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  • Thread starter Thread starter UNCMSinLS
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  • Politics 
ZenMode said:
Right. COVID money probably shouldn't be used to build buildings because building construction has nothing to do with Covid. That money should be returned.

The government gave out money to some businesses to continue paying employees when businesses were closed. They can't just take that money and throw a company party or buy new equipment.
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I'm open to debate on this, but I must say that what Zen is saying here makes a lot of sense to me. The old-school conservative in me feels like it would be incredibly wasteful for Covid money to be used on things not at all related to Covid. Just saying.
 
ZenMode said:
Right. COVID money probably shouldn't be used to build buildings because building construction has nothing to do with Covid. That money should be returned.

The government gave out money to some businesses to continue paying employees when businesses were closed. They can't just take that money and throw a company party or buy new equipment.
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The CARES Act was passed by a Dem majority house (419-6) and Republican majority senate (96-0) and signed into law by Trump. Like it or not, it had broad, bipartisan support.
 
ZenMode said:
Right. COVID money probably shouldn't be used to build buildings because building construction has nothing to do with Covid. That money should be returned.

The government gave out money to some businesses to continue paying employees when businesses were closed. They can't just take that money and throw a company party or buy new equipment.
Click to expand...
What ZenMode thinks should happen with government funds is way outside of the point.
The point is that monies were allocated for precisely these types of expenses. The states made appropriate and legal decisions to spend that money for which it was intended. Now, Trump is reneging on that promise.
 
BlooVooDoo said:
The CARES Act was passed by a Dem majority house (419-6) and Republican majority senate (96-0) and signed into law by Trump. Like it or not, it had broad, bipartisan support.
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Well, if we are legally required to keep the money with the states, ok, but this is just another bigger-picture issue of unnecessary spending that is driving us toward financial oblivion.
 
ZenMode said:
Right. COVID money probably shouldn't be used to build buildings because building construction has nothing to do with Covid. That money should be returned.

The government gave out money to some businesses to continue paying employees when businesses were closed. They can't just take that money and throw a company party or buy new equipment.
Click to expand...
Ask MTG if she can give back the $189k she got, then we can worry about other companies.
 
ZenMode said:
The government gave out money to some businesses to continue paying employees when businesses were closed. They can't just take that money and throw a company party or buy new equipment.
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This is not true. COVID era money to businesses via PPP and other programs did not require a business to be closed. I personally know of a small business that received 6 figures and it had a record year for revenue and profit.

I remember reading about a private jet company that received $20 million and their business soared as people sought to avoid commercial flights.
 
Mulberry Heel said:
Self-righteously trying to deny federal aid for places that dare to not support your cult leader when they're hit by a natural disaster and are suffering, and then openly begging and pleading for federal aid for your own state when it's hit by a natural disaster, is the very image of hypocrisy. Of course we've all known that they are hypocrites for a long time, but while I feel sorry for the victims of these tornadoes who will likely not get any federal help like they normally would, I don't feel at all sorry for people like Cotton or Huckabee. You reap what you sow, as they say.
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Didn't we used to have a poster here who took exceptional umbrage at hypocrisy?

Wonder what happened to that guy...
 
ZenMode said:
Well, if we are legally required to keep the money with the states, ok, but this is just another bigger-picture issue of unnecessary spending that is driving us toward financial oblivion.
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What happened to state income tax and sales tax revenue when many people were laid off and stayed home during the pandemic? Would that impact the budgets of these states? How may that disrupt long term infrastructure projects that would still be necessary after the pandemic?

Do you think at all before you post, or is it purely a gut reaction?
 
StrangePackage said:
What happened to state income tax and sales tax revenue when many people were laid off and stayed home during the pandemic?
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It would decrease, as would revenues for the federal government.

StrangePackage said:
Would that impact the budgets of these states?
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If they were completely financially irresponsible, to the point that they had absolutely no money saved and/or couldn't borrow money or simply run in the red for whole, yes.
StrangePackage said:
How may that disrupt long term infrastructure projects that would still be necessary after the pandemic?
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That would depend on each individual state's financial situation, the size of the project, etc. Long term, with local state and federal governments, I'd say basically nothing was impacted.
StrangePackage said:
Do you think at all before you post, or is it purely a gut reaction?
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Oddly, after reading your post, I wondered the same thing.
 
1moretimeagain said:
This is not true. COVID era money to businesses via PPP and other programs did not require a business to be closed. I personally know of a small business that received 6 figures and it had a record year for revenue and profit.

I remember reading about a private jet company that received $20 million and their business soared as people sought to avoid commercial flights.
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That may be true, but the point was that money was allocated for salaries and couldn't legally be used for other things.
 
BlueSteel said:
I'm open to debate on this, but I must say that what Zen is saying here makes a lot of sense to me. The old-school conservative in me feels like it would be incredibly wasteful for Covid money to be used on things not at all related to Covid. Just saying.
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It was an “Education Stabilization Fund,” and they were given to be used in precisely the way the states are using them.
The time for making arguments that is was wasteful was in 2020. Apparently those arguments were heard and voted on by the house and senate and passed overwhelmingly, and Trump signed it into law.
If this was irresponsible spending, okay. But what is more irresponsible (imo) is granting the money and then pulling the rug out from under the states after they started projects based upon the law that passed.
I also think it is illegal for these funds to be appropriated and then unilaterally canceled by the executive office (but I could be wrong there).
 
ChileG said:
It was an “Education Stabilization Fund,” and they were given to be used in precisely the way the states are using them.
The time for making arguments that is was wasteful was in 2020. Apparently those arguments were heard and voted on by the house and senate and passed overwhelmingly, and Trump signed it into law.
If this was irresponsible spending, okay. But what is more irresponsible (imo) is granting the money and then pulling the rug out from under the states after they started projects based upon the law that passed.
I also think it is illegal for these funds to be appropriated and then unilaterally canceled by the executive office (but I could be wrong there).
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I don't disagree.
 
BlueSteel said:
I'm open to debate on this, but I must say that what Zen is saying here makes a lot of sense to me. The old-school conservative in me feels like it would be incredibly wasteful for Covid money to be used on things not at all related to Covid. Just saying.
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You have to judge wastefulness by its real economic cost. Our popular media and political discourse does a very poor job of defining what waste means and how and why it's bad. Let me illustrate with an example:

1. The federal government suddenly decides to pay $1M to every person. Wasteful? No. Not in itself -- it wouldn't change anything in the economy. It's simply an accounting issue: money that used to be held collectively by the government is now held collectively by the people, though in an individual capacity. Now, if this made the government broke would have a lot of real effects, but that's a different story.

2. The federal government decides to pay $1M to every person who submits a sculpted bust of Donald Trump or Barack Obama to the WH. This is wasteful. Why? Because it requires the expenditure of real resources on things of no value. Labor will be in short supply if people are learning how to sculpt. Minerals could be in short supply, depending on what materials people would use for the busts. So much other stuff could have been done with the time, energy and resources devoted to bust-making.

So the question we want to be asking is: are these Covid funds being used to generate value? Normally, a government program is aligned with specific goals, and if those goals no longer exist, the program is wasteful. For instance, if we have a government program for tracking smallpox, operating it in a world where smallpox has been eradicated would be wasteful (I'm assuming that smallpox is permanently gone, for illustrative purposes). If we have a missile system to shoot down ICBMs, and nobody uses ICBMs any more, that would be wasteful.

But sometimes, government programs aren't so narrowly linked to specific goals. I don't know much about this COVID funding, but it seems that it's being used for general improvements that are salutary in themselves. If we are using COVID money to improve educational infrastructure, that's not wasteful unless we are doing something like gilding an already well equipped classroom. My understanding of public school infrastructure is that it's underfunded in a lot of places. Whatever -- the details aren't important to this more general point: sometimes government programs can have benefits that extend far beyond the initial purpose, and then their existence is justified by a different set of considerations.

A classic example: Radar. It was developed by the UK air force to defend against Nazi aircraft. After the war was over, the UK didn't have any specific use for radar. Does that mean it should have stopped investing in it? I don't think so. Radar is a wonderful technology. The Battle Of Britain spurred its development; but that doesn't mean its use case was so limited. This is a case of the government producing something of broad benefit. This is, by the way, a stylized example for a short msg board post. I know that radar had many military uses in peacetime -- for instance, early warning systems, detection of all sorts, etc. -- but it wasn't a **necessity** the way it was in 1940 and anyway the point here is that radar would be worth continued investment even if its military use vanished.
 
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