Idiotic Ideology by Both Sides Got Us in This Mess

As I’m writing this, Congress is discussing the next stimulus package in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic that has not only taken a toll health-wise but also economically. The majority of the public is watching with disgust as bickering over corporate liability shields and complaints over the deficit are being thrown around taking up precious time as millions of Americans watch the clock tick towards eviction. We watched with disgust as the last major stimulus package bailed out industries and big businesses by the billions and the average person appeared to be an afterthought. Shortly after we watched announcements of the massive amounts of wealth that moved to the top during this pandemic now totaling near or over $600 billion dollars of increased wealth for billionaires. And while I don’t entirely agree with this next criticism, many have condemned the choice to give an extra $600/month in unemployment benefits with some saying this is encouraging people not to work. Aside from the fact that there aren’t enough jobs for people to even get and that this $600/month is saving people from all sorts of fallout, there was indubitably a better way. All of the choices by both sides point to the idiotic ideologies that pervade each side of the political spectrum that they can’t seem to let go of.

The fact of the matter is, the economy is driven from the bottom up and so obviously the only way to stimulate the economy is to give money to the people. This is the most foundational principle to understand yet seems to evade the understanding of almost any Republican senators or congresspeople which is making helping the people that much harder.

Let’s start with the Republicans as their faults are more clear and not aligned with reality in any kind of way. To start, many Republicans are pulling out the old talking points that we simply cannot afford this. That we are just going to increase our deficit and that spending is going to cause inflation and hurt the stock market somehow. When in reality, the complete opposite is true. As the data has come out on the economy throughout this pandemic we can directly see the stark recovery that increased consumer spending has caused and with millions of Americans losing their jobs, it’s obvious to see that giving money to everyday people is the only culprit of that because otherwise, they wouldn’t have any money to spend! Not to mention that the exact times of recovery came once the checks and increased unemployment started. They seem to be stuck in the 80s citing trickle-down economics that anyone who has been paying attention for the last few decades has realized is false. The fact of the matter is, the economy is driven from the bottom up and so obviously the only way to stimulate the economy is to give money to the people. This is the most foundational principle to understand yet seems to evade the understanding of almost any Republican senators or congresspeople which is making helping the people that much harder.

So what about the Democrats? Well, for one, let’s have no illusions that the Democrats are the party of the people. They are just as corporate-friendly as the Republicans and have put up zero fight in regards to the corporate and large industry bailouts. However, to give credit where credit is due, Democrats put forward the ideas that did directly go towards people. They fought for small-business to be included in discussions and for increased unemployment benefits. They seem to at least understand that the principle of helping the mass amount of people exists. Whether that’s simply for reelection purposes or actually understanding the economics and values for protecting the people isn’t as clear but at least they’re doing it. But their biggest problem, aside from being corporate-friendly, is execution. Democrats seem to be stuck under the same idea that spending on the people just needs to be reckless and bloated by big government. This is evidenced by making the stimulus checks means-tested upfront instead of just taxing it back from those who made more than the cutoff later to speed-up and clean-up the process and by putting massive amounts of money into unemployment which, yes it worked, but there were so many people out of the workforce who needed more than one check too.

A simple and elegant solution that would have helped the economic crisis by getting money into the hands of the people and would have helped the health crisis by allowing people to stay home would have been simply to say, “We are taking 75% of the extra profits billionaires and their companies are making (let them keep the other 25% because they are providing a service) because of the pandemic and giving it back to the people in the form of a monthly stimulus check until this is all over.”

So there are obvious problems with both sides but what would have been a better solution? Well, as I mentioned earlier, billionaires have increased their wealth a ridiculous amount while the government is opting to print trillions of dollars (not that I sympathize with Republican concerns on this but again, there was a better way). How are these two facts connected you might ask? Simple: Billionaires should not be profiting to the tune of billions of dollars due to a global pandemic where millions of people are going without. A simple and elegant solution that would have helped the economic crisis by getting money into the hands of the people and would have helped the health crisis by allowing people to stay home would have been simply to say, “We are taking 75% of the extra profits billionaires and their companies are making (let them keep the other 25% because they are providing a service) because of the pandemic and giving it back to the people in the form of a monthly stimulus check until this is all over.” In other words, a crisis Freedom Dividend. The biggest problem economically speaking about the pandemic is not that there is less money but that the money is just not circulating as usual and instead the only place for it to go was up because of the stability of massive corporations as opposed to small-businesses and the increased use of technology as opposed to in-person services. In other words, the money is still around, it is just going somewhere else and it’s not hard to figure out where. What better way to stabilize the economy than to simulate the way it was before by redirecting the extra profits to billionaires due to a terrible event back to the people?

What’s so frustrating is how simple this is. How easy it would have been to look at the way the money started flowing due to this crisis and saying “Well that’s not right, let’s do what’s right and have the peoples’ backs.” But instead, the go-to for our leaders was to stick to narrow-minded ideologies. Effectively by printing the money that is funding the stimulus checks the government has given billionaires that much more wealth while the people will have to spend that one-time payment almost as soon as they get it. And because they were so insistent on helping out the industries and corporations they have all but guaranteed eventual inflation because of the trillions extra that went to those places and then they want to blame it on the tiny comparable sliver that went to the people. Even if they had only printed money for the people it would be far less likely we would see inflation as evidenced by the past occurrences of printing trillions of dollars and seeing no inflation but instead, we tripled that because of their favoritism to their donors over their constituents.

We are not one of the leading countries in deaths because of China or just our president, it’s because every single one of our leaders has failed us by not understanding the simplicity of helping people and understanding how to do that and how the economy actually works. Our leaders are idiotic ideologues, make no mistake.

Don’t get caught up in the news cycle no matter what side you’re on. Donald Trump was not the primary problem for our country, both sides of Congress were as well. We are not one of the leading countries in deaths because of China or just our president, it’s because every single one of our leaders has failed us by not understanding the simplicity of helping people and understanding how to do that and how the economy actually works and instead favored their habitual opinions and way of viewing things that works out for them instead of actually looking at the situation. Our leaders are idiotic ideologues if not just selfish, make no mistake.