Donald Trump pledged Wednesday to send every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections, an extraordinary gambit to reverse his party’s sagging fortunes in November.
The dubious promise would likely cost more than $1 trillion and require congressional approval, and would further exacerbate the country’s nearly $1.8 trillion annual budget deficit and concerns about inflation.
It doesn’t have to be complicated. Actually collecting taxes from billionaires would likely be enough for both, but I’d rather see good policy over a one time bandaid (even as someone that can’t currently pay rent.)
Where you get the funds is irrelevant to the conversation, I am trying to understand the mind of somebody who genuinely believes complicated, means-tested tax breaks is better policy than literally just giving people checks with your party’s name on it.
I assumed this was like cable-news poisoned boomers who like free healthcare and not haulling their neighbors off to concentration camps and not blowing up school children in Iran, but had it drilled into their head that complicated, means-tested healthcare for the deserving is more feasible, and having ICE politely escorting their neighbors into a van out of view is more realistic, and waging the war more competently is electable.
But someone who genuinely wants the enshittifed-until-they-help-nobody versions of good policies is baffling to me.
When I was growing up (in a very conservative environment) means tests were usually sold as being both fiscally prudent, because giving benefits to someone who doesn’t truly, desperately need it is wasteful spending; and civic-minded, because all that money that money that was saved can go toward some other vaguely-defined government expenditure. The cost-benefit analysis never really came up, it was just taken as given that means testing would reduce the number of recipients and therefore reduce the overall cost. It truly did not occur to me that means tests might not be worth the cost of implementing them until I got to college and met my first leftist.
I think the notion that means tests increase efficiency and reduce costs is a pretty widespread one, even among left-leaning folk. And Americans IME are very suspicious of giving something to someone without any preconditions or strings attached, unless they know the recipient personally.