Billionaire Steven Mnuchin So Tired Of COVID Jobless Flaunting Their Luxury Lifestyles In His Face

White House proposes 70 percent wage replacement (i.e. starvation).

The Republican philosophy of “Fuck People Who Aren't Corporations" isn't ideal in the best circumstances. It's especially problematic during a global pandemic. Neither the GOP nor the White House can agree on a deal that extends unemployment benefits for the millions of Americans left jobless because of COVID-19. Republicans such as mid-transformation wolfman Ted Cruz are worried people will grow so “desperate" from not worrying about starving that they'll vote for Democrats instead of the Republicans who wanted to let them starve.

Sen. @tedcruz: "We are paying a whole lot of people a lot more money to stay home and not work than they made on th… https://t.co/mU7Ejc2yjJ

— The Hill (@The Hill) 1595429507.0 

Cruz also grossly claimed that science isn't guiding the decisions of Democratic governors and mayors. It's just political opportunism, and once Joe Biden wins, Cruz “guarantees" that they'll suddenly give the all-clear for everyone to return to work. In reality, the coronavirus is notoriously non-partisan. It will fuck your shit up no matter who's in office. Democratic leaders aren't deliberately impoverishing their constituents, but Cruz is setting the stage for baseless conspiracy theories when things do improve once Donald Trump is no longer in office.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Fox News's Chris Wallace on Sunday that the White House wants to cap unemployment benefits at 70 percent of what people were making before the Democrats waved a shiny object in front of our faces and convinced us there was a pandemic.

MNUCHIN: We want to have something which pays people about 70% wage replacement, which I think is a very fair level.

 This jackass thinks he can say what's a “fair level" of wage replacement for the unemployed.

Even during the boom times of early this year, most people couldn't survive a 30 percent income reduction. The national rate of unemployment is 11.1 percent. That's about 17,750,000 Americans. Mnuchin said it could've been much worse, so he wants a cookie that he won't share with the serfs.

MNUCHIN: People thought we'd have 40 or 50 million unemployed. The good news is we never got anywhere like that. Matter of fact, we've created and brought back an enormous number of jobs.

Mnuchin wants to get kids back to school "where it's safe" and workers back to the jobs. Let's kickstart this economy in time for the election! People will eagerly hop over the piles of dead bodies on their way to the polls.

@thehill 70% wage replacement when you make $7.25 an hour is starvation and homelessness. Just so you know.

— jleecsmither (@jleecsmither) 1595720775.0 

It's unclear if this is a Trump edict or a personal quirk but Mnuchin keeps talking about the economic collapse as a “technical problem," like there was a computer crash instead of a global pandemic.

MNUCHIN: There was a technical problem where we were in an emergency time so we instituted this quickly, and in certain cases, people were paid more to stay home.

Everyone should've been paid to stay home and not spread COVID-19 all over the place. It wasn't a stay-cation.

MNUCHIN: We're not going to use taxpayer money to pay people more to stay home.

The unemployed are taxpayers. It's their money, as well. The people Republicans think are just sitting on their asses all day will either spend this extra money, which is good in a consumer-driven economy, or save it for the many rainy days ahead. That's also good. When this virus is contained or there's a vaccine, you want people out there spending money at restaurants, movie theaters, and bars. What does Mnuchin think the economy will look like next year if almost 20 million Americans can't make rent or have defaulted on their mortgages?

The Republican position isn't just evil. It's short-sighted. As Nate Silver tweeted last week, it's an election year and they should want to “stimulate the livin' eff out of the economy," but Republicans genuinely believe they can starve workers into submission and generate a temporary mirage of economic recovery.

It won't work and people will suffer and die as a result. That's the story of most conservative economic theory.

 Stephen Robinson on  Twitter.  

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