That $600 Unemployment Check is About to Go Away

Trump needs the money more than you do

K M Brown
DataDrivenInvestor

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Photo by Darren Halstead on Unsplash

If you lost your job to the pandemic, this is the last week you’ll receive a $600 subsidy in addition to your standard pittance of an unemployment check. That lifesaver is going away because the Republicans in the Senate and the Democrats in the House can’t agree on the particulars of the next pandemic rescue bill.

And no wonder; they’re approaching the problem from two distinctly different vantage points. The House’s proposal, formulated weeks ago with the passage of the HEROES Act, is focused on keeping our collective heads above water. The Senate, whose position was cobbled together the same week the extra payment expired, is focused on what’s in it for Trump.

Here’s what they’ve come up with.

Get Trump reelected

Low unemployment figures will help Trump get reelected. You can do your part by getting off the dole.

The Senate wants to nudge you in that direction by cutting the $600 you’ve been receiving down to $200 per week (the House’s HEROES Act would continue the subsidy at the higher rate through the end of the year). They figure if they starve you out of your hidey-hole, you’ll have to go to work.

Sure, your old job may be gone, but you can follow Ivanka’s advice and find something different. Delivering groceries comes to mind. Mowing grass at a golf course. Hawking products on your Instagram account.

The opportunities are endless.

You’ll probably make beans compared to your old salary. But maybe that’s for the best, because having too much money is bad for people, especially when it’s money they didn’t earn themselves. Unearned money, in the form of government assistance, say, or an inheritance from your tax-evading, discriminatory landlord father, will turn you into a lazy, lying, self-centered, tantrum-throwing baby.

So shut up and go to work.

Protect Trump from lawsuits

If the goal is to lower the unemployment rate so Trump can get reelected, it doesn’t matter that your job can kill you. It only matters that you work.

You’ll be a lot more exposed to the virus when you go to work. And because that increases your chances of sickness and death, the Senate has added some protective measures into their bill.

No, not for you, silly, for your employers. If your boss wants to pack you and your coworkers together like sardines, if he wants you to work even if you’ve got a fever, if he prohibits you from wearing a mask, well, that’s his right. Employers are the anointed ones, the big guys.

But as it stands right now, you’ve got some rights, too. You’ve got a tiny bit of power as a pushback against employer abuse. Today, employers who don’t take reasonable precautions to keep you safe can be sued for their negligence.

You probably won’t sue them, of course, especially if you’re dead. And even if you do, you probably won’t win because they’ll lawyer up with the big boys and you’ll have to settle for one of those billboard ambulance chasers to make your case.

Win or lose, you’ll never get your life back. But if a settlement is reached, your surviving family members could shake a little change loose from the pockets of the business owners who put you at risk.

That’s why you have to be stopped.

To that end, the Senate’s bill includes a revocation of your right to sue in their pandemic rescue bill. If your new job is waiting tables at Mar-a-Lago, you shouldn’t have any recourse just because the place is packed and there’s no hand sanitizer in sight.

If the Senate’s version of the bill passes, you’ll have to go to work since you can’t afford to stay home. And once you get to your new workplace, no care must be taken for your safety. Can it get any more self-serving than that?

Well, yes, it can.

Improve the neighborhood around Trump’s business, and keep the competition away

Here’s the third leg of the Senate’s wobbly stool: they want to renovate the decrepit FBI building that sits across the street from the D.C. Trump hotel.

Seriously. This is in the Senate’s pandemic relief bill.

The building doesn’t fit the FBI’s needs anymore; it hasn’t for some time. And when Trump took office, plans were in place to move the agency to a new, more secure building in the suburbs. However, following a meeting between Trump, the FBI, and members of the General Services Administration (GSA), those plans were “…abruptly canceled in 2017 in favor of renovating the existing building.”

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has sued the GSA for records of that meeting. They want to know how the triumvirate arrived at their controversial decision to renovate rather than relocate, but so far, mum’s the word.

It’s not even certain that the building can be renovated to the necessary security standards. In any case, the cost of renovating will far exceed the cost of buying a new building and moving. But, as noted in the Wall Street Journal, the hotel “… sits across Pennsylvania Avenue from a hotel that bears Mr. Trump’s name, and redevelopment of the site could bring new competition for the Trump International.” That’s certainly a bigger consideration than our national security, right?

So what’s behind this crazy quilt of a pandemic relief bill?

Even some Republican senators admit it makes no sense. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) called the bill “…a mess. I can’t figure out what this bill’s about…” he said, according to Axios.

“‘We have no idea what the final bill will be, and we’ll be the last to know,’ Hawley added, suggesting the White House, not Senate leadership, would be negotiating with House Democrats.”

Even Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called the FBI renovation proposal “…included in the bill at the behest of the Trump administration… ‘non-germane’” a generous assessment, at best.

What’s with the timing?

Is it possible that Senate Republicans forgot that the Cares Act was about to expire? Did they just fail to plan ahead for another measure to take its place?

Maybe, but it’s more likely that the last-minute offering is a strategy. It plays on the Democrats’ desire to support you until there’s a vaccine, or a reliable treatment, or a lowered risk of infection. Once that happens, you’ll be able to fend for yourself just like you always have.

Until then, the Republicans hope to leverage your need for money by tying it to a loss of your right to sue and, even more ridiculously, to the renovation of the FBI building.

Are you going to let that happen?

On the positive side

Both the Democrats and the Republicans want to send you another $1200 check. The Democrats like the idea because it will help you buy food and pay your rent. The Republicans like the idea because you can shop for stuff with the money and make the economy look better. Trump likes the idea because he can put his signature on the checks, fooling the simple-minded into thinking the windfall had something to do with him.

There is no plan from the president or either party that addresses how they’ll raise the money.

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Retired psychotherapist who loves a good story. Author of From Fear to There: Becoming a Confident Traveler https://tinyurl.com/26uhya