Democrats Pulled Off A Quiet Revolution In The COVID Relief Package. Can They Make It Stick?

Democrats passed a revolutionary anti-poverty measure within the COVID-19 relief package — and it was met with surprisingly little pushback. 


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1365846
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The “Growth” in the name turns out to be the oncological usage.

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Whoever crafted this gambit on the current political chess board knew exactly where to go with it.
Now Republicans get to show their real bad-guy creds as they try to take it back away from those struggling young families.
Not only does it eliminate the worst poverty at the bottom end, it will prove to be one of the very best methods for stimulating an economy from that fiscal bottom up.
It will be fascinating to hear their wicked wordcrafting on this one, saving young families from poverty is a very worthy endeavor, by any measure, they will have to twist it into pretzels to make it sound bad.
But that is what they do.

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Yep, definitely malignant.

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Malice and malignancy come from a common Latin root.

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“Badness” all the way around.

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Yes, heaven forbid that their less well-off country fellows get a hands up to a decent life. That goes against everything the GQP stands for…

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Lincoln would mourn that his Grand Old Party has done a full reversal on his famous line.
“Charity towards none and malice towards all.”
They have become the party of Malice.
It’s all they have left.

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And “charity” is a four-letter word…unless it’s for a very narrow slice of “acceptable” recipients.

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Paging Frank Luntz
Paging Frank Luntz
1984 Double Speak Treatment needed Stat

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And because it’s Monday, and right up there with Double Speak

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It reminds me of the pre- and post-passage opposition to the ACA. It was pretty clear then that Repubs knew, once established, it would be comparatively popular and consequently very difficult (and politically costly) to roll back: that’s why they fought it so hard, and why McCain’s (and others’) votes solidified the crack b/w the corporate-asshole and lizard-brain-base parts of the party.

Same here: I think they’re fighting it so hard because they know that, as it takes hold and functions, it’ll be that much more difficult to roll back.

Kinda like the 1936 Congress versus the New Deal. Same greedy corporatist assholes whipping the same knucklehead low-info fanatics into a froth over Fed actions that could actually help them.

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This can be funded rather easily, without even raising taxes, simply by collecting the taxes already owed under current law

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Amazing things happen when you help people out of poverty.

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The counter argument is going to be the credit encourages a lazy dependence on government handouts. That argument rings hollow when the minimum wage is $7.50. Encouraging a permanent poor class made up primarily of young mothers and their dependent children is simply wrong headed.

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The word “Luntzian” may enter the official dictionary one day. It means “deftly spinning lies into anything else” or something like that.

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There’s some sort of institutional demon in our gears that always rears its ugly head this way, when progress happens due to dire emergency or unexpected crisis, they recoil eventually from it, always dramatically.
Call it the ghost of fascism or the spirit of greed, but somewhere in the Republican political DNA there is a very mean critter who delights in keeping an entire segment of society living in fear and uncertainty so they will work for peanuts.
These are old demons, but they really found their place under Trump. Perpetuating poverty only benefits the worst sort of employer.
But that is exactly who owns the Republican Party right now, lock stock and barrel of oil.

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Speaking of taking away

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“Lazy dependence on government handouts”

The DOD could not be reached for comment.

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Thanks for that story link, @scoutmomvery interesting!

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