Trump Eyes His Own Covid Stimulus Plan
President Donald Trump is looking to take matters into his own hands with an executive order.
Trump wants a suspension of the payroll tax, an extension of federal unemployment benefits with cuts the Republicans want, an eviction moratorium, and another round of individual stimulus checks.
“I will do it myself if I have to. I have a lot of powers with respect to executive orders,” said Trump despite the fact he has no constitutional basis to do so.
Perhaps this is some ploy to get Democrats to negotiate. Regardless, threatening unconstitutional actions to get what you want is not a good plan.
Mish
Well he has now done it, and the Democrats cannot oppose without major backlash from the public. Everything he did benefits the people and that is the way it will be seen. Pelosi must have her panties all the way up her couch….
Trump 1 Democrats 0
so much for power of the purse and the constitution
Should be interesting to hear Barr’s interpretation of Congress’ Power of the Purse
So much for Congress and the “Power of the Purse”
Mish, why don’t you be honest and say there is no constitutional basis for any executive orders done by any Presidents? And yet we have had plenty of them. If you want to abolish executive orders all together I am with you, but if you want to play politics and say Trump is evil for using them when every other President has done the same then you have no credibility.
It was Obama who was widely applauded for, “If Congress won’t act then I will.”
I’m hearing chatter about critical infrastructure attacks coming this fall. This is straight out the GRU and Russian government playbook. They have disrupted many elections in places like Ukraine, Georgia and elsewhere in eastern Europe. We should expect power outages and chaos come election day to cause confusion and limit voting. If Trump wants to stay in power I think this may happen sooner then election day. We are already seeing the postal service slow down which will impact voting by mail. Next will be limiting voting in critical regions in swing states on election day. This could happen by causing power outages as happen in Ukraine a few years ago during their election.
….which reminds me of the 2014, CIA orchestrated coup in Ukraine to get rid of the democratically elected pro Russia president, even Blackwater mercenaries there heating up the situation…. Tell me something about ‘playbooks’ !
Wasnt democratically elected. Russia hacked that election too.
FB what have you been smoking? I do not agree with you much but always considered your posts as at least rational – if heavily biased to the far right till this one.
It was russian bullets that killed the 88 people in Euromaidan Square because the PEOPLE did not want to be aligned with russia and wanted instead to align with the EU. And if you have ANY evidence, even one single shred other than your tinfoil hat raving that the US or CIA was in any way involvolved then supply it.
Maybe we ought to go to russia nad ask Mr. Yanukovych since it is there that Tsar Vladimir set him up in sybaritic comfort after he did his best for russia and not Ukraine.
Maybe it was the CIA that put pure lab made dioxin into Mr. Yushchenko’s dinner? Just to discredit russians. “…The 2004 TCDD levels in Yushchenko’s blood serum were 50,000-fold greater than those in the general population.”
“The Ukrainian Supreme Court called for the runoff election to be repeated because of widespread electoral fraud in favor of Viktor Yanukovych in the original vote. Yushchenko won in the revote (52% to 44%). Public protests prompted by the electoral fraud played a major role in that presidential election and led to Ukraine’s Orange Revolution.” So, we should refer to the Ukrainian supreme court as the CIA now?
I watched the square from live web cams, start to finish, almost every waking hour towrds the end, and saw the violence that was inflicted on the Ukrainians, despicible. And RUSSIAN!
If you are referring to the Orange Revolution of 2004 then once again please provide ANY source materials that show the CIA “orchestrated” this. It was a popular uprising that ousted him with the people of Kiev taking to the streets, even then they know he was a russian puppet, just as they did in 2004. Blame the CIA where that is due but stop with blaming the CIA for everything you personally do not like. Tell me, was it some CIA plot to shoot down a civilian airliner filled with innocents? Was it the CIA that stole Crimea with russian military units? Was it CIA that calved of eastern Ukraine and started a decade long war in Donetsk? And if the CIA is so damned powerful in the region why is Transnistria still sucking Putin’s nether regions?
Frankly FB you just lost all credibility with me and I am sure some others who read your tripe.
Nice people you trust and hang with. Viktor Yanukovych has been dirty his entire life, has never been anything but a russian stooge, and has no ethics other than making himself rich, no morality whatever, no number of people murdered will ever stand in his way to wealth, and so just like his master Putin he has no valid claim to anything other than a hangman’s noose.
If we are talking abiut THAT CIA then okay, even if the CIA took a position on who should prevail and I am pretty sure it did though without being in any way involved, then more power to them because the alternative would be Tsar Vladimir and his FSB that did get very involved in the murders of thousands in respect to Ukraine. And that is the side you like? It would be a lot more fair to say that Brussels had no business trying to seperate Ukraine from Puttin’s new and improved USSR with it’s broad cooperation agreement with the EU in 2014. That was just one step too far for Puttie, who saw the EU carving up the old USSR. Absorbing frst the Baltic states, now Ukraine, next Moldova and Belarus.
Central Banks are still printing fresh ones though. I try to keep some money at home, just in case of bank shutdowns, etc, and as recent as two weeks ago, my bank was giving out fresh 100 bills through their ATM machines.
Trump’s plan is clearly superior in every way.
He’s not going to make a constitutional issue of it.
It’s just his way of pointing out what utterly useless and inhuman slimeballs our congress is infested with.
D and R BOTH, the swamp is the ONE truly bipartisan aspect of our gov.
While we have this guy, probably 4 more years, I hope as many heads roll as possible from BOTH sides of the imaginary aisle in the ’20 and ’22 elections.
How does the kool aid taste?
Trump is as much a bog monster as the rest of them. It’s a testament to myopia to not see that at this point
Magoomba!
(Just had to say it!)
Yeah, I’m on the side of constructive revolution though have no hope of it transpiring. The Republic is basically done and dusted. Maybe a 4D chess magician will pull rabbit out of hat, maybe a huge upset leading to rapid paradigm shift in a matter of months, but other than that, looks like the Swamp is there to stay, and the Constitution has only a few years half-life left.
That’s when the people screaming the loudest now will find out that they are the first who will be thrown under the bus in any brave new totalitarian world they pushed so hatefully for!
“The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.” – Henry K.
If you read news closely about USA wars and finance, you might conclude the constitution does not mean much to the Republicrat uniparty.
Clueless as he is, there is actually one things that could possibly be constitutional and that is a suspension of the payroll tax using his pardon powers. Although congress imposes the taxes, the President can pardon non-payers. And since he is head of the Executive branch he might have the executive power to direct the Social Security Administration to return payment and/or cease collecting the tax. That would completely bypass congress.
He certainly does not, however, have the executive power to extend unemployment, prevent eviction, or send stimulus checks.
The dollar would turn into toilet paper if effectively said no one has to pay payroll taxes.
“The dollar would turn into toilet paper”
No, you divert the printed money from business subsidy to people, and the ones that pay the most regressive tax that exists (high incomes don’t pay it). Government has no business bailing out business. When you bail out a business at the expense of taxpayers, you have to ask yourself what actual persons are being bailed out. Mostly the wealthy.
“doesn’t mean that the taxpayer ceases to owe it.“
Your example wasn’t a tax pardon.
The SSA ceases to collect and/or returns money so that the taxpayer owes it. It is illegal to owe taxes, and you are pardoning that illegals act, which means you will no longer owe.
He won’t do that. He doesn’t actually give a damn about the people.
He can stop the collection, but that doesn’t mean that the taxpayer ceases to owe it. Remember when another President reduced the withholding rates? He could do that, but in the end, instead of refunds, people owed taxes at the end of the year. How would people react when they fill out their tax return, and find they owe $3000 in FICA tax?
He’s desperate,Trump will be only the 2nd president in history to run for reelection in a permanently collapsed dead economy,he tried using plays from the Obama playbook,ie pretend everything is in “recovery,pretend everything is “booming”and maybe the sheep will be dumb enough to vote you in for a 2nd tour.Worked like magic for Barak,not so much for Mr. T!
A downturn caused by a Pandemic would normally be viewed as inevitable, and non-preventable, and thus couldn’t be blamed on a President. The only way you could blame the President is if he took ownership of the downturn, by making statements like “We have it completely under control” or “Poof it will vanish on it’s own”, instead of taking it seriously and preparing for it as best he could.
“Congress is still bickering over a Covid relief bill, so Trump proposes taking matters into his own hands.”
He learned it from Obama, who learned it from FDR
Obama had 276 in 8 year. Trump 176 in less than 4.
Obama’s 276 presidential signing orders never once took any action that seriously appropriated funds. That is the constitutional mandate of the US House only. No federal authority to spend is vested in any other part of government.
In fact mostly they were things like recognition of certain persons for deeds rendered to the US and to stop or end certain practices like blocking access to clinics.
Here is a full list of all of them, please read and find anything even REMOTELY like what the dumpsterfire is proposing to do:
In fact congress bickering, or what we call gridlock is a constitutionally valid method of the minority trying to get it’s own way politically and you all should know this since the GOP did it so much when it was in the minority. The fact is that republicans in congress actively blocked every single thing, nomination, spending proposal, change to legislation, recomendation, every single executive branch effort to actually run the nation as president. That is WAY WAY different from simply the two parties disagreeing over covid relief.
The only reason the orange assclown is making this threat is he knows early voting begins in the key state of PA next week and his chances to get elected will sink there if this is still not settled by then. And since that is all he cares about he is going to attempt it, and if he does he will be impeached again during an election. It is utterly illegal, and it is one thing to rub out a few private enemies I suppose, or use the office for vast personal gain, but treading on congressional prerogative by declaring oneself king is really going to piss off a lot of people.
Obama had to resort to presidential signing orders because that was FORCED on him by the GOP who simply blocked all effort to administer the nation as we duely elected him to do. It was the goal of the GOP to gut his presidency and his legacy.
This is just Jabba the Trump attempting to save his own ass over one issue.
Gridlock is the only thing keeping the US from destroying itself. I hope for as much of it as possible.
A lot contained in your post.
I will start off by noting that Trump hasn’t actually issued the threatened Executive Order, and I doubt it is anything more than a bluff. He bluffs all the time.
Second, it is hard to justify unilateral executive action like DACA and joining the Paris Climate Accord when the Constitution requires that laws be made by Congress. Obama freely did those things on his own. You suggest that he didn’t spend significant money, but that is not true and would not justify the orders even if it were true.
Third, taking unconstitutional executive action because the other party wouldn’t agree to do the things the President wanted is just not justifiable. That is how unilateral action like FDR’s executive order putting US citizens of Japanese ancestry in concentration camps happens.
Yes there are times when gridlock happens. The Republican obstructionism of Obama was certainly no worse than the obstructionism of Bush by the Democrat House and Senate from 2006-2008. I actually like gridlock, as it stops government from doing its usual damage to the country.
When two parties can’t agree, it is standard politics to blame the other party for 100% of the failure. IMHO a President who knows how to get deals done would figure out a way to work with those on the other side, which sometimes means having to compromise; Tip O’Neil and Ronald Reagan seemed to be able to work together, as did Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton when they actually balanced the budget and eliminated the national debt.
Finally, just to be clear, I agree with you that Trump is a horrible President, but Obama was far from a good President himself. Shoving your agenda down Americans’ throats by using Executive Orders is just wrong, regardless of who is doing the shoving.
We will never know if history would have turned out differently because things went the way they did, you know as well as I do and everyone not in a coma at the time that the GOP blocked Obama at every single step every single day. And for everone here who says he was not a good president I would bet you $100 that if he could and would run for election this November he would win in a landslide of historic proportions, so how is it so many other people in a democracy can be wrong and you right? I know one thing, if he did run barred from taking office or not I would vote for him because even though I voted for McCain in 08 I came to appreciate his IQ and compassion, as well as professionalism. Trump could not have and would not have taken out Bin Laden, he probably would have called him a fine fellow and issues a standing offer of tea in the White House while his goons cranked up the old baby in cages thing and cut millions off of healthcare in a pandemic. Oh and charging taxpayers billions for new government buildings next door to his hotels.
Herkie, I respect your views, but aside from Obamacare, what do you think are Obama’s top accomplishments? What do you think he will be remembered for?
Just serviving the GOP onslaught should be enough, he, or should I say his race, was enough to expose the far right as hyperventilating fascists once and for all, and after 4 years of Trump the comparison in quality government could not be more stark.
I worry about the state of Florida which is so key to a win on eitherside. Trump is running some slick ads that appeal to fear (Hello 911, with a little old frail woman calling 911 as a big black burgler breaks the glass to get into her house, then a long set of menu options like press one to report a murder, press two to report a rape, etc. followed by a message to leave a name and phone number and the police department will get back to you as soon as possible, then says current wait times are 5 days) while Biden is running a voice ad where he speaks about how out of touch Trump is, and another ad by a PAC excoriating Trump for not believing in man made gloabal warming. I loath Trump and live here in FL, but I can see that Biden is simply not going to fight dirty on Trump’s level, so Trump may pull off a win in Florida.
By the way, Obama’s signing orders may have ended up costing 31 billion but that is a whole lot different from just sending out a trillion dollars worth of checks, presidents do have latitude to shift around a little funding here and there once it is already appropriated to the executive branch, and then in subsequent years those have a way of getting appropriations by congress, but Trump does not have the constitutional authority to simply declare a trillion in funds will go out the door to businesses and individuals, if he did Deutsche Bank would be solvent (and silent).
Lets go with Nancy Pelosi’s latest plan of $3.4 Trillion, that’s $10,300 +/- for every
person in the country. I’ll be checking my mailbox for the $20,600 for the wife and I.
My daughter and son in law will get almost $62,000.
Briliant!
You don’t seem to understand progressive math. Illiterate leeches on Wall Street, and in public unions, are the ones the $3.4 trillion is earmarked for. What you and your family are in line for, are higher prices and a greater tax bill. Something for everyone, you know….
$3.4 trillion like it or not, now matter how it gets distributed is what it would take to replace consumer spending and corporate capital investment for the rest of the year that has been lost to covid. Moreover it is a number that the Fed is urging congress to put out, in fact they would like even more sent out.
We here at Mish Talk all know that this level of borrowing, no matter the interest rate today, is just too high but the Fed has its reasons; there is a dearth of marketable securities in the economy and bidding wars are breaking out over what little is available, so with this scarcity almost anything called debt no matter the rating (or lack of) is causing havoc in the pricing of debt, thus the Fed’s control over rates. That is why they are urging much larger spending. They need generalized inflation to support their policy and are instead only getting certain sectors of more than 2% such as food costs. A full third of all debt is now priced at a rate that implies negative interest rates even before REAL rates are considered due to inflation.
But, the democrats knew the GOP would do everything in their power to lowball aid so started negotiations from a very high number so they would have room to maneuver down from there. The GOP knew that the democrats would want the kitchen sink thrown in so started with less than a trillion, both side using typical negotiation tactics there. But, the irony is the real deadlock has nothing to do with government appropriation or spending/debt levels, it is over immunity to lawsuits.
The GOP is protecting their Wall Street buds, their REAL constituancy, from getting sued when workers get sick or die after being forced to work in unsafe places. And it was not till the last week or so when Trumpsky the puppet got all militant over schools reopening that we understand why, because reopening schools WILL result in a lot of sickness and death and the suits will stagger the imagination as the dead mount. They would love to order unemployed people back to their jobs no matter how many deaths the same way they are ordering kids back into schools.
I agree with the GOP that $600 per week is way too much, but I see their end goal is to give the vast majority no other option for survival but to reenter the workplace without corporations being bothered by making those safe and without fear of getting sued when their employees get sick and die. For the GOP this is not at all about the COST! It is about the power to make corporate donors immune to judgements. So in that perspective I am on the side of the democrats even if they want to grossly overpay the unemployed.
He has dictator envy. After all, he ran his own company–why not the US?
Kim Jong Un, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Rodrigo Duterte, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissia–all good friends/lovers.
Just declare an emergency and move money budgeted for the wall to corona virus relief.
Just need to know were to send delinquent RENT INVOICES
or will IRS take RENT VOUCHERS for unpaid rents
maybe banksters will take these rent vouchers also
seems to me IF YOU VIOLATE CONTRACT LAW – you then BECOME LIABLE for said losses
glad to take govt to court in class action
We left the constitution in the dust back in March when Trump, the governors and mayors suspended the bill of rights by executive decree.
“He’s the head of a country, and I mean, he’s the strong head, don’t let anyone think anything different,” Trump said about Kim Jong Un during an interview on Fox & Friends. “He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.” About Xi, he said, ““He’s now president for life, president for life. And he’s great,” ” “And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday,” Trump said, “”Then, I have an Article II, where I have to the right to do whatever I want as president.”
How is it that so many people can’t see Trump wants to be dictator? He is not joking. He is not being sarcastic.
Deficit?
Seriously dude? You think it’s going to get paid or something?
Yes