In typical Trump fashion, he caused quite the ruckus on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning when he suddenly came out with somewhat opposition to the spending bill coming out of Congress.
It looked like it was a sure thing the day before. Now that the election is over, Congress was able to agree on what they call a COVID-19 relief bill. Others refer to it as a stimulus bill.
In typical Congress fashion, the $900 billion monstrosity was paired with an annual spending bill of $1.4 trillion. This is a good way to sneak in a lot of extras for the lobbyists, especially when it is well over 5,000 pages.
Trump himself detailed some of the expenditures.
When money is going for gender programs in Pakistan, it might be a sign that there’s a problem.
I already wrote about the $900 billion portion. It is largely a bailout of state and local governments. Even the unemployment benefits and small business handouts are a bailout for the lockdown states, as these states are suffering disproportionately due to their own stupid policies. I guess you could say that elections have consequences.
When I first discussed the bailout bill, there was no direct stimulus provision. That has been added to this latest bill in the form of $600 payments for adults and $600 per dependent. There are income limits that apply.
Trump is opposing this bill largely because he says that the stimulus is too small. (Did you really think he would oppose it on moral grounds? Did you think he would oppose it because it isn’t pro liberty? Still, I’ll take what I can get.)
It is telling though that Trump is also pointing out the massive pork in the bill. Some of the things are obviously very bad and should be evident to the average guy on the street. All of the money going out in the form of foreign aid is ridiculous. I think most people from any political party would agree here. Now that Trump is less than a month away from leaving office, is he finally attempting a slight draining of the swamp in terms of spending?
Tucker Carlson’s opening monologue on Tuesday night was about the “relief” bill. He listed many of the atrocities and even called out Lindsey Graham. I have a feeling that Trump saw this or had wind of it beforehand. If Trump is getting his information from Tucker Carlson, he could do a lot worse. Sure, I wish Carlson were more libertarian on economic issues, but he is far superior to most other pundits in the corporate media.
I don’t know where it will go from here, but I’m glad Trump is giving us some more entertainment before leaving office, which I expect he will in less than a month.
Do the Math, UBI Makes More Sense
We’ll forget for a moment about the annual $1.4 trillion portion of the spending bill. Let’s just focus on the $900 billion. A small part of that includes the $600 direct payments.
What if you just took all of the money and gave everyone living in the United States an equal amount? There are about 330 million people in the United States. That means it would be close to $3,000 per person.
If we use the round numbers above, it would be $2,727 per person. This includes all children too.
That means, for a family of four, they would receive $10,908.
Imagine if they had sent direct payments with the original $2 trillion stimulus. A family of four would have received over $24,000 the first time, and then another $10, 908 with the $900 billion.
So if all of the “stimulus” or “COVID-19 relief” spending had been divided up equally and sent out directly, a family of four would have received over $35,000 in 2020 alone.
Sure, there would be no business bailouts. There would be no additional unemployment benefits from the federal government (there would still be state unemployment). But if every person received at least $8,500, wouldn’t that have gone pretty far for most people?
It wouldn’t have discouraged working as much as the additional unemployment benefits did. And it wouldn’t have encouraged state and local governments to continue with brutal lockdown policies knowing that many businesses would get bailed out.
Don’t get me wrong here. I am not an advocate of a Universal Basic Income (UBI). It is anti liberty. It is a violation of property rights. It is a redistribution of wealth. It is inflationary. And to some degree, it is a misallocation of resources.
But here is what I am saying. A UBI would be preferred to a typical spending bill coming out of Congress if it is an “either/ or” thing. If the government is going to pass $3 trillion in spending legislation this year, most people would be far better off if the money were just divided up evenly and handed out directly to everyone. It wouldn’t be fair, but it would be fairer. It wouldn’t be a good use of resources, but it would be a better use of resources than sending money to Pakistan for gender studies. It would even be better than using the money to bail out businesses.
Whenever you hear about the government spending another trillion dollars, just think of it as $3,000 for every individual. If you have a family of four, just think that a one trillion dollar spending bill could have just meant $12,000 sent directly to your family. If people would do some simple math, they might realize how bad they are getting ripped off.