I remain fascinated by the expanded child tax credit case study & the implications for leftist policymaking. People received REAL financial benefit from it. It drastically cut child poverty rates and it was rescinded without a real fight. I think about this at least once a week.
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And we killed it
you have to maintain machinery or you will not be profitable.
making sure people are healthy and happy is so baseline for every frame of analysis. the fact that people are sleeping on the ground while we’re building spaceships is a skill issue.
Two thousand dollars was a fortune. It paid for things we desperately needed but couldn't afford, and it gave me a financial cushion for unexpected expenses.
They need us desperate, afraid of losing our jobs, and fighting each other. The powerful all serve capital
Occum’s razor: when you give people a temporary aid program, they expect it to be temporary, and aren’t going to fight hard to keep it even if it helped them.
But his whole concern the entire time is he didn’t want the money to go to extremely poor people! (Because he’s a coal baron sociopath)
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=Murphy+congestion+pricing&atb=v396-1&iar=news&ia=news
1. The car & oil lobbies are against congestion pricing because people take public transportation. Also car dealerships who are huge political donors.
2. Centrist Democrats try (and fail) to win votes of conservatives in the suburbs over anyone else.
(The reason being that public transportation has the stigma of just being for the poors)
Political parties are far messier than you'd think, I've seen politicians step on their own toes up close.
Also Dem voters are an extremely wide tent.
Manchin's voter base is very conservative for instance.
2) To get people on record.
We see the same issues come down to a vote multiple times before they get passed.
Republicans notably this time around are trying to pass the same things they tried a multitude of times (like the ACA repeal).
Sometimes people are bad at their jobs.
I am ashamed to say I am one of the people who was not aware it died. There just wasn't much said about it when it was happening.
No.
Be proactive about it instead of thinking. Thinking gets you nowhere.
the Left adores assholes.
The SPM doesn't check, it assumes.
I think the CTC expansion was good but what is going on here.
And by choice or still with their tax returns!
Effing stupid that it was stopped.
https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/family-tax-benefit-part-payment-rates?context=22151
Dems “SHhhhhhhhushhh, don’t tell folks about the good policies and programs because the republicans will go after them.” Public “WTF you talking about? I wonder where this money came from. 🤷
The problem is that people with wealth are rejecting more equality intentionally
They *want* people (esp. those who look different than them) to be poor and miserable, so they can feel superior
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/a-disease-of-affluence/
https://bsky.app/profile/scottsantens.com/post/3lckzcleo7s24
This type of "knowledge production" is itself part of the institutional logics that inhibits sustainable changes.
I was shocked how many didn’t talk about it until asked
This is why Republicans have been able to boil the frog slowly since Nixon was elected in 1968. Every now & again they turn the heat up, which only highlights Dem cowardice.
Politicians will not save us.
https://www.timeswv.com/news/local_news/sen-joe-manchin-helped-kill-the-expanded-child-tax-credit-now-more-west-virginia-kids/article_35fb056e-58b3-11ee-953d-c722a348224e.html
I mean, maybe in WV they did...🤷♂️
They didn't go out and raise hell about it and publicize what rescinding it would mean.
They just kinda...went along with it.
Plus Gen Z bros rarely have children. For them, child poverty is another weapon to beat up women.
I think that’s true to an extent, but also insulting to those who are voting with a long-term, multi issue, mindset who do value it.
It didn’t help middle class white men so you know why it just had to go
Having dems in power pacifies "the left" and makes them engage a lot less with causes. Even though dems are better in terms of policy on some stuff.
We had 1 eligible child and that extra $250 was used to enrich her life. I spent $100/month on riding lessons and the rest went to clothes, shoes, and extra healthy snack options.
It doesn’t seem like much, but it was so helpful
…
Bc we qualified for reduced lunch, we got P-EBT benefits. We don’t qualify for EBT, but every school break we got benefits on the card
It was around $150/week
It saved us.
I used them for groceries and gave the cash I would have spent to local hunger and reparations orgs.
It helped even tho I didn’t need it.
I know a lot of people that received benefits for various things during the pandemic that did the same.
I was just so happy not to be doing mental math and fighting back tears in the grocery check out
Free breakfasts and lunches at school have freed up not only money for me, but time in making lunches and figuring out if we need more supplies; as well as mental energy - where’s the lunch box? Is it clean? Etc
The $$$ savings is a tiny part of the benefit for me.
I know we weren’t the only ones.
My youngest was only 7 when the pandemic started and having 30 minutes once a week where she could enjoy a hobby was so good for her mental health.
And knowing that we had P-EBT to supplement our food budget was life changing
I added it up and total for the whole time we received P-EBT it was maybe $4000/3 summers and 2 spring/winter breaks.
That was enough to keep up with her growing feet and pants length, pay for 1 weekly lesson, keep her in craft supplies, and keep her personal snack drawer full of healthy options.
People really underestimate what a hand up can do
On top of that, Manchin did not care that it helped lots of people because the politics for him were bad and...
Same reason our child care and early care & education sectors are broken (have been for decades)
The credit expired when the Covid relief legislation expired.
Dems fought to extend it but the REPUBLICAN MAJORITY in Congress struck it down.
Pelosi & the Dems were all over the news talking about it but people didn't pay attention.
Without OSHA there is no one saying a 9 yr old needs safety gear to clean our the meat cutting machines, that the shouldn't be working in a factory 14 hours a day, they should not be forced to become a new underclass.
Give them a check instead and then see pushback on taking it away.
Many of us did push back but not many in power
https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-families-receiving-monthly-child-tax-credit-payments-can-now-update-their-direct-deposit-information
I think about that a lot
People don't seem to pay attention to what really matters and allow themselves to get distracted by the Jerry Springer theatrics that Tr*mp kept pulling...They're eating the cats!
There is a special place in hell for those 2 shitheads and all R’s
I think they're going to kill a lot of people this year. They've shown, openly and clearly, they don't value our lives.
https://www.sealpress.com/titles/emily-callaci/wages-for-housework/9781541603516/
if republicans had a 50-50 senate, they’d also listen a lot to an r senator from a d+20 place