"The people deserve, demand, and require
$2,000 recurring monthly survival checks."
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) looked on before then-Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris spoke at IBEW Local Union 58 on October 25, 2020 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo: Nic Antaya/Getty Images)
Joining a chorus of progressive critics disappointed by the direct payment provision of President-elect Joe Biden's new coronavirus pandemic relief plan, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib on Friday evening reiterated the need for two bills she has introduced that would aid Americans affected by the ongoing public health and economic crises.
Biden's $1.9 trillion proposal calls for $1,400 checks, the difference between the $600 that lawmakers agreed to in a recent relief package and the $2,000 sought by some Democrats for months. Though President Donald Trump backed boosting the checks on his way out the door, the increase failed to garner enough congressional support.
Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.) expressed disappointment that Biden's plan doesn't include $2,000 checks. Tlaib (D-Mich.) joined in, tweeting: "That $600 is already in the clutches of landlords and bill collectors. Stop compromising the working class, and our most vulnerable neighbors."
Tlaib also promoted two bills she introduced last session: the Automatic BOOST to Communities (ABC) and the Building Our Opportunities to Survive and Thrive (BOOST) acts. The former would provide $2,000 per month to eligible individuals during the Covid-19 crisis, then $1,000 monthly payments for the next year.
As a Forbes report about the ABC Act, shared on Friday by Tlaib, detailed:
The payments would be made via direct deposit if the [U.S.] Treasury has the individual's banking information on file, unless the individual would prefer to have their payment made on an Interim BOOST Card (BOOST Card).
The BOOST Card would be a prepaid debit card that would not be subject to any fees, penalty charges, or usage restrictions. The full amount would be available for immediate withdrawal at any ATM in the country without any usage or withdrawal fees. Individuals who do not have banking information would receive their payments via a BOOST Card.
The Michigan Democrat officially introduced the ABC Act in April 2020 with Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), after a few weeks of public discussion about it. Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, is currently battling Covid-19 after sheltering with maskless GOP lawmakers while pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol last week.
"We have to deliver $2,000 survival checks to the American people. Not anything less," Jayapal tweeted Thursday evening. She has stuck to that call throughout the pandemic:
Tlaib on Friday also highlighted the BOOST Act, which she and Jayapal introduced in June 2019—months before the pandemic—with Reps. Jesús "Chuy" García (D-Ill.), Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas), and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.). That bill would provide a Middle-Class Tax Credit of up to $3,000 annually for a single taxpayer and up to $6,000 annually for married couples, families, and joint filers.
According to a page of Tlaib's congressional website dedicated to the BOOST Act:
- Individuals can receive up to $250 per month.
- Families can receive up to $500 per month.
- The credit is refundable, meaning that taxpayers who qualify for it can get it even if they owe no taxes. Filers with no income are still eligible for the credit.
- Can be claimed by single filers making wages up to $49,999.
- Families making wages up to $99,999 are eligible.
When the bill was introduced, long before the economic devastation of the pandemic, Adam Reuben, director of the Economic Security Project, said that "while Americans work hard—whether it's a full-time job, or caring for a sick family member—an outdated notion of who deserves help from our society means that too many still struggle to make ends meet."
"The BOOST Act would essentially provide a cost-of-living refund to those who need it most," he added, "so that in the richest country in the world, we can make sure that no one lives in poverty."
With millions of Americans now out of work because of the public health crisis, and struggling to keep food on the table and a roof ever their heads, the need for relief is even greater. As Pressley put it in a tweet Friday afternoon: "The people deserve, demand, and require $2,000 recurring monthly survival checks."
"$2,000 does not mean $1,400."
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) speaks during a news conference outside of the Democratic National Headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, November 19, 2020. (Photo: Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
While there is much for progressives to applaud in President-elect Joe Biden's newly released $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package—from a $15-an-hour federal minimum wage to billions in funding for vaccine distribution—Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Thursday that the $1,400 direct payments included in the plan fall short of the promise that helped Democrats win control of the U.S. Senate.
"$2,000 means $2,000," the New York Democrat told the Washington Post. "$2,000 does not mean $1,400."
Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) echoed Ocasio-Cortez's criticism in a tweet late Thursday:
On the eve of the Senate runoffs in Georgia, Biden told the state's voters that "$2,000 checks" would "go out the door" if they elected Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, who both embraced the push for $2,000 checks on the campaign trail and ultimately defeated their Republican opponents.
"There's no one in America with more power to make that happen than you, the citizens of Atlanta, the citizens of Georgia, and that's not an exaggeration," the president-elect said of the $2,000 payments. "That's literally true."
But the Biden camp and others contend the plan was always to provide $1,400 checks on top of the $600 approved under a relief measure that President Donald Trump signed into law last month, not an additional $2,000 check—even though, in their messaging, Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris continued to call for "$2,000 stimulus checks" after the $600 payments were already distributed to many Americans.
In response to one journalist's claim that Ocasio-Cortez is engaging in "goalpost-moving" by demanding $2,000 checks instead of the proposed $1,400 payments, progressive organizer Claire Sandberg tweeted that "Biden is the one who moved the goalpost."
"In a last-ditch effort to win the Senate, he said that '$2,000 checks' would 'go out the door' if Warnock and Ossoff won," said Sandberg, former national organizing director for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). "Warnock posted this realistic image of a $2,000 Treasury check!"
On the whole, progressives largely welcomed Biden's nearly $2 trillion relief proposal as a solid first step while stressing that it is not sufficient to fully bring the U.S. economy out of deep recession and confront the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 388,000 people in the United States. Some economists have argued (pdf) that Congress must approve between $3-4.5 trillion in spending in the short-term to set the stage for a strong recovery.
It is far from clear how much of Biden's initial offer will become law, given that Democrats will control the Senate by the narrowest possible margin and thus be unable to afford any Democratic defections. Potentially making matters more difficult is Biden's insistence on attaining enough bipartisan support to push the proposal through the Senate with 60 votes.
The New York Times reported that top House and Senate Democrats "are preparing to pivot quickly to a parliamentary process known as budget reconciliation" if Biden fails to win the support of enough Republican lawmakers. Only a simple majority in the Senate is needed to pass bills through the reconciliation process, which Republicans used to ram through their massive tax cuts for the rich in 2017.
Sanders, the incoming chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, vowed earlier this week to use the reconciliation process to "boldly address the needs of working families."
In a statement late Thursday, the Vermont senator said Biden "has put forth a very strong first installment of an emergency relief plan that will begin to provide desperately needed assistance to tens of millions of working families facing economic hardship during the pandemic." On top of $1,400 direct payments to many Americans—including adult dependents—the president-elect also proposed increasing the current $300-per-week federal unemployment supplement to $400 and extending emergency jobless programs through September.
"The president-elect's Covid relief plan includes many initiatives that the American people want and need, including increasing the $600 direct payments to $2,000, and raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour," Sanders continued. "As the incoming chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, I look forward to working with the president-elect and my colleagues in Congress to provide bold emergency relief to the American people as soon as possible."
No comments:
Post a Comment