Thread by @Noahpinion

1/OK, so let's talk about America's COVID relief spending.

noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-us-gover…

2/A lot of people are Very Pissed Off about the fact that the new relief bill sends out $600 checks. They pretend that this is the only thing the bill does.

https://twitter.com/RBReich/status/1341113310834356225

3/The misinformation is bipartisan.

https://twitter.com/RepMattGaetz/status/1341204698582409216

4/But if you stopped to think for one moment about how $200 billion worth of $600 checks could add up to a $900 billion package, you'd realize that the bill must have a lot more than just those checks!

And indeed it does.

npr.org/2020/12/21/948…

5/Here's what else it has!!

6/In fact, people leveled this same B.S. charge against the CARES Act, earlier this year. Claiming that it was "just $1200".

In fact, the CARES Act was more generous than almost any other country. Let's look at some data to see why.

7/First, just looking at changes in American incomes, we see that median personal income went way up even though GDP went way down!

That came from GOVERNMENT RELIEF SPENDING.

https://twitter.com/ernietedeschi/status/1340886042073821185

8/Remember, that takes existing social programs into account! And it's not because America's economy did better -- just compare the gap between the blue and red bars.

9/All in all, the U.S. spent an above-average percent of GDP on COVID relief this year, even though we (stupidly) cut off some of the benefits in the fall.

10/Overall, the U.S. government is expected to spend about $6500 per person more in 2020 than in 2019, compared to about $2300 more in Europe.

mckinsey.com/industries/pub…

11/And remember, while the CARES Act was in full effect, poverty in the U.S. actually fell!

poverty.umich.edu/research-publi…

12/Does this mean that we're doing great, and there's no reason to complain about U.S. COVID relief?

Of course not.

The biggest problem was that Congress failed to follow up with the HEROES Act, thanks to Republican obstructionism!

cnet.com/personal-finan…

13/Also, the fact that we administered unemployment benefits through our creaky, inadequate state systems meant lots of people got their checks late or not at all.

marketplace.org/2020/09/25/man…

14/As for the PPP money, which basically paid businesses to keep workers on payroll, too much of it ended up going to big businesses instead of small ones...

washingtonpost.com/business/2020/…

15/And too much money ended up going to politically well-connected cronies (including Trump cronies, of course).

forbes.com/sites/maneetah…

16/And you can argue that our spending priorities were misguided, and we should have spent more on renter support, or money to the states, etc.

nytimes.com/2020/12/22/opi…

17/But really, when you complain about these things, you're complaining about the way the U.S. does welfare.

Our welfare system is not based on universalism, but on work. It's workfare. Always has been.

18/Now before you say that workfare is some evil neoliberal capitalist bullshit, remember that valuing work as the fundamental qualifier for welfare is not an American invention.

The Soviet constitution quoted the Bible when it said: "He who does not work, neither shall he eat."

19/But this pandemic may change our opinions about workfare vs. universalism. So many people were hurt by the pandemic that it's impossible to argue that they could have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.

20/So yes, Republican obstructionism is bad. And maybe we need to switch from workfare to universalism.

But please don't say the CARES Act was "just $1200", or that the current relief proposal is "just $600".

It's just not true.

noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-us-gover…

21/Anyway, if you like this post, you can subscribe to my newsletter here! :-)

There's a free email list, and a paid subscription too!

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noahpinion.substack.com