our government has failed us.  Everyone of us should be calling our local representatives; not that I think David Perdue will do anything!  Leave them messages they have failed the American people!  Share this video with everyone you know in Georgia!  Especially to those on the fence.  On the front page of every paper on Christmas morning, "the GOP blocked 2k stimulus to struggling Americans on Christmas day"  While they are having their galas and popping champagne.  They absolutely failed us.  Please let them a message.  Otherwise we are just complaining on a politics post on the internet.  Let's call them on Christmas Day!

Laffy wants Trump to sign the bill that includes the $600 stimulus.  Most of us would prefer that Trump hold out for a $2000 stimulus check.

has not signed the bill with the $600 payment, and has indicated he will hold out until the GOP and the Democrats come together on a $2K solution.

Let Trump sign the bill as is, IF he can get a commitment from Moscow Mitch to pass an additional $1400 stimulus check. Or maybe he doesn't trust Mitch? I wouldn't either.
Either way, Trump is just playing games and both parties in Congress should ram it up his bloated ass by over-riding his veto of the Defense bill and then do the same with the Covid/Budget bill.

He doesn't even remember that lots of spending items in the budget bill he just objected to were in the budget proposal from his OWN administration. Then again, he probably never read it.
The last book he read was "Mien Kampf."

Signing the bill with $600 on the promise of another bill with an additional $1400 won’t work.

It’s better for Trump to hold out for a bill that delivers the full $2,000.

There’s no way Pelosi would have passed a skinny bill with $2,000 checks before the election.

The Dems pushed for 2K checks in May.  

later reduced to the $2.2T stimulus with checks capped at $1,200.  She has consistently has rejected calls for so called “ skinny bills” that could have gotten Americans their stimulus absent the pork laden bill that Congress finally settled on.

I don’t understand giving every person with income under $75k, and their dependents, $2000.  I think the aid should go to those who have been hurt financially by the pandemic, especially those out of work because of it.  Why give people who’re doing just fine financially (and many are) all that money?  “To stimulate the economy!” some say. But where will that money go?  I bet most of it will go to pay down debt or into savings.

 
Let’s help the millions who are out of work, or who have had to close or reduce their small businesses, who may be wondering if they’ll be out on the street soon and/or are wondering how they’ll feed their kids next week.  A family of four making $150k a year and still employed doesn’t need an $8000 handout, or even a $2400 handout, to buy votes for the next election.  I think that money could be better used to help those who have been hurt financially by the pandemic.  

CK76, From what I have read, none of the so called skinny bills had no stimulus payments or unemployment insurance extensions.  Please provide a link to prove your assertion.  Thanks.

The second GOP “skinny” bill included unemployment assistance, targeted stimulus checks, renewed PPP, liability protection for businesses and health care workers, and money for schools and health care. Chuck Schumer refused to allow the bill to come to the floor for a vote.

You make an excellent point and I don’t think anyone would disagree with it. However, the problem I see is how do we identify  the potential recipients? Do we use their 2019 tax returns? Someone who made over $75,000 last year may now be unemployed. How would the individuals in charge of the disbursements discern that?

There are no easy answers to this problem, but one thing that I feel should be at the top of the list is to allow local qualified health agencies to decide which businesses can reopen and under what safety protocols. Right now we have a number of politicians making sweeping lockdown decisions that have no real basis in science. The sooner we can get people back to work, the better all of us will be.

Ok, that 2nd skinny bill did include unemployment insurance.  But, no stimulus checks.  I think if it would included that (at the 1200 level), it might have gotten past the Dems.  But, I don't think the R's would pass it.  And thats why the current stimulus only contains 600.  And quite frankly, I don't think Trump would have signed it.

identify people who’re unemployed: it’s called filing for unemployment insurance. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.

 
The problem is that doesn’t account for people who are out of work but aren’t eligible for unemployment insurance, eg those who are self-employed (including sex workers).  A lot of providers I know have other jobs or businesses that could qualify for COVID relief programs. But identifying all people out of work will be a challenge.  I wonder if some kind of sworn affidavit, with penalty of perjury (federal crime since its federal money) would be enough?

 
As for those “sweeping lockdown decisions”... it’s basic math to count the number of available hospital beds, do a trend analysis on number of hospitalizations from COVID (also on deaths), and figure out that if the trend line doesn’t go down real soon, hospitals will be full.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out. And although some people (like your leader, Trump) claim that the lock downs are politically motivated and an attempt to cripple the economy just to spite him, it’s ridiculous to think that any governor, mayor or other person ordering a lock down would benefit politically from doing it or that they’re doing it for any reason than to try to save lives.

And you can add more beds but what about staff? And what about people with non-Covid-related medical emergencies? We are going to start losing people to Covid who don't even HAVE Covid.

We could go back and forth on this issue and perhaps that’s what this board should be about.
I am not saying that the lockdowns are motivated for political gain. The problem, and I can best approach it from California where I live, is that general statistics are determining which businesses can stay open and which cannot. For example in LA Country where I live, open air patio dining was allowed until the county reached a certain level of hospitalizations. Then they had to close. However, there was no tracking that showed these businesses were causing the increase in the infections. That is why I feel decisions need to made at more of a local level. Everyone wants to save lives, but let’s not amputate a toe to cure an ingrown toenail.

In my state, they track infection rate per industry and location (eg indoor dining locations, outdoor dining locations, gyms etc ) so they have a real good idea where infections are coming from. I find it hard to believe that CA doesn’t have that kind of data and use it when deciding which businesses to close. If they aren’t doing it, they should.