[burger]

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I will repeat: I find it nearly unfathomable that Congress has recessed for a month and there isn't even talk of a second wave of stimulus checks. Do congressmen and women really think unemployed people can live for months on $1200? One NY-area relative who had to shut down her self-employed business (and therefore is now unemployed) said she thinks it will be two months before she sees her first relief from unemployment based on the backlog of applications to be processed and the fact that she has to do a telephonic interview with a state official to confirm her (self)-employment. WTF is she supposed to do in the mean time?

I said it a hundred times here: they should've just started sending checks to everyone every month and then clawed back the excess payments to the employed or rich by raising taxes a bit for the higher brackets.  But that was a non-starter for most congresspeople because: 1) Republicans wanted the payments to be as small and hard to get as possible (hence using the totally overwhelmed UI system), and 2) Democrats have a pathology about giving free money to rich people (see: the ACA's overly complicated subsidy program or the resistance to Bernie Sanders et al.'s free college plan).

[burger]

\
I will repeat: I find it nearly unfathomable that Congress has recessed for a month and there isn't even talk of a second wave of stimulus checks. Do congressmen and women really think unemployed people can live for months on $1200? One NY-area relative who had to shut down her self-employed business (and therefore is now unemployed) said she thinks it will be two months before she sees her first relief from unemployment based on the backlog of applications to be processed and the fact that she has to do a telephonic interview with a state official to confirm her (self)-employment. WTF is she supposed to do in the mean time?

I said it a hundred times here: they should've just started sending checks to everyone every month and then clawed back the excess payments to the employed or rich by raising taxes a bit for the higher brackets.  But that was a non-starter for most congresspeople because: 1) Republicans wanted the payments to be as small and hard to get as possible (hence using the totally overwhelmed UI system), and 2) Democrats have a pathology about giving free money to rich people (see: the ACA's overly complicated subsidy program or the resistance to Bernie Sanders et al.'s free college plan).