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Screw You, USA

Oh for Christ's sake!
Republicans found a way to have an economic stimulus and STILL screw people over.
The bill that the White House and Senate Republicans negotiated with themselves is not, as it has been billed, a direct cash payment. It is an early refund on next year's taxes, size to be determined by what you got on your 2018 taxes.
This means it is tilted toward the people who need it least -- the wealthy, defined as "those who paid the largest number of dollars in taxes." This will go up to $1200 per adult and $500 for each of their children.
Those with little to no tax liability (i.e. the poor) will receive $600 because hey! If you don't pay taxes you clearly don't need money.If their total earnings are less than $2500, they get nothing. If they did not file a return (which you are not required to do if you earned less than the standard deduction, about $12,000 for individuals and about 24,000 for married) also will get nothing.
And if your 2020 refund is lower than the payment? Hey, you pay it all back, which is likely to be the case for the poor.
This is a remake of a movie we saw during the administration of Bush the Elder. His economic stimulus was to jigger the withholding tables so that people had a little more in their paycheck each week. When tax time came around the next year, you found out that you owed the government a ton of money.
I was a graduate student at the time, earning a stipend of $8500/year. The "stimulus" amounted to less than $3/week for me, not even enough to buy one lunch. Then I ended up owing the government $500 to pay it back.
The withholding tables have been borked ever since. If you follow the instructions on the W-4, you're a mug. You will be seriously underwithheld and will owe the government money. You ALWAYS add additional withholding. The IRS has even developed a little calculator to determine how much you will be underwithheld and how much additional withholding you need to claim.
In 2008, after his administration had destroyed the economy, Bush the Younger pulled the same shit -- we got a tax rebate. I stuck mine in the bank and waited to pay it back. I learned my lesson. So as a stimulus, for me, it was wasted money. It was essentially a forced, interest-free loan from the government.
If you were serious about an economic stimulus, you would put all the money in the hands of those people most likely to spend it rather than stick it in a savings account.
This is nothing more than another in a long line of attempts by Republicans to seize any excuse to comfort the wealthy. They are rewarding people who, according to the Republican metric, deserve rewarding. Need is not a consideration. Actual economic policy is not a consideration. Everyone else can pound sand.
Fuck those guys. I hope the House blocks it.

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