Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio

Not the 'Heals Act' But the 'Heels Act': GOP C****-** Plan Puts Corporate Greed Before Human Need

Thom Hartmann
C****-** | Economic Policy
by Thom Hartmann | July 29, 2020 - 7:17am



It should be called the HEELS Act, not the HEALS Act.

Since the beginning of the c****av***s p******c, Republicans' price for supporting unemployment checks and other benefits for average working people has been several trillion dollars shoveled directly into corporate coffers, both through tax breaks, grants, and the Federal Reserve buying trillions worth of corporate stocks and bonds.

Now Republicans are saying they want to cut people's unemployment benefits, and they'll only go along with giving unemployed people a measly $200 a week if they can also give immunity to corporate CEOs and managers when their stupid decisions cause people to die.

In other words, virtually every Republican initiative has been to put corporations and their CEOs first and working people last, even fighting to defend corporations and CEOs when they k**l human beings.

But what if we did the opposite?

What if we ignored corporations and their billionaire CEOs and owners altogether, gave them nothing, and instead directed all our efforts to providing unemployment and other benefits to individual human beings?

In the real world, businesses can only exist and prosper when people have money to buy their products. Economists call this "aggregate demand," and it generally refers to wages. But unemployment benefits work the same way: they put money in people's hands, and people use that money to buy things, which causes corporations to make, move, and sell those things.

If we stopped subsidizing billionaires and giant corporations, and only subsidized poor and average working people, we would actually be stimulating the economy in a more efficient manner than giving trillions of dollars to corporations.

Instead of money trickling down from billionaires and corporations, it would flow upward from consumers, which is how economies are supposed to work and how ours worked for centuries before the 1981 imposition of Reaganomics.

Old, inefficient, and monopolistic companies would be in trouble, but that would open a space in the marketplace for millions of new, innovative and smaller businesses to step in and meet the demand created by consumers spending their unemployment checks.

If we stopped subsidizing businesses and started subsidizing people, it would produce a realignment of America's business structure that would help smaller, local and regional companies tremendously, which overall would be a great thing for our economy and would reignite entrepreneurial opportunities.

The only reason Republicans have been shoveling money at giant corporations is because those corporations have been spiffing them on the back end. Ever since the Supreme Court legalized corporate bribery of politicians in 1978 with the First National Bank versus Belotti decision written by Louis Powell, this has been the nature of business' relationship with the GOP and even some corporate Democrats. Corporations contribute money, and legislators write laws that give tax breaks, giant cash subsidies and less liability to those same corporations.

The 40-year experiment of Reaganomics that required putting corporations and CEOs first has failed, and Democrats need to push back hard against Mitch McConnel's efforts to further subsidize giant companies that, in a real free market economy, would be out of business, thus providing space and opportunity for young, new and entrepreneurial ventures.

It's time to put Americans first.

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Wolf counselor Loc: Heart of Texas

Quit whining.

JFlorio Loc: Seminole Florida

You can tell they never actually read the Bill. They just repeat left wing talking points. What a dummy.

Liberty Tree

Just more ELWNJ spin

Quakerwidow Loc: Chestertown, MD

Exactly.

JFlorio Loc: Seminole Florida

Guess you didn't read it either, and if you did you didn't comprehend it.

Double meat with cheese

You desperately need a job, a paying job.....posting stupid stuff on a forum is not a paying job, and you really suck at it too.

moldyoldy

July 27, 2020 at 7:52 PM EDT
Under intense White House pressure, Senate Republicans agreed Monday to allocate $1.75 billion in their c****av***s relief bill toward the construction of a new D.C. headquarters for the FBI.
But top Senate Republicans immediately began distancing themselves from the provision after it was made public, saying they weren’t sure why the White House repeatedly insisted on putting it in the bill.
In calling for a new “Washington, DC headquarters facility,” the provision reflects President Trump’s ongoing interest in building a new headquarters for the FBI downtown, rather than a secure campus in the suburbs that was envisioned before he took office.

At a news conference Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) initially denied that the FBI money was in the bill, but then was notified by reporters that the language was in fact included.
“You’ll have to ask them why they insisted that be included,” he told reporters, referring to the White House.

Although the provision says the money would enable the bureau to “prevent, prepare for, and respond to c****av***s, domestically or internationally,” the request did not appear to be related to the economic fallout of the p******c, which lawmakers are rushing to address before expanded jobless aid expires later this week.
Asked Monday what a new FBI building had to do with the novel c****av***s, Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), a key negotiator of the stimulus package, paused and said, “Good question.”
Shelby, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said that for some items the bill had to “stretch the link” to the p******c.
“This is an administration proposal to move on with the FBI. They need a new FBI building down the street; it’s not safe to work in, you know, and so forth,” he said.
Democrats were sharply critical of the White House’s demand. “They managed to have enough money for $2 billion for the FBI headquarters that benefits Trump hotel and they say they have no money for food assistance,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). “What the heck is going on?”
When the White House first proposed inserting money on the FBI building in the legislation and conditioning it on keeping the headquarters in Washington, Republican lawmakers blocked it from being in the bill, people familiar with the discussions said. But White House officials persisted in demanding the money and it ended up back in the legislation.
“As President Trump has said, the FBI desperately needs a new building and this measure provides critical funding for this project that would keep the building responsibly near the Department of Justice,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said.
Trump said at a news conference last week that a new FBI headquarters should be built downtown on the site of the crumbling J. Edgar Hoover Building.
“The best idea would be to build a new building and that way you have it for a long time,” he said.
Economic relief talks to ramp up Monday as Democrats, White House agree to sit down
While there is wide agreement in both parties that the FBI needs a new headquarters, Trump’s decision shortly after taking office to cancel an advanced plan to build a suburban campus and press for a new downtown location has flummoxed congressional leaders, with some Democrats accusing him of acting in his own self-interest.
Complicating efforts for a compromise are potential conflicts of interest stemming from Trump’s continued ownership of a hotel a block down Pennsylvania Avenue. Before Trump was elected, officials at his company raised concerns about a competing hotel possibly being built in place of the Hoover Building should the FBI relocate to the suburbs.
White House officials have denied that Trump’s business interests have anything to do with his plans for the bureau’s new headquarters, and last year Trump’s company announced plans to sell the hotel’s lease. Those plans are on hold because of the economic fallout of the p******c.
Concerns over Trump’s financial interests, however, prompted the Justice Department’s Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz to launch an investigation of the decision-making that led to the cancellation of the original plan. That investigation remains ongoing more than a year later, the inspector general’s office said Monday. A spokeswoman declined to comment further.
Representatives at the FBI did not respond to questions about the provision but issued a statement saying that “the need for a new FBI headquarters facility has not abated” and that the bureau was working with Congress and the administration on a path forward.
A spokeswoman at the General Services Administration, which handles federal real estate, referred questions to the Office of Management and Budget, where officials did not provide comment.
As Trump pointed out in his news conference, pieces of concrete have been falling off the Hoover Building for years, prompting officials to adorn the building’s eastern facade with netting to prevent pieces from falling onto the sidewalk. The 46-year-old building falls well short of many security requirements put in place after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Federal officials under presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama long insisted that the FBI required a suburban Washington campus where it could consolidate 11,000 FBI personnel in a modern and secure facility, much like the CIA has at Langley.
By 2016 officials had decided on three finalist locations for a campus near the Beltway in Maryland or Virginia, and Congress had appropriated $913 million toward a project expected to cost more than $3 billion. Federal officials had begun vetting the locations with neighborhood residents and local officials.
The FBI’s headquarters is falling apart. Why is it so hard for America to build a new one?
But six months after Trump took office, his administration ditched the plan, with officials including FBI Director Christopher A. Wray saying they wanted the FBI to remain downtown. Administration officials said they would move 2,300 staffers out of the Washington area altogether, to Alabama, Idaho and West Virginia, to make the plan work.
Shelby referred to those t***sfers Monday, saying the bureau had relocated some staff because of advances in communications.
Trump reiterated his interest in keeping the FBI downtown in his remarks last week, saying if the bureau were in the suburbs “they would have been too far away.”
“They want to build it at the site that they have it,” Trump said. “They had options very far away from Washington and I said to them, ‘Frankly you have to be near the Justice Department.’ There’s nothing better than the site they have.”
Ever the real estate developer, Trump said the new building could have a running track on top where agents could work out.
“You could have literally quarter-mile tracks on top,” he said.
House Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said she didn’t expect a provision requiring the project to be built in the District to pass because of the difficulty of providing adequate security setbacks in what is normally a bustling section of downtown.
“I would be surprised when they get into negotiations if this proposal survived, particularly given the setback issue,” she said in an interview.
Norton said she would still like to see the FBI headquarters moved to the suburbs. Redeveloping the Hoover Building site into a mix of new housing and commercial space would return some of the District’s most valuable real estate to its tax base.
“Pennsylvania Avenue doesn’t have much space of the kind that could create revenue for the District, so there is no question I would like that piece of land to be used for revenue purposes,” she said.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), whose state has been pushing to secure the FBI project for years, issued a statement last week blasting the idea of rebuilding downtown, calling it “misguided” and accusing Trump of using the FBI project to protect his hotel interests.
Some Democrats would like to see the administration submit a new plan. In an appropriations bill that could be v**ed on this week, House Democrats included a provision that would require the GSA to provide Congress a plan for the project outlining “all the costs associated with site acquisition, design, management, and inspection, and a description of all buildings and infrastructure needed to complete the project.”

dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

One statement stands out! "It's time to put Americans first." Everyone agrees with that.

Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio

That’s all I noticed too!

Sicilianthing

>>>

Congress is a Criminal Organization controlled by the Council on Foreign Relations... controlled by the 8 families...

Auntie Dee

You seem to be laboring under the delusion that most Corporations and their CEO's are the primary contributors to and beneficiaries of the Republicans! At one time that might have been true, but no longer! More monies flow into Democrat coffers from Major Corporations and Wall Street, than to Republicans!

Auntie Dee

Ever consider that this proposal might be a negotiating tool?? Pelosi and her merry band of Dem's are famous for loading up their bills with goodies for any and everything that DOES NOT pertain to the V***s which SHOULD BE the primary purpose of either of the opposing bills!

Pelosi has her PET PROJECTS, so maybe fair is fair or tit for tat! This bill isn't finished yet, so only time will tell how it ultimately turns out!

Milosia

You can argue that point if you must.
Corporations and CEOs have no political party.
They chose whomever will do as they say.
I am not laboring under anything, but I can’t say that for you and your oblivious posts.
Corporations and CEOS own this country. So yes from that aspect, you are winning.
It’s your country that has been lost by your forcible protection of the power elite.

But by all means keep up your good work in your little comfort zone and watch it all slide away.
Blame whomever you must. But keep in mind, you never said no to trump.
You can blame me and Dems all you want but if you plan to v**e for the same people who destroying your country In the name of righteous republicanism.
Then you are doomed.
I am not your enemy.we should be on the same side fighting tyranny against the constitution.
Republicans are more financed by rich corporate donors than Dems.
This why trump keeps giving your country away to his rich donors.
Big pharma comes to mind.
Made $6 Billion last Quarter. Profit.
All off the skin of your azz.

Milosia

Will you also complain if you come out better with her plan than with the nonsense McConnell’s planning to sell???
Of course not,
That would make you a hypocrite!!!
A HYPOCRITE!