kind of look ahead to what America will look like after Trump and covid19 pandemic could be good. "Listen, folks," ... here are some national problems we're going to start addressing and how we're going to make this better.
I agree with you that people can get exhausted by info about illness. There's going to be life after this. It's just that we have to wade through so much ugly first. But the problems that needed solving before this thing hit are still going to need solving.
DeleteI don't think people would be exhausted by decisive and visionary leadership. In 2008 when the financial world was going kablooey, that is how Obama distinguished himself effectively from McCain, who floundered about and tried gimmicks. Our current prez makes McCain look like Mt. Rushmore material. Biden has an opportunity. But so far the occasion has slipped away from him.
DeleteI would like to hear Biden say what he intends to do to make sure that we don't get caught napping again by a crisis such as this. A start would be to restore the National Security Council office that focused on pandemics.
DeleteHere is my tongue-not-entirely-in-cheek conservative response: if Cuomo needs more money, why doesn't he propose to the NY State Legislature to raise taxes? Or, if that's not a likely winner, why doesn't he propose to borrow more money?
ReplyDeleteWell, Jim, at the moment, there is no point raising taxes on businesses that are not open and people who don't have paychecks. As for the future, even Addison McConnell will see the need for throwing tax cuts at businesses to help them recover. So what would be the point in New York taxing away the money Washington is using for stimulation?
DeleteNew York State has a state income tax, a sales tax, and property taxes (sales taxes, 8 percent in NYC), and who knows? how many taxes I don't even know about.
ReplyDeleteThat allows our current allies New Jersey and Connecticut (in the Corona Virus fight) to draw off NY businesses and residents with their somewhat lower taxes. Until the current crises, New York was doing okay budge-wise, but the unemployment numbers and the decline in income taxes, sales taxes, etc., are going to take a hit.
Returning to "normal" will resolve some of that in the long-run, but now (I don't know the numbers) NY State, to say nothing of NY City, are going to be hard up. Coumo points out in today's press conference (see above) that that will mean salary troubles for police, fire, teachers, etc. As a New York city and state taxpayer, I point out that the Trump/Republican tax cuts hit hardest on states like NY, CA, etc. which put caps put on deducting property taxes from their federal taxes. Maybe NY and CA are outliers, and they don't always take enough care of the neediest, but .... you get the idea: if you follow CST, someone has to pay to right the balance and care for the neediest. New York has a long way to go, but it will always give Oliver another bowl of porridge!
And as Cuomo pointed out today, Kentucky is happy to live on the largess it gets from the Feds vis a vis New York, and, Jim, probably from Illinois as well. So McConnell wherever he falls in your conservative hall of fame is stupid to frame the issue as he has...
New York could easily borrow more money; its credit rating is pretty good.
DeleteThe givers-vs-takers argument is inflammatory, but it's pretty much beside the point. Cuomo and his government aren't sending money to Washington. The federal tax dollars flowing out of the state are coming out of the pockets of his citizens and the coffers of his corporations, not from his state budget. New York presumably gives more to the federal government than it takes back because it has so many high-income residents paying so much in federal taxes. Wealthy New York federal taxpayers almost certainly are subsidizing masks and ventilators for Mississippi and Alabama, not to mention Kentucky. That sounds like CST to me. I don't think we should expect less from the financial capital of the world.
Why is it beside the point?
DeleteWhenever a tornado flattens a 'Tucky trailer park or a bunch of people get black lung, they get federal dollars (and probably not enough). Has Mitch ever run on a platform of "never mind, we'll pay our own way"? I
No. He fights for his share of the public largesse like everyone else. For him to suggest states go bankrupt during a pandemic is very strange.
"Why is it beside the point?"
DeleteFor the reasons I've already explained. Cuomo is begging Washington to bail out his state government. But the amount that New York citizens and corporations pay in federal taxes has nothing to do with the fiscal health of his state government. State governments have three basic sources for funds: taxing, borrowing and federal grants. It seems McConnell is objecting to the last of these. Rightly so. There is no constitutional or moral reason that the federal government should give any state government, especially a wealthy state like New York, a single penny. State governments can and should fund the things which the Constitution assigns to them - which essentially is everything not specifically enumerated in the Constitution as belonging to the federal government.
New York and California both are states of mind-boggling income and wealth inequality. No doubt, the hedge fund and high tech billionaires don't want to pay more than they do for teacher pensions and public assistance - and now coronavirus-related assistance - for the have-nots who live down the street or over in the next county. That's a problem that Cuomo, Newsom et al can and should figure out without the federal government - which, btw, is considerably beyond broke in its own right - further enabling their dysfunctional state governments.
Jim P: "For the reasons I've already explained. Cuomo is begging Washington to bail out his state government. But the amount that New York citizens and corporations pay in federal taxes has nothing to do with the fiscal health of his state government."
DeleteThe amount of federal taxes New Yorkers paid, 2018 and 2019, has everything to do with caps on property taxes created by the 2017 Republican tax cuts. New York, New Jersey, California for three, vote more or less Democratic and those caps were seen as punishing Democratic voters. I will also add that NY's "mind-boggling income," has a lot to do with the Trump Co. selling their high end buildings to rich Russians who pay few taxes though they skew the inequality ratio.
In addition to Margaret's rather devastating response, I'd like to put in one good word for high tech billionaires, if not the hedge fund ones. You say:
Delete"No doubt, the hedge fund and high tech billionaires don't want to pay more than they do for teacher pensions and public assistance - and now coronavirus-related assistance - for the have-nots who live down the street or over in the next county."
But the Florida state government -- which has proessed 22 percent of the unemployment claims it has received in the past four weeks and shut down the whole system over the weekend to fix it (let the peasants wait) -- did not create one of the worst unemployment compensation systems and the absolute worst workers comp system at the behest of billionaires living here. Nor are the continually under-resourced schools the product of he voting habits of high rollers. No. Those "services" of the state are miserable because Republicans perceive that they serve only Democrats.
If I read Jim P. correctly, he is making a distinction between providing Congressionally-approved federal aid to citizens in a state vs. giving states money outside of the usual channels of block grants and similar.
DeleteI think you can argue that a governor ought not expect to establish a big expensive program, even during a disaster, and then expect the feds to pick up the tab. For instance, Gov. Whitmer announced Friday that all home health care workers would get a $2 per hour raise. I'm all for that, but unless she has some federal $$ to apply to that, Michigan residents are responsible for the tab. If that $$ would bankrupt the state, she needs to rethink the idea.
However, it's kind of a legalistic point.
We have federal disaster relief and safety net programs that some states give or take from disproportionately. Yes, you can argue that richer states have an obligation to the poor or beleaguered states. I'm all for that.
Are there poor/beleaguered states that are not defraying disaster and safety net costs to the extent they should, expecting instead for the feds to come and fix it so they can enjoy low tax rates? And is Kentucky one of those freeloader states? Possibly.
"We have federal disaster relief and safety net programs that some states give or take from disproportionately."
DeleteJean, I hope you didn't notice it when we Floridians began coughing loudly and scraping our chairs noisily when you reached that sentence. If you did, sorry. We don't have a state income tax, either.
Yeah, well, that's why I don't find Jim's argument compelling. But maybe I still don't get some type of vital distinction that puts Mitch McConnell on the side of Goodness and Rectitude.
Delete"If I read Jim P. correctly, he is making a distinction between providing Congressionally-approved federal aid to citizens in a state vs. giving states money outside of the usual channels of block grants and similar"
DeleteJean, thanks. Here is what I'm trying to say:
1. New York taxpayers pay federal taxes
2. New York taxpayers pay state taxes
3. The New York state government's operation is funded, in part, by those state taxes.
4. (This is the point I'm making): The New York state government's operation is completely irrelevant to the amount of federal taxes that its citizens pay
Regarding #3: The New York state government presumably also is partially funded by federal funds that flow to the state government, e.g. from the Department of Education and the Department of Agriculture. But there is no relationship between the amount of the grants to the state government of New York and the amount of federal taxes paid by New York's taxpayers. Federal grants to a state government are not premised on the amount of federal taxes flowing in from that state; they're premised on whatever formulas the federal governments use to grant funds to the states. For example, SNAP (food stamps) aid is based primarily on the recipient's income.
That is why Cuomo's invocation of "giver states" and "taker states" is specious. The amount Cuomo's state gives and the amount it takes are independent of one another. The citizens of a particular state paying a large amount of federal taxes does not therefore entitle those citizens' state government to a larger amount of federal grants.
"The amount of federal taxes New Yorkers paid, 2018 and 2019, has everything to do with caps on property taxes created by the 2017 Republican tax cuts. New York, New Jersey, California for three, vote more or less Democratic and those caps were seen as punishing Democratic voters."
DeleteI agree that property tax bills are a federal deduction, and when the federal government puts a cap on the amount that can be deducted, it hurts property owners (of all states, and all political persuasions) whose property taxes exceed the cap.
You're right that, by and large, states with high property valuation and property taxes are blue states. Conservatives have ready explanations for why it is that a two bedroom home in Manhattan or San Francisco costs such an absurd amount compared to a home twice the size in Oklahoma City or Boise.
And you're right that blue states frequently are rewarded (e.g. by bigger state grants) when a Democratic president and Congress are in control in Washington, and those rewards often recede when the GOP is in control. Those two sets of outcomes strike me as equally corrupt, or equally un-corrupt. We conservatives would argue that that vexatious unpredictability of government largesse is a good reason not to be so dependent on federal grants. State governments can't control what Washington does, but they are more or less in complete control of their own taxes and borrowing.
Nice theory, Jim. But it has nothing to do with the fact that New York is paying megabucks because, on Feb. 23 -- while when my granddaughter was being tested twice a day at work in Taiwan -- the president said, “We have it all very much under control in this country." An he didn't. And whether it is a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor or a coronavirus sneaking in from Europe while POTUS is defending us against China, when the feds drop the ball that badly, everybody has to pay for where the bombs dropped. We don't just hand the bill to Hawaii or New York.
DeleteNow, if you want to be a fiscal conservative (how alone you will be! And Mitch won't join you), bellyache about Illinois trying to get everybody to pay for years of underfunding its pension fund. I'll agree with you there. But Illinois can't be the only state in that position. I was surprised when the unpaid-for promises didn't start bankrupting states during the Great Recession because they are all playing the stock market on the same principles -- but with bigger words-- than the way the plungers normally, but not this year, bet the Kentucky Derby.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteLate to the discussion.
DeleteJim, you have not factored in some important things when it comes to understanding the tax provisions aimed at the blue states - where housing prices are astronomical and the salaries to pay mortgages are inflated so that the workforce can live closer than a 3 hour drive from their jobs. No public transportation except for BART from parts of SV to SF.
The GOP capped the mortgage interest and property tax deductions knowing that this would hit blue states like CA and NYC areas primarily, and not those in red states that support Trump, where housing costs and nominal salaries are much lower.
Federal income taxes are not adjusted for cost-of-living, so income taxes are also higher for nominally high income earners in CA and other high cost-of-living states.
NY and CA contribute a disproportionate share of taxes to the feds as well as a disproportionate share of GDP.
While 11 percent of Americans live in California, the state contributed 14.5 percent to GDP in 2018. New York state, where just short of 6 percent of Americans live, had a share of 8.2 percent of GDP in 2018.
I will leave it to you to do the research on NY housing costs. Some links below have information for all the states.
Housing is the biggest budget item everywhere. Here is a comparison of the cost of a 3 br, 2 bath house in San Jose CA and a house in Arlington Heights IL. One of our sons lives in San Jose.
A 3 br, 2 ba home in Arlington Heights, ~1500 sq ft - ask $390,000
https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/1520-W-Russell-Ct_Arlington-Heights_IL_60005_M76932-86949?view=qv
A 3 br, 2 ba home in San Jose, ~1500 sq ft, ask $1,175,000
So it's almost 3X more expensive to buy an average 3 br home in SV area than it is in Arlington Heights area. Most SV workers do not earn 3X more than the equivalent workers in the Chicago area.
Jim, what could you buy with almost $1,175,000 in your town?
You are an executive in a large company. You may not make a Silicon Valley salary, but I'm guessing that your salary is not only 1/3 of the average SV salary.
Both San Jose and Arlington Heights are suburban areas outside of major cities.
City living
San Francisco - the SF median home price includes a lot of condos and row houses.
In San Francisco, .. to afford the ..median monthly mortgage payment of $5,052, homeowners must earn a minimum annual income of $202,094.
The average price of a home in San Francisco is $1,032,732.
In Chicago, .. to afford the ..median monthly mortgage payment of $1,276, homeowners must earn a minimum annual income of $51,031.
The average price of a home in Chicago is $260,526.
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-you-need-to-make-to-afford-mortgage-salary-2019-6#7-washington-dc-11
The Living Wage Needed in All 50 States (Study 2019)
https://www.gobankingrates.com/money/jobs/living-wage-every-state/
California
Annual Living Wage: $99,971
The nation’s most populous state is also among the most expensive, with a living wage translating to just about six figures if you’re planning on following the 50/30/20 rule. Even for a state with an average annual income of $67,169, those are costs that are hard to bear.
Illinois
Annual Living Wage: $66,847
Not only are costs lower than the national average in Illinois, but residents there are also earning a median salary of $61,229. That puts the average income just $5,618 below the living wage, among the 10 lowest levels in the study.
IOW, people in Illinois are better off in cost-of-living v. salary than are all those "rich" SV workers.
Cost of living index for US states
https://worldpopulationreview.com/states/cost-of-living-index-by-state/
California is also, as far as I know, the only state to offer subsidized health care to undocumented immigrants age 25 and younger.
Anne, thanks. As I mentioned previously, I agree that the federal cap on the property tax deduction hurts more blue state than red state property owners. Perhaps that policy contributes in some marginal way to a state like New York being a net "giver" state.
DeleteBut as I've mentioned several times now, how much a state's residents pay in federal taxes has no relationship to the amount of federal grants to state governments. The "giver states" vs "taker states" argument is specious. Cuomo's government isn't entitled to more federal grants because New York has many wealthy residents who pay a lot of federal taxes.
Btw, if the ceiling on property tax deductions is a genuinely important issue in those states, Cuomo, Newsom et al could protect their taxpayers by lowering the state property taxes such that fewer taxpayers max out on the federal deduction.
Your suggestion that Cuomo lower taxes? Now that is specious. It is 50 years since I heard the recruits at an Army Reserve summer camp arguing thusly. THE KENTUCKIANS: You Ohio boys must be crazy to pay such high taxes. THE OHIOANS: Every time we get off your potted, rutted, non-existent so-called roads and get back on Ohio highways we say, "Thank God for Ohio taxes."
DeleteI think the original point about givers and getters is that it is kind of unseemly for someone from a state that lies under a steady shower of national largesse complaining about someone else getting some it once in awhile. Maybe the full-time takers deserve what they get, but they should allow for the possibility that the usual givers will need something, too, from time to time. I know Mitch wants to be rewarded for doing nothing (His in-laws made him rich), but he shouldn't object to rewards for those who want to do something.
Jim, I know little about the giver-taker grant stuff and how it is financed. I do know that blue states send more $ to Washington in tax revenues from the citizens than they receive in federal assistance. How that assistance is provided I don't know - education, transportation, etc - grants I suppose. But they do get back less value in $ than they send. Other states get more in federal $ than their citizens pay into the trough.
DeleteI do not know what should be done to help NY. They bore the biggest burden in this crisis - half the cases in the entire country are in New York. Maybe a little empathy in the way of $ help isn't wrong.
But now you are suggesting that blue states lower their taxes because the GOP decided to punish them through the revision in the federal tax code. So now you think that states whose citizens are already being taxed excessively by the feds because they living in an area with a very high cost of living that leads to high housing costs and higher salaries to be able to afford those costs should lower their own taxes - leading to hardship for their own school systems - normally financed by local property taxes. Teachers in California also make more money than the average state because how else will they ever afford rent or a house?. Even at higher salaries, the percent of their income they have to pay for housing is much higher than those in most other states.
The higher tax burden on Californians isn't just due to the cap on deducting property taxes and mortgage interest, it's an increase in federal taxes because the federal tax code isn't adjusted to cost-of-living.
It seems that you want them to continue to have to pay excessive amounts of tax to the feds AND also be forced to make do with less at the state and local govt budget level.
Not really a good solution.
"I know Mitch wants to be rewarded for doing nothing (His in-laws made him rich)"
DeleteI've always considered it a bit thoughtless of my in-laws not to be rich ...
All of us should support Amy McGrath's campaign to oust Moscow/Machinegun Mitch in the November election. He is worse for this country than the Orange Idiot.
ReplyDeleteYeah. I'll send her some quatloos. These clowns are going to get us all killed.
DeleteThe givers vs takers argument is PRECISELY the point! The most conservative, i.e., Trumpublican, states tend to be the biggest takers. Check out this site:
ReplyDeletehttps://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the-federal-government/2700/#red-vs-blue
An opinion piece from the Wall Street Journal for Jim Pauwels to read:
ReplyDeleteA Bailout for Illinois? Not Without Strict Conditions
Other states will line up for money if Washington rewards Springfield for mismanaging its pensions.
By Andrew Biggs
The day the prophets of public finance long foretold has come to pass: Illinois has requested a federal bailout of its struggling public-employee retirement plans, which had unfunded liabilities topping $469 billion in 2018, according to a Federal Reserve study. As difficult as the coronavirus crisis has been for state governments and their pension systems, Washington shouldn’t bail out Illinois or any other perennial bad actor without first requiring stringent and permanent reforms.
The coronavirus downturn comes at a particularly bad time for state and local government pension funds, whose investments lost $419 billion in the first quarter of 2020 even as the government tax revenue that funds pension contributions plummeted. Despite years of rhetoric about funding reforms, most retirement plans are more poorly funded today than they were 10 years ago.
But some states are worse off than others, with Illinois long at the forefront of pension mismanagement. From 2001 to 2019, Illinois made only 80% of the actuarially determined contributions to its main state plan. Worse, Illinois assumed a roughly 8% annual investment return on those contributions, but received an average of only 5.2%. Over that same period, the average benefit paid to a retired full-career state employee rose from $41,700 to $49,700. Further, pensioners received a guaranteed 3% annual cost-of-living adjustment, even though the Consumer Price Index rose only 2.2% annually over that period.
What the Prairie State wants, according to a leaked April 14 letter written by Illinois Senate President Don Harmon to the state’s congressional delegation, is “$10 billion in pension relief, directly for the state’s retirement systems.” While making the obligatory noises about state efforts to restore pension funding, Mr. Harmon asks for federal grants or low-interest loans to keep Illinois’s pension plans afloat. If Congress bails out Illinois, you can be sure other poorly funded states like Connecticut, Kentucky and New Jersey would come asking for their own lifelines.
Given Illinois’s record of poor pension stewardship, Congress should reject any bailout on the merits. And yet the alternative might be worse. I have spent the past three years as a member of the federal Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico, wrestling with the island’s 2016 insolvency, which included the exhaustion of its main public pension funds. A governmental bankruptcy is an ugly process from which no quick or clean resolution can be expected. Illinois’s unfunded pension liabilities substantially exceed its bonded debt, meaning that even a complete debt default wouldn’t put its finances back on track. A statewide economic contraction could also become a regional threat.
So Congress may want to offer assistance, but it should come with strict conditions: Any state looking for a pension handout must either live by the stricter accounting rules federal law imposes on private pension plans or freeze its pension and shift all employees to defined-contribution retirement plans.
Full article here.
David, thanks.
DeleteCuomo's statement had two parts. The part we've been discussing, the specious distinction between "givers" and "takers", is irrelevant to what Cuomo is requesting.
The other part of Cuomo's statement surely is worth considering - and Andrew Biggs takes a look at it. That part of Cuomo's statement was, "You want to send a signal to the markets that this nation is in real trouble?" The key point is: McConnell's musing, or threat, or whatever it was, about states declaring bankruptcy is not grounded in reality because (as I understand it) our bankruptcy laws don't permit states to do this; they're not among the entities permitted to make use of bankruptcy. As Kevin Williamson explained a day or two ago, "Sovereigns don’t go bankrupt. Sovereigns default." (Williamson's use of the word "sovereign" here refers to states, not kings).
Williamson's article is here: https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/states-should-not-receive-bankruptcy-protection/
Cuomo almost surely is right that, as bad as the financial markets are now, they'll get really bad really fast if states start defaulting on their debt. So I give Biggs a lot of credit for seeking to address the moral hazard of the federal government bailing out dysfunctional, irresponsible state governments.
That's fine, Jim. But I'd like to know how much of the two trillion dollars is being spent on bailing out irresponsible private companies. In my opinion, companies that used their tax breaks to play financial games like buying back stocks are just bad businessmen. They took a big gamble and they lost. So they should lose. Their assets can be sold in bankruptcy and whoever the new owners are can rehire the employees whose work provides real value. Mitch McConnell's selective call for responsibility is hypocritical. The money is being thrown out without any real overall plan that I can see. In addition, Mitch McConnell and the Republicans are costing us untold economic damage because they could have removed Trump, a mentally and emotionally deficient president. Everything is political with McConnell. He could care less about fiscal responsibility.
DeleteNow we are supposed to bail out the hospitals. That sounds very good because hospitals supposedly do good things. But how highly leveraged are they considering these private health care systems were buying up hospitals left and right. Right now, their hospitals are converting COVID units back to regular surgery. Is this because the pandemic is actually receding or because these surgeries are the money makers for the for-profit health care systems. I thing privatization versus public ownership needs another look.
Delete" But I'd like to know how much of the two trillion dollars is being spent on bailing out irresponsible private companies. "
DeleteIt's a good question, Stanley. My conservative point of view is that we should always be skeptical when (to put it in a conservative talking-point formula), governments start picking winners and losers. What you're expressing now is somewhat how I felt 12 or 13 years ago, when GM and Chrysler got bailed out. Those also were dysfunctional and poorly performing companies.
I expect we all want to keep workers financially afloat during this crisis - both those workers who lost their jobs directly because of the government shutting down their employers, and those who now are losing their jobs because those government actions are tipping the economy as a whole into a recession. There are different ways to get money to laid-off workers. If we're not happy with the method that McConnell, Pelosi, Trump et al negotiated this time, let's chalk it up to the inefficiency and imperfection of government.
Jim, corrupt governments are highly inefficient. All the players you listed above are pro-corporate. They are more similar to each other than they are to a normal American. That is why both parties need to go extinct. But they probably won't as they have both become permanent fixtures in our failed democracy.
DeletePicking winners and losers: In this case, the case of the small business bailouts, it was not the government, the BIG Banks that picked the winners. Some of them just turned over bail-out dollars to their best customers. Small banks were left out completely, and so were many small businesses, hence last weeks bill to pony up more money.
DeleteHow come Mnunchen and Trump dumped the oversight committee? Exactly! to allow the big banks to be sure the "takers" got the money.. At least some of the takers have been embarrassed and announced they'll return the money. Let's see if they do.
Not to pick on you Jim, but this: "- both those workers who lost their jobs directly because of the government shutting down their employers, and those who now are losing their jobs because those government actions are tipping the economy as a whole into a recession."-- is conservative deflection/evasion. Almost everybody who lost his job lately lost it as a result of Covid-19, a liberal will tell you; government reaction is a prudent response, not a government program. A liberal might also tell you that the government that is supported by people calling themselves conservative (and not disowned by enough real conservatives) screwed up the initial reaction and made the prudent response a lot more Draconian than it would have had to be.
Delete" "- both those workers who lost their jobs directly because of the government shutting down their employers, and those who now are losing their jobs because those government actions are tipping the economy as a whole into a recession."-- is conservative deflection/evasion. Almost everybody who lost his job lately lost it as a result of Covid-19, a liberal will tell you"
DeleteYeah, my point in writing that, which I had clear in my mind when I started that sentence, and then sort of lost by the time I reached the end, is that government has a moral obligation to help those whose jobs have been lost by the shutdown order.
OK. Happens to me all the time.
DeleteOff topic: A few threads back, Jean commented Jesus often seems like kind of a smart-ass--talking in riddles, amazing people with miracles, and showing off with transfigurations and other signs.
ReplyDeleteDid Jesus really do all this? Or did his disciples, anxious to persuade others to join them as followers of Jesus' teachings play to the crowds - telling stories that would amaze and attract. After all, it was decades before the stories were written down - plenty of time for creative enhancements to the original stories during multiple rounds of re-telling over decades.
Like Thomas Jefferson, I have often doubted the miracle stories. If they did occur, then Jesus may have have felt that the people would only pay attention to him if he were a wonder-worker.
John 4:48 So Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe.”
In an article in Spirituality magazine (July-August 2000) Keith Maddock wrote about a 1960s era film called The Gospel According to St. Matthew, by an Italian film maker named Pier Paolo Pasolini. I remembered Jean's comment when I read this -
He (Pasolini)was struck by the poetic beauty of the narrative and moved by the insight that Jesus' philosophy of life could stand on its own without a show-stopping displays of miracles.
I feel the same way. I don't think the miracle stories are needed, and can be taken with a grain of salt. Very often it seems that the deeper meaning of some of the miracle stories is found in not taking them literally.
I am certainly willing to concede God could have made all that stuff happen, from the Immaculate Conception to the Pentecost. For me, they're not important "proofs" that Jesus was divine. But they are for most Christians, so I presume my faith is lacking, not theirs.
DeleteAnd I have learned keep my trap shut and not venture these opinions "live" unless pressed to do so. Forunately, most of my family members and friends, Christian and non, are busy assuming what I believe and telling me how wrong I am that I am rarely asked to explain.
Every Good Friday I dig out my own Jesus Story, an exercise that started decades ago when I was a Unitarian. I "update" it, based on what my understanding. It has changed a good deal over the years.
As for deeper meanings, yes, Scripture lends itself to literary analysis in interesting ways. A word cloud built from the Psalter reveals a lot of interesting things--rocks, water, desert, pastures, sheep--very archetypal images that have accrued layers in the intervening centuries.
DeleteNo texts are ever static, one reason why the fundamentalist urge to ossify them, I think, deprives many people of an "in" to belief. But, then, they think believe faith hits people.all at once.like a ton of bricks, and it was never that way for me.
What we are told as children, and what we have to unlearn, I hope through divine inspiration and not demonic intervention, often takes a loooong time.
I don't see the miracles as "proof" of the divine, so much as part of the message. The multiplication of the loaves and fishes was a prefiguring of the Eucharist. The raising of the daughter of Jairus and the healing of the centurion's servant were a signal that Jesus' mission was not going to be solely to the Jews. The miraculous draught of fish was sign pointing to the evangelistic mission of the apostles, that they would be fishers of men. All of the miracles have a deeper message, beyond simply mercy to the recipients, which is a message in itself.
DeleteI think the Catholic imagination is open to the things you suggest here, in ways that many Protestants are not.
DeleteAll of the the Jesus stories get stirred into hagiographies, which I think are ultimately meant to reassure us that Christ is still at work in the world through the communion of saints by way of the Holy Spirit.