The week

Joe Biden just ripped away stimulus checks from 17 million Americans

During the campaign for the two Georgia Senate races, Joe Biden repeatedly pledged to pass $ 2,000 stimulus checks if the Democrats win. Afterward, the government argued that $ 2,000, on top of the $ 600 already spent in the December bailout, actually meant $ 1,400. Whether that’s true or not, now Biden is undeniably breaking his promise. Under pressure from moderate Senate Democrats, he has reportedly agreed to cut the formula by which checks are sent. In the previous packages, the amount started with income of $ 75,000 for individuals and $ 150,000 for joint applicants, and completely disappeared at $ 100,000 and $ 200,000, respectively, as of 2019. Now the exit starts at the same point but ends at $ 80,000 for singles and $ 160,000 for couples. The $ 1,400 promise clearly implied that checks would run out according to the previous formula used under Trump. But now singles making between $ 80,000 and $ 100,000 and couples making between $ 160,000 and $ 200,000 are no longer getting anything. Washington Post’s Jeff Stein reports that around 17 million people who previously received checks will not. The supposed justification here is that moderates want aid to be “more targeted”. In fact, this formula is terribly inaccurate as the income data used by the IRS is from the year before the pandemic (unless people have already filed their taxes – and by the way, if your income has been falling in 2020, do it right away) . So this formula is doubly wrong – there are undoubtedly millions of people who have lost their jobs and should qualify but will not, and a smaller number who have been increased and should not qualify, but will. And that change will only save a pathetic $ 12 billion. The survival controls are one of the most popular government programs in American history. Polls they have something like 4-1 approval. For Senate Democrats, “moderation” apparently means breaking their party’s promises in the service of unpopular, pointless acts that make their president appear less generous than Donald Trump. Other stories from theweek.com7 are hilarious cartoons about Trump’s CPAC performance. Progressives argue that Biden’s compromise on stimulus checks is “messed up”. The lost art of being sensible