- cross-posted to:
- us_news@lemmygrad.ml
The United States’ poverty rate experienced its largest one-year jump on record last year, with the rate among children more than doubling from 2021’s historic low of 5.2 percent to 12.4 percent according to new numbers from the US Census Bureau out today. They’re the latest data to reflect the devastating effects following the expiration of nearly all pandemic-era relief programs. That includes the end of Medicaid rules that protected recipients from getting kicked off because of administrative errors, an end to rental assistance policies, and the restart of student loan payments.
These policies might seem like a distant memory at this point. But they’re worth recalling with the arrival of every new report. Each demonstrates what happens when politicians long hostile to caregivers, universal health care, and the welfare state, for a brief moment, acted to create powerful, federally-backed safety net programs aimed at helping everyday Americans. One of the most effective programs to emerge was the expansion of the child tax credit, which provided families monthly checks of up to $300 per child and broadened eligibility rules for qualifying families. In turn, child poverty rates plummeted; the extra income allowed caregivers to quit grueling second and third jobs; parents were able to buy their kids decent clothes and help stop taunting at school. The Census Bureau previously reported that food insecurity dropped dramatically after just the first extended payment, from 10.7 million households reporting they didn’t have enough food to 7.4 million.
But as the pandemic receded, Republicans with the help of West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who in private remarks reportedly warned that families were using the extra income to buy drugs, appeared to remember the country’s longstanding pre-pandemic hostility. Their opposition ultimately tanked President Biden’s agenda, and along with it, the brief life of the expanded child tax credit. That’s something worth remembering today as the predictable crowd is likely to cry about Democratic-engineered inflation.
Joe Mansion and Christian Cinema are just this administration's Joe Liberalman. Aw beans, we wanted to do a good thing, but this one guy is gumming up the works! If only there was something we could do...
... like kick him off his committees. Pull his funding. Pull his endorsements. Revoke his party membership. Revoke federal contracts and close military bases in his state. Anything. Literally just change the rules! The Senate can do that!
And that's just moral, ethical, rules-and-order-and-norms stuff they could do. There's plenty of evil (but perfectly legal) shit the President can do. Pull Mansion or Sinema into the back of The Beast, and show them some live footage of a predator drone flying over their houses. Remember, Obama established that you can drone strike US citizens if you're the President!
The Senate can do that with a simple majority of votes. But when they need Manchin and Sinema to achieve that majority and neither of them are interested in helpful changes like fixing the filibuster, no. No they can't do that.
joe budden is in charge of the guns
But Democrats aren't the authoritarians in this country, whatever Republicans try to say.
Fucking lol
Is that why the cops in my very blue city in my very blue state got all these new tanks and robots since the George Floyd protests?
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A democrat funded group put this out:
https://www.thirdway.org/report/the-red-city-defund-police-problem
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so you're saying they can't get anything done, because they follow special, unwritten rules against getting things done. because getting a good thing done is bad.
another ringing endorsement to vote for the Democrats.
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Right, it’s my fault the planet is dying because I personally failed to recycle my .0000000001% of plastic waste that I didn’t ask to have produced
Everything would be fine if people like me just didn’t litter, no more pacific garbage patch!
Those starving children in Africa are only hungry because I’m neglecting my personal responsibility to donate to charities!
This historical moment didn’t arise from nowhere. It’s basically a straight fucking line for the last 90 years, the process is this way on purpose, the democrats are this way on purpose
This is the goal, not an accident
please visit the Organic Shelter blog website!!!! https://organicshelter.life
??
If we gave them a 52 seat majority, the two most conservative Democrats in the Senate would suddenly become Manchin/Sinemas.
Anyway, its not up to us to .serve the party with our votes. There is no ~doing our part~. Its up to them to earn it by being a useful party.
So you're saying we should support the democrats because when they get into power they won't try to get any the good things they want done done unlike the republicans who will happily stoop however low they can to get all the bad things they want done
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What good legislation? The Crime bill? Clinton's Welfare Reform? The Telecom deregulation? Repeal of Glass-Stegal? The resolution to invade Iraq? The Patriot Act? The bill Biden backed to keep people from discharging student loans through bankruptcy? Watered down ACA with no public option?
They never codified Roe. They never codified Ogerfell. They never did anything about Citizens United.
Edit: Wall Street bailouts in 08? Forcing people back to work during Covid? Not sending people the $2,000 they promised? That bill crushing the Railroad strike?
Why would I miss a day of work to vote for someone who is going to handicap themselves instead of using the tools at their disposal?
If dems kicked Mansion and Sinema off all committees, cut all discretionary funds flowing into the state, and Biden's AG indicted Manchin/his family for corruption and Sinema for campaign finance violations, then I could believe they genuinely wanted to pass the policies these people are blocking.
Instead the dem's actions are no different than if they opposed these policies.
They're authoritarians whenever a minority asks them to stop killing them but when it comes to opposing fascism that's when they slap the handcuffs on themselves and insist them doing nothing is the morally superior choice.
Do you think all the women that don’t have access to abortion while Democrats are in power right now think that?
please visit the Organic Shelter blog website!!!! https://organicshelter.life
These things hurt working class people, and are transparent retribution. They would hurt support for a democrat that decided to do it.
As if the feckless democrats aren't already hurting the working class lmao
I for one love when my nationwide rail strikes are crushed between daddy bidens big honking hairy legs
So the status quo is good for you? Better than trying to use leverage to force an old piece of shit to do something good for people?
edit: Actually having a spine would help support for dems in my opinion. But we'll never know if I'm right because the dems will never try that.
Unless there's a contingent of people who would actually support the dems if they adopted the strategy of "literally doing anything at all to oppose fascism"
Oh no, we don't want it to look like we're retaliating against fascists
Operating and maintaining the Death Star created hundreds of thousands of jobs for hard-working Imperial citizens.
Absolutely how the rest of the world thinks about the US military in general, this is great
oh no nert the jerbs
(Fun fact: jobs are NEVER an excuse for bad policy or for dodging consequences)