A good chunk of the media is reporting that Mnuchin and Romney* are both talking Emergency UBI — $1000/month to every American. You know, the thing Andrew Yang was right about. (Though they are quite possibly jumping the gun on Mnuchin, and completely messing up with Romney. But that they’re reporting it like this matters a lot, and we’ll see why later in the diary.) A few of The Squad have talked about it, along with Adam Schiff, but Kamala Harris is pushing her LIFT Act** which only gives $500/month and leaves out a lot of the poorest folks. Most of the other Dems are silent on it as far as I can tell.
In an update, I can say that Romney is not talking about an ongoing payment — but headlines are talking about it in the same breath as UBI. They're showing the direct cash payment to a Republican idea. That's a problem.
As for Mnuchin, right now the press is also reporting the White House’s efforts in the same breath as UBI. As far as I can find, we have no solid indication whether they are planning a one time payment or and ongoing payment, we only know that direct cash disbursements to taxpayers is being considered.
Because of the way it's being reported, because Democrats didn't propose it first, the White House is getting credit. This is why I say the dem leadership is in danger of being outflanked.
A bigger danger is that if the GOP actually do it, and by that I mean an actual, ongoing, UBI, it’ll be immensely popular and possibly lead to a Trump win in 2020. Dems will have been asleep at the switch unless they get out ahead of this NOW and endorse an Emergency UBI, if not a permanent UBI. The GOP is already getting credit for direct payments. See:
[/updated part]
And don’t give me “how can we pay for it.” Big business recently got themselves in trouble again and the Fed snapped their fingers and just gave them $1.5 TRILLION, enough for $1000 UBI for nearly 6 months. If we can do that for Wall St we can do that for Main St.
Bernie and Biden both, along with the entire freaking party, need to get out in front of this and call for UBI, preferably a $2000 / month / citizen UBI for six months, $1000/month thereafter if the disease is still going strong (and try to keep the $1000/month UBI going anyway when time is up). At a minimum it should be $1000/month/citizen for six months. Otherwise, if the GOP manages to pull off a UBI, then the GOP will own all the goodwill from those checks every month.
-JA
*Some places report Romney as proposing $1k/month, others just a one-time payment. TO BE CLEAR, an actual UBI means ongoing payments without means testing. If all he’s really calling for is $1000 then he’s falling short. UPDATE: He’s falling short.
** Kamala has since updated/replied to her tweet to call for additional aid, but we don't know what that will look like yet. I hope it addresses the LIFT Act’s shortcomings.
***UPDATE***
Bernie Sanders has apparently called for a $2000 a month stipend to all households? This supposedly happened just now on a Twitter live stream, which I tried to watch but my Internet wouldn't cooperate. Will update when I have more info.
Wednesday, Mar 18, 2020 · 12:48:39 AM +00:00 · JA Benson
Confirmed, Bernie is calling for $2000 per household immediately as a top priority. He’s also calling for Unemployment Insurance to be expanded and go to 100% of lost wages for the duration of the crisis and with a cap of $75k/year.