People with an adjusted gross income above $87,000 don't get anything under the current bill.

Marco R
Kelly L
David P
Lindsay G
Josh H

Are all in favor of the 2k checks publicly.

Just need to peel off a few more Republicans that feel susceptible to Trump voters in 2022 cycle, and this one is going to pass. I don’t know if even Rand Paul would invoke cloture if there are 57 or 58 senators supporting Trump’s proposal. Especially when his winter break is in jeopardy. He’s also up in 2022.

Mitt might vote in favour.

Not sure if their support is serious or not.

Individual senators (especially the two that have an election next week) go on record to support Trump and support more money for Americans. But then Mitch adds a poison pill like section 230 repeal to the bill and it doesn't pass (or simply never brings it up for a vote). So when it doesn't pass, they just say "It's the Dems fault!" or "We tried our best but oh well."

I've often wondered how much McConnell's decisions to bring up bills or not are reflective of his own desires, or are the collective desire of the GOP caucus and it allows him to get the blame/focus for stuff not getting voted on.

For example, privately no GOP senators want it to pass, but it makes them look bad. So publicly they support it but tell McConnell not to put it up for a vote so they get the credit for supporting it without actually supporting it.

In your example, seems like Democrats should just vote for 230 repeal and then Biden can executive order it back into existence through administrative backdoors.

I don't see why repealing section 230 would be bad. It protects companies from liability from what their users do as long as they make "good faith" efforts to remove illegal stuff. In other words, it is a subsidy to them so that they don't have to spend as much money on moderating their own content.

Do Facebook, Twitter, etc. really need a government subsidy? I guess the counterargument is that most smaller sites couldn't afford to moderate everything and it would hurt online communication if any one, random idiot could post something bad and get the company sued.

From what I’ve read, repealing s230 would lead to places like 2+2 and what have you being shut down. But perhaps those complaints are overblown.

Yeah I assume if there's no section 230, if someone creates an account on 2+2 and posts something illegal, then 2+2 can be sued. So they have to have someone literally approve every single post. That would cripple forums, social media, comment sections, etc. as we know it.

Maybe it is a good thing then. But it also feels like the companies get away with the absolute minimum amount of moderation because of the "good faith" clause.

The lump sum, broadly administered payments seem to get all the attention, but it's mostly political theater. Whatever is decided on unemployment insurance is far more important. Poverty rates have actually gone down during the pandemic and not because of a one time payment of 600.



I think the big takeaway from all this is that one of the lowest hanging fruits in the social safety net is to make unemployment more widely available and generous at all times. Even with enhanced benefits, the job market recovered quickly so all the republican talking points about people choosing unemployment over working are simply false in the phase space we are currently in.

The case for UBI grows ever stronger.

As expected. Dems should just cave and then find some way to just take it back later before it becomes operational the checks will already be in the mail.

Huh? That's the exact opposite of what Krugman said. UBI proposal give a small, token amount that you can't survive on to everybody, while what has actually worked is giving larger payments that replace a full time $15/hr job to those that need it. If UBI proposals come with cuts to the social safety net like UI it's likely you will see higher poverty as a result.

Are any Republicans in favor of repealing 230? It seems like only the idiots like Trump want it repealed for personal reasons. It's a very pro-business law.

Not if the UBI is large enough and the tax policy recoups enough of the surplus from the wealthy.

You said that the case for UBI grows stronger. How did you get that from Krugman saying UI has been the great success and the mass checks are only political theater and don't really help?

I think of UI and UBI as not all that dissimilar in execution given the overwhelming benefit to the poorest both programs give.

They are polar opposites in terms of policy: Universal vs targeted. All the Covid data shows the benefit of targeted.

A week ago id put 2 grand at 1 percent. yesterday it was about 10 percent. now we are up to 25 percent. Trump may move out of worst president ever if this passes. Dont get me wrong he will still be bottom 5.

I like and agree with your take on this as subsidy to companies.


I'm totally fine it gets repealed.


Companies potentially liable does not mean always liable. Court can decide. Don't see the issue.

UBI is functionally a massive redistribution to the poor. It’s trivially similar to UI.

You’re getting caught up in semantics.

Repealing section 230 with no other related legislation being introduced will simply stop Facebook/Twitter/literally any website that allows user-generated content to be displayed without prior moderation from being able to operate in the US. It wouldn't be a case of judicial judgement either, the law (in the case of section 230 being repealed) states in no uncertain terms that a company is liable for any and all content published on their platform, including user-generated content.

I don't think it's hyperbole to say that 90%+ of internet businesses would not be viable without something akin to the legal protections provided by section 230.

Agree.

The only difference is UBI also helps the poor who aren't capable of getting jobs like stay at home moms, elderly, etc.

UI is just a subset of UBI. Both have same goals.

Nope. UBI is not inherently a "massive redistribution to the poor". Yang's plan, for example, was basically designed so poor people currently on benefits are the only ones who won't simply get a 1000 bucks extra.


In the how do you pay for it section on his website he says

I don't think you can take his figures too seriously, but he actually claims we'll be spending less on the poor because his system is more efficient.

UBI is a massive redistribution to the working poor and lower/middle class. Not the mostly non-working poor.

But it is a silly solution to a problem.

The problem being the government should simply not take the $1000 or so a month in, only to give it back created a rake on that money. Instead just do a Trump like tax cut but instead of to the uber rich, just cut trillions from the working poor and then, and only then, for those at the bottom who may not even pay $1000 in tax (that they could keep) you can redistribute from the rest of middle class and above tax base in some form of supplement.

I wasn’t discussing Yang’s plan; obviously if you gut welfare to implement UBI then that’s not good.