15 thoughts on “This article explains the distribution of monies for the COVID bailouts.”

  1. OK, your article lists 5 parts of the CARES act it says helped those evil millionaires.

    1. Defers required distributions on IRAs, 401ks and other retirement plans.

    2. Allows unlimited deduction of charitable donations.

    3. Allows losses to be passed through to participants of LLCs, partnerships and other businesses in which the profits are taxed at the individual rates.

    4. Removes the limits on corporate borrowing

    5. Allows corporate losses to be spread over previous 2 years.

    Which of those, in the context of the pandemic’s effect on the economy, do you find unjust? I find every one of them to be proper in the context of this black swan event, and more importantly, they will help preserve jobs through these hard times.

    So which do you think was a bad idea and what would be the benefit of repealing them?

    I see nothing but the politics of envy at work here.

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  2. Envy?

    Not at all. Concern for the cost of paying for the bailouts.

    The idea was to help those who are on the margins of being financially able to weather a national crisis. Including businesses, individuals and families.

    Does an income of $1 million/year getting a boost help the situation? Do we have the resources to subsidize those who have no need?

    These are some tax issues that have little to do with the emergency except to slip them in in a hurry.

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    1. Few millionaires have an income of a million dollars a year.

      Many small businesses valued at well over a million produce an income for the owner of $200K or so.

      But how is it subsidizing a business by allowing it to income average back a few years instead of all forward? Especially considering that there may be very little income going forward to average against for several years.

      So seriously, tell me specifically how any of those provisions are unjust?

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      1. Just or not, the tax breaks are not germane to the bailout.

        We are broke. Printing money like crazy for a crisis we were ill-prepared for and it came on top of borrowing heavily to boost the DOW. And still we have about half of available jobs at a minimum wage Of $15 /hr or less. Which accounts for so many living paycheck to paycheck. And who now have no health insurance because absent a good paying job, it is unaffordable.

        Add all this up with the Republican attitude that debt is good since Trump took the reins, and we have to consider tax increases or go under.

        The wealth redistribution has been going on since Reagan, from the bottom to the top. (Why do think about half of us can’t afford to pay taxes) so the laws cut them slack to allow massive cuts at the top.

        Well, folks, the only people with any money are the top percentiles. And there is a huge benefit to being in the US. It is not just a “club” you can join until you are done. There is no valley the elite can retreat to so they don’t have to worry about insolent, ungrateful riffraff.

        You think it is bad now? Wait until this virus issue is behind us, hopefully within a year or less. Millions of jobs will have evaporated. Essential workers will be dumped on the back burner. Automation will solve the crowded factory floors. Where do you think the tax revenue will come from then?

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        1. Printing money like crazy and your heroes want to pass out another 3 trillion? Maybe you should be telling House Democrats to STOP THE MADNESS instead of complaining about bipartisan help for small business.

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          1. Unfortunately, we have little choice now. We made our debt “bed” when Bush borrowed to pay for tax cuts, two wars and a drug bill. Then Obama extended the cuts even though we were running up stimulus bills. To his credit he cut the annual deficit in half.

            Of course that was nullified by a tax cut in 2018. And we have yet, except for 1 quarter right after the bill passed, seen any changes from the economic trajectory handed over by a Obama. In fact manufacturing trend down in 2019 long before three pandemic.

            The Democrats are not complaining about helping small businesses. They just think not enough went to them.

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        2. What SPECIFICALLY is wrong with any of the tax breaks? Every one of them is very much germane to the pandemic. Businesses will have huge losses through no fault of their own and they paid plenty of taxes over the years before the pandemic, Allowing to only average forward won’t make them whole, as they won’t have those kinds of gains and profits in coming years to average.

          So, what is your gripe? What do you think is not justified?

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          1. Then they should have passed an addendum to the tax bill in 2018. Why wait until we have to borrow even more money to cover our debt?

            “…JCT estimates that about 82% of these benefits — let’s call it $115 billion — will go to about 43,000 taxpayers with $1 million or more in annual income. That’s an average of about $2.68 million each.“

            Now how are those people going to manage? But it adds 140 billion to the recovery cost.

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          2. DO you really mean to say that they should have altered the tax bill in 2018 to adjust for the economic disruptions of the pandemic that would unexpectedly occur almost 2 years later?

            Again, what SPECIFICALLY is wrong with any of the 5?

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          3. I told you with a quote about the one specific and most expensive tax break.

            Did you read it? It had nothing, that is nothing, to do with alleviating economic conditions caused by the pandemic. It is just a portion of the bill they could not pass earlier for technical or political reasons. Or, the idiots who put the tax bill together behind closed doors in 2 weeks without any input from Democrats or most Republicans just plain overlooked or forgot.

            So that part is wrong no matter how you parse. it.

            The rest are just gifts to get votes.

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          4. Len, You didn’t even say which of the 5 items you think that addresses.

            In any case, who gets the break doesn’t determine if it is just. As I see it, all 5 are just and correct wrongs done to business owners by the necessary shutdown.

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          5. I did address the pass through specifically.

            If a ship was sinking, would you throw life rings to the ones in the water without one or to those in a lifeboat in case they needed extra protection should the lifeboat be damaged?

            That is kind of my point about the emergency funding. It is not a matter of justice, but rather economic sense.

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  3. “let me show you five provisions of the legislation that benefited the upper middle class” — source quote

    Who cares? When I was a child I thought it was wrong that some people are rich while many more are poor. When I grew up I put away childish beliefs.

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    1. You missed the point. It is not about class warfare. It is about massaging tax laws that we cannot afford to do since we are borrowing trillions. And we borrowed many trillions to pay for all the tax cuts since Bush. Which belies the crap that tax cuts increase revenue.

      At some point we need to realize that if we have to borrow from the average citizen to give breaks to the top, we will run out of money.

      Actually we already have.

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