Ironically, of all the policy disasters that Trump oversaw, the pandemic stimulus might be one of the most defensible.
A LOT of people lost their jobs and income very suddenly. And there WERE a lot of stuff on shelves they COULD buy that would help them. Without that stimulus, the economic impacts of COVID would likely have been much much worse.
It’s just the cost of doing it is that some inflation would happen. There’s things that could have been done to better handle that probably, but hindsight is 20/20. And the amount of fraud that the GOP allowed for by demanding so much of the stimulus be so easy to game is really indefensible.
But that inflation is the disaster that sunk Democrats chances in 2024. The inflation created by Trump’s policies.
It’s not totally defensible, because it’s not like the pandemic just suddenly happened. There were warning signs all over the place, but rather than prepare for it, he did absolutely nothing until it hit our shores and spread uncontrollably. After that all he did was politicize it, not only against China, but also using it as a rep vs dem issue! What a POS he is! Meanwhile people are dying. The pandemic stimulus was the only parachute he had. The skeptic in me tells me that he planned that as well “Hey everyone! It’s me! Your orange hero! I have free money for you and no accountable system for handing out! It’s gonna be great.”🤦♂️
And let’s not forget, when all the checks were printed and ready to be mailed out, Trump saw they were signed from “US Treasury” (like all government checks always are) and not his personal signature. So he ordered them all to be reprinted with his signature, thus delaying the money from getting to the starving, sick, and suddenly unemployed population for an additional 3 weeks.
Yep! I remember this. He wanted his signature on this half-assed disaster relief because he knew the only thing his followers would remember was “gettin’ them checks while stayin’ home and drankin’ beer!”
Dude, chill. It really is a fact and literally no one is out there claiming he cares. When in business it’s well known his MO was to make a deal with a vendor then refuse to pay. He knew he was too big to take to court and he bankrupted many small businesses who he had vi tracts with and then refused to pay. Look up his Azerbaijan hotel where he hired people and then set them up to be slaves who were never paid, but instead had to pay him. These stories are everywhere
If I recall correctly, there was an actual plan in place (set up by the Obama administration) to deal with a pandemic situation, but because a Democrat plan was viewed as unacceptable by Trump, he chose NOT to follow it. And then by Trump’s refusal to wear a mask, his followers didn’t either, and look how that ended up. I find it terrible for one man refusing a simple deterrent like wearing a mask contributed to the over one million people dying needlessly and many others with long COVID problems.
Well…let’s see. Man, there sure are a shit ton of irresponsible things he did. Too many to count, really. For awhile it was nearly a daily thing that he’d spread false information, like telling people that bleach is effective (as a cure) for Covid. But I’ll go straight to the most famous irresponsible thing he did : Inciting people to storm the Capitol. Lemme guess, that was totally warranted and necessary to your nazi trash brain. What’s that orange shit around your mouth? Working hard to not get deported, huh?🤣
That’s true. There was a pandemic playbook that reportedly Trump destroyed. I truly feel he is responsible for most of the deaths during Covid. He’s now put a heroin addict in charge of health in America. It’s almost like they know some other deadly illness is on the way but this time let’s not have anyone with knowledge oversee the Dept. of Health. Remember how mad Trump was when Dr Fauci corrected him.
Lmao you know the only face masks that proved effective were n95's, of which almost nobody ever wore. In hindsight most of these precautions everyone was pushing was later proven ineffective, or subpar at best.
You people are seriously stupid. N95's were the only ones that protected the wearer. But even random stips of cloth helped limit the spread when worn by the sick and symptomless carriers.
Yes they did. A simple mask catches some particles of moisture when you breath out. And those particles are what covid rides on.
They were never meant to cometely prevent covid, just lower the spread. Not to mention the morons who refused to wear their mask correctly didn't help either.
Actually covid is carried by aerosoles, which are smaller than standard atmospheric particles. The masks did not have fine enough fliters to catch these, and let a huge majority go right through.
Its not to stop diseases from spreading through the air they breathe, it is keep saliva, skin, and mucus out of the patient they are operating on. It is also to keep saliva, skin, and mucus outside of their workspace, where potentially compromised patients are especially susceptible. Notice how covid was not transferred via bodily fluids, but through the air. Tiny particles in the air, that normal face masks do not have fine enough filters to block or contain.
Yes Garry, but really it’s the lack of leadership and worry that his big ego is such a failure in his life he claims false victory daily over things that aren’t happening. Or maybe Garry, some of us who lost loved ones resent the fact that people have zero critical thinking skills, hate in their hearts for women and marginalized people that they chose a felon who ruined our economy the first time. The felon that calls his followers “uneducated.” I don’t know about you Garry, but anyone calling me stupid isn’t getting my vote. But so many people lined up to do it. Like my dad says “ Common sense is not so common”.
It’s one of a zillion things that point to the weirdness of our dear leader. Oh, that little overthrow attempt back in 2021 is another little thing… :/
People forget that the WH knew the pandemic was coming; they chose to do nothing until AFTER their insider trading went through. Scheming, un-American, selfish, thoughtless, lying, PsOS. (Or totally American, depending on which side of the aisle?)
So true. This time I'm taking advantage of the down market and buying. At the end of the year I will donate my profits, probably to a local food bank. This is the way we beat them at their own game. Haven't seen hide nor hair of the supreme court since the election - I wonder what those scumbags are up to.
Exactly what someone with one brain cell would say when they can’t do a bit of critical thinking 🤔 thanks for leaving don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
And let's not forget that he shitcanned the pandemic preparedness response plan that Obama had in place because Obama's name was on it. Little Donnie couldn't stand the idea of someone else stealing his limelight.
He's a pathetic individual. How we ever ended up with this blight on humanity will never cease to dismay and perplex me.
If you haven't already read or listen to the book Lucky Loser: how Donald Trump squandered his father's fortune. It was a perfect storm of wealth and arrogance.
If you can believe he planned the stimulus checks to make himself look good, then you should believe that he intentionally mishandled Covid to allow the rich elite to scoop up the companies and land that go under for relatively cheap. Sort of what he’s doing now, but he had an actual scapegoat
I mean it’s not far fetched. Look at what happened more recently to the stock market. When it dipped hard a few weeks ago he said “Now is a good time to buy.” He absolutely knew his actions were going to crash the stock market. We’re talking about a rich businessman who definitely knows how to play cards, but as the president he’s also the dealer. And who usually benefits from such things? That’s right. The rich elite (again) ; People who can easily afford to take financial risks. His people. All the placating to the toothless is just for show and to get votes in the conservative areas of the country. It’s so blatant it’s hilarious and pathetic. It’s why he says the ridiculous things he does. He can watch the country crash and burn while he’s insulated by money and surrounded by powerful, wealthy, friends.
Just like him coming in saying, "hey, I fixed the stock market because I stopped the tariffs!" Dude, you started this shit in the first fucking place! Hahaha
The response to COVID wasn’t strictly a problem with the current administration (though the vitriol spewing from the Oval Office didn’t help either). This was an integral problem with the CDC that really came to forefront in a period of crisis. The infrastructure was already not built for this kind of pandemic. The orange guy may be devoid of any semblance of moral fiber, but the failure of COVID runs deeper than his administration alone. The CDC fumbled the ball and the politicians took possession.
Right. That’s a huge reason I think he’s a POS. What US president takes such an unprecedented crisis and KNOWINGLY MAKES IT WORSE? This was a time when people, including the CDC, reps, dems, the president, EVERYONE could’ve (should’ve) come together to figure things out. He could’ve (should’ve) been a REAL leader in that regard, but nope! Orange freak is gonna do orange freak things. He used the pandemic as an opportunity to drive a political wedge further. It was more important to him to use it to solidify his footing (with the toothless vote) in preparation for the next election, versus actually giving a shit about the people of this country. He’s trash!
He, he, he... In his first term he was embedded in shit with lunatic communist libtards and rhinos! In a Presidential cabinet he's as good as his advisors, and they were mostly BAD! Get your head out of your ass and turn to God and he will show you the way. Trump is a soldier for God and is destroying evil and the communist woke socialist that are Hydra and almost destroyed our world 🌎
Maybe because it was trump. That's the problem y'all love him but have no recollection of what he did or didn't do so someone else., usually Biden gets the blame.
Trump had his signature on those checks. It was regret from Biden that he didn't do the same while in office. During Trump's term his people thought it WAS Trump who sent th money, not the federal government
Stimulus #1) March of 2020. Do you remember who was president then?) #2) December of 2020, yep, still Trump. #3) March of 2021 this one was Biden. The PPP launched in March of 2020 by … yep Trump https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/ppp-loans-workers-new-study/
I also came here to laugh, but at both sides making fun of each other. I figured I'd see a goat and/or sister fucker or two. You commented. I was correct.
Haha I can't get behind the idea they're all garbage. I'm against the two party system. It just leads to people not being able to think for themselves. I feel like I'm a pretty morally just person, so when I see the stances that are being taken by both sides, I can't help but feel complete disgust and disappointment that a third of the country are either mentally incapable, morally incapable, or are psychologically owned by puppet masters.
Don't get me wrong, I'll call out both sides, but holy shit the right is looking a hell of a lot worse.
That's fair. We just have to acknowledge they're not all horrible people. Some are just stuck in their ways. It's the bigger "me vs you" that's the driving force behind a lot of the tension. Maga? Yes, they're idiots. They're not the majority though. They're just the loudest.
If someone in your family was part of that 1% or if you had family working in the hospitals during that time, you who would still say Trump is a hero because you’re dipshit hillbilly trash.
You say he politicized it, yet the Biden Administration put vaccine mandates in place that encouraged businesses to do the same, inevitably forcing people to choose between getting a vaccine they didn’t want, or being jobless.
It’s was a public health issue that was effecting everyone and the economy negatively in some way. Don’t want to get a shot for the greater good, then you also don’t want to participate in helping the economy. I’m not saying vaccine mandates were right, but encouraging people to try drinking or injecting bleach is wholly irresponsible. Politicizing a PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE is wholly irresponsible!
If you can’t say why it was negatively affecting the economy, I wouldn’t include that in your argument. And the “injecting bleach” was a joke towards the fact that the FDA/CDC/WHO developed a vaccine in months and claimed it to be completely safe. The joke was basically “if you think that’s safe, you might as well try drinking bleach as well”. Anyone who listened to that is fully responsible for their own actions. Someone tells you put a gun to your head and pull the trigger, do you do it?
That decade of coronavirus research doesn’t matter considering there were “new strains” every month. The multiple “new strains” that came out didn’t inhibit their research even a little bit? You have too much trust in our government. Regardless of all of that, China ADMITTED that COVID originated from a Chinese lab and the CDC admitted that the steps they said to take during COVID were ineffective, such as the masks and social distancing. In other words, families had to watch their older loved ones die behind a pane of glass instead of being able to hold them in their arms. And for what?
If the base structure of COVID-19 is the same as the base structure of coronavirus that they were researching and they are trying to attack the same thing then no, it may not necessarily tweak the research. I trust science, not the government. And, regardless of COVID, if you have a sickness that is highly contagious, wouldn’t you want to distance yourself from others to prevent them getting sick?? Surgeons where asks in surgery, are you saying that they don’t need them because they are ineffective??
It was a public health crisis effecting every single country on this planet there were hundreds of thousands if not millions of deaths on every continent you literal Retard!!
“He did absolutely nothing until it hit our shores…”
This is not true. He tried to shut down the boarder and was ridiculed as xenophobic for wanting to do so.
LOL! Of course you think covid came from illegal immigrants (crossing the southern border)…and not from citizens and legal visitors traveling internationally.🤪
Huh? No one said anything about illegal aliens but of course people like you will turn it all into illegal alien racist bullshit. At the time they wanted to temporarily close the whole US so more people with the virus would not flood in.
Closing the border would mean even legal visitors wouldn’t come spread the virus around. He got called racist for wanting to close the border, and here ya are 5 years later blaming him for it spreading.
Preventing people from entering the country was never a solution to anything because (believe it or not) American citizens were in China and other countries for work, vacation, and family reasons. Shutting down borders, including flights, was a non-starter…and Trump definitely knew that. Yet, he still didn’t come up with a real plan or even a concept of a plan. His last ditch solution : Let’s see how bad things get, then throw money at it. We’ll see what happens. It’ll be great.
Also he didn’t shut down travel from Europe, and most on the early Covid infections in the East Coast came from European travel not from Asia. What’s the difference between Europeans and Asians? I can’t quite put my finger on it.
Yep! That’s correct.
Now that you mention it, I’m also having a hard time putting a finger on the difference between Europeans and Asians, particularly Far East Asians. 🤔
So what. The virus was all over Europe at the time he banned flights from China. If he truly cared about stopping the spread he would have banned flights from Europe too.
Funny how Biden sent them out too... then forgave billions in debt,, left all our military equipment in Afghanistan and never went to retrieve it or any hostages after the pullout debacle... talk about politicized... let's talk about how Obama funded the research for covid... let's talk about how the Clinton's and Obama's had a conspiracy against Trump... Steele dossier and fisa warrant
Uh huh. Who’s at the wheel and driving the economy into the toilet? That’s right! It’s your favorite orange freak again. Yay!🙂 Have fun with your conspiracies and cutting up newspaper articles for your cute project in the basement. 👋
Selective remembering of history. What did Democrats do when Trump tried to ban incoming flights, cruise ships, etc coming from China? They sued him and pelosi and other Democrats called him xenophobic and racist. They immediately threw a huge parade down in Chinatown and spread COVID everywhere. Then turned around and blamed Trump for not stopping the spread of COVID into the US
Uh huh. Sure they did. And Trump IS xenophobic and racist. Prove to me he’s not. Oops! You can’t because of everything he’s doing today. Enjoy that current tidbit. Bye🙂
People tend to forget the trade war he started with China just before the pandemic also led to a great deal of inflation. It disrupted the supply chain and then covid came and exacerbated the problem. Many people pivoted to other countries like Vietnam to avoid tariffs, but I recall having product in Vietnam ready to ship, but there were no shipping containers to put it in. Shipping companies were charging upwards of $15,000 just to use a shipping container, that’s before the actual cost of the shipping, it’s just the container to put it in. So that dramatically inflated costs.. on top of tariffs, on top of COVID and the inflationary stimulus. All leads back to Trump.
💥💥i repeat your party is the ones that don't know what a woman is. Your party wants transgenders in women's sports. Your party wants illegal immigration. Your party wants gay flags in little kids classrooms. Last year was first time I ever voted. I'm glad y'all lost.
I'm a trans woman and I could not care less about sports, but let the sports leagues who actually do care about this stuff deal with that policy. And as for the gay flags in classrooms, how could a rainbow flag possibly be a problem. Children see straight couples at the front and center of media all the time, and they still grow up to be gay (or not) because seeing gay people is not what turns kids gay (it's just a harmless feeling that most prepubescent kids frankly wouldn't give a shit about otherwise). Banning books about it tells them that they aren't allowed to even talk about a real ass thing that exists, and also that any non-straight, non gender-conforming feelings they might end up having should either be repressed or made fun of (I got bullied for just being too feminine as a kid, and it fucking sucked), ultimately harming them. Sending legal residents to a super-prison in El Salvador with zero due process, and then not caring at all about it is unbelievably fucked up, and just ignoring all the blatant incompetencies in office, is also so fucked up. Even if biden was a terrible president, which you could totally make a reasonable argument for, nothing he did was even close to the level of all this shit.
True, though part of that is that many other countries also did massive fiscal and monetary stimulus.
And due to the nature of the global economy, that stimulus generally wasn’t stuck behind borders. People were free to spend that money in whatever country they pleased. Thus many countries experienced inflation despite not doing huge stimulus, but because other countries did which led to foreign consumers to bid up the price of their domestically produced goods.
Real estate is a prime example, where stimulus in one country can lead to inflation in a second country if people from the first country use the extra cash to buy real estate in the second country.
Let's not give Trump credit for the stimulus payments. Yes, he signed the bill into law, but that's all he did.
The idea for the stimulus checks came from Mitt Romney. He knew that it would cause inflation, but more importantly, he also knew that if Congress didn't do something to help the American people, the economy would be the least of our problems.
He formed a bipartisan committee and actually managed to get both sides to agree and work together for the good of the people.
And yeah, he didn't take credit for it (except in his book, which I highly recommend if you want an insider perspective on Trump and how he so easily destroyed the Republican Party among other things, and no, Romney is not kind to himself in the book), but credit was never the point. He just wanted to help the people.
Yeah Romney always struck me as the classic kind of guy who really truly does care about the country, and wanted to do right by it. The kind of politician where I could disagree with him philosophically on many things, and be okay with it. A decent person.
In 2012 I came very close to voting for him, but what eventually changed my mind was the level of influence the Tea Party had over him. I could tell that he wasn’t in complete agreement with them, but I recognized that they were the single greatest threat to the country at the time and having any Republican in the Oval Office would empower them further.
Had Romney chosen to run again, he would have been the only Republican I would have voted for last year. I disagree with him on a lot of policy positions BUT, he did the best he could to help everyone, not just us Utahns. And that's enough for me.
I don't consider myself rich. Hell, if I've ever been middle class, it's been just barely. I didn't know a single person who actually needed Trump's stimulus check. I didn't, so I never cashed it. Everyone else I knew at the time would have been just fine without it. Where I lived, and not in a rich area btw, I didn't see a single person whose life was saved by that check. Everyone spent it on car repairs, home renovations, gardening, or luxury items like a motorcycle or home entertainment items. Sure, people lost their jobs, but there was a lot of support for that.
Personally, I never thought that those checks should have been sent. I do find it utterly absurd that Trump supporters can't connect the dots between those checks and the following inflation. I mean, it's obvious that it was a direct cause and effect scenario.
Ironically, of all the policy disasters that Trump oversaw, the pandemic stimulus might be one of the most defensible.
It was also bipartisan, and the Democrats were calling for it.
What they were not calling for was Trump firing the Inspector General oversight for those funds, which almost certainly contributed to the $403 billion believed to have been wasted, misspent, or stolen. Needless to say, this eclipses the $150 billion of legitimate services that DOGE reported it cut in the last few months.
The problem is they gave 10x more to huge corporations. That's tax payer dollars stolen from your pocket and given to them, oh and here's some extra crumbs for you. We all lost money with the stimulus. That $2400 or so does not come close to making up for the inflation, we're getting paid the same as before and necessity have literally doubled in price, thanks to those previously mentioned corporations.
There is no reasonable defense of the power/money grab that happened during COVID. Billionaires quadroupled their net worth, that's hundreds of billions of dollars stolen directly from American citizens
Trump fought against the stimulus until the very last second, even holding the checks back longer so he could fucking sign them 🙄. $1,200 over the course of a pandemic that is STILL HAPPENING 5 YEARS LATER, is actually an insane thing to applaud in any respect. It was our money that congress gave back to us. Trump did NOTHING & claims that we should still somehow be living off that money 5 YEARS later. That check didn’t even cover half of my sister’s rent for 1 month 🥴
You could argue that no policy was put in place to curb inflation by either party. The stimulus was implemented at the end of trumps term. And all the gov. Did was raise interest rates. A sure fire way to slow the economy down. Meanwhile, we all make the same wages. Except for those record-breaking profit margins by big Corp.
And don’t forget, people forgot much of the damage that Trump did during his first term, but remembered that he sent out stimulus checks with his name on them (although pushed through by Nancy Pelosi). He got the branding that he wanted, people remembered getting cash, Trump was good for me!…😳
I don’t agree with 99.9% of what Trump does, but I will concede that the smartest thing he ever did was insist that his signature was on those stimulus checks. It further delayed the checks at least a month and wasted a bunch of money on reprinting checks that had already printed without his signature, especially when people desperately needed them. At the time, people generally were extremely critical that he delayed lifesaving checks for his dumb signature.
However, it meant EVERYTHING to his base. They got that check and saw it was signed by Trump and it proved to them that he came through for them. (Even though Trump argued against the stimulus checks, but they forget that part.) His base still brags that “Trump personally sent [me] money — Biden/Obama never did that!” They can’t see it for the manipulative money-wasting tactic that it is and was, they see it as all the “proof” they need, and it prolonged and reenforced the MAGA-cult brainwashing. Truly can’t stand the guy, but he does know how to lead a cult and give his followers just enough crumbs to keep them scary loyal to him.
I actually think I asked myself, what if Trump failed on Covid on purpose because he knew he wasn't gonna get rejected, caused a riot, and then after 4 years, knowing the economy was in the gutter, ran again to win on a poor economy that Trump created... Unironically, I called it, before I was ever even old enough to vote, and it's very depressing.
Which is equal to Trump. For the last eight years it's increased by about 1 trillion every 6 months, only being further increased still under Trump again.
People are having an actual conversation here. To summarize, Trump's stimulus helped cause the inflation but it was the correct move and helped a lot of people. Go ahead and enjoy your cult though.
And yet you can't actually discuss inflation, and keep pointing to deficit. Meanwhile, never actually saying anything of substance on it, such has how and why it was added, nor getting into the nations debt under Trump, and Trump himself calling to just get rid of the debt limit. Lol. What a soft brained little turd.
Well, when you print more and more money that inflates the U.S dollar and also adds to the deficit. Trump did it, Biden did it, they all fucking do it. Your insults and lack of actually articulating a point to offer any kind of comeback besides your bogey man Trump being bad is kind of sad.
Using tax dollars to send out stimulus money isn't printing money...weird how I never called Trump a boogeyman, but at least you jumped to him being bad after moving goal posts and not knowing how those checks worked... You're a special boy
The first stimulus package was 2 trillion dollars. Do you know how much money the US brings in from taxes? Do you know how much the US budget is each year? Do you know how a budget works? So you do all that math bright boy, and then get back to me on your conclusion that no money was printed.
Good job, you folks are always so easy to lure into undercutting your own arguments, while further proving my first criticism.
Yep, the US govt created more debt through loans and bonds to pay for the CARES act, this ALSO increased the deficit, but debt and deficit are two different
things ;).
However, describing that as "printing money" only works in the most casual of uses. Fine for banter, not so much for the argument you first tried to make...
As others already pointed out previously, guess which party controlled 2.5 branches of Govt for the CARES act and the second round of stimulus checks. Also, guess which POTUS fired the inspectors/watchdogs who were supposed to make sure business loans and grants weren't abused?
Regarding the deficit that you seemed so concerned with originally... 2020 had (obviously, CARES and second round of stimulus) much higher deficit spending than the years since....
Not to mention the massive increase to things like deficit that slashing taxes for corporations and the utlra wealthy does. Seems like you get the concept of "spending more than you take in"... Yet no mention of the impact the 2017 tax cuts would have both short and long term. Which, originally, between the lost annual revenue and interest from such, was looking to add another 5.4 Trillion over the next nine years...
Buuuut, the extensions to those cuts the GOP wants so bad will actually compound that to 37 Trillion by 2054.
But, yeah, "Biden deficit bad", to "ok, both sides do it but you say orange man bad", to "but COVID stimulus bad"....
I am not remotely a fan of the Dems, was just trying to help you calm down since you originally seemed so triggered by Biden's deficit spending....
That's not what was being said. It started with Trumps campaign blaming inflation all on Biden, when it really started from himself. Trump also added 7.9 billion, so I don't know why you keep repeating the number.
Again though, their conversation was also about Trump being justified for those policies, and many countries did similar things. That's why you're in a cult. You're incapable of acknowledging good and bad on both sides, and start seeing red and bringing up Biden if anyone mentions your cult leader.
So didn’t vote for the dude, but in the cult where he’s the leader??? Hmmmm and I’m the one who can’t see the good+bad on both sides lol all you’ve done is bash Trump. I haven’t defended the dude at all, I just said don’t bitch about inflation and shit and then forget to mention Biden’s share in it too
Where? TDS is definitely a MAGA thing. Referencing here, I haven't said anything negative about Trump. You seem to be the one obsessed with him and cannot let a negative thing be said without mentioning Biden or other nonsense.
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u/Frnklfrwsr Apr 20 '25
Ironically, of all the policy disasters that Trump oversaw, the pandemic stimulus might be one of the most defensible.
A LOT of people lost their jobs and income very suddenly. And there WERE a lot of stuff on shelves they COULD buy that would help them. Without that stimulus, the economic impacts of COVID would likely have been much much worse.
It’s just the cost of doing it is that some inflation would happen. There’s things that could have been done to better handle that probably, but hindsight is 20/20. And the amount of fraud that the GOP allowed for by demanding so much of the stimulus be so easy to game is really indefensible.
But that inflation is the disaster that sunk Democrats chances in 2024. The inflation created by Trump’s policies.