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.
How about we tar and feather him instead of thanking him?
I mean, he loves coal so much, let’s drench him in it’s byproduct.
But what about mah civility and norms?!?!
I just continued an exhausting comment chain from a “vote blue no matter who” Bidenite liberal who had nothing else to argue but “harm reduction.”
WHERE IS IT BEING REDUCED?
WHERE?
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!
Revoke federal contracts and close military bases in his state.
These things hurt working class people, and are transparent retribution. They would hurt support for a democrat that decided to do it.
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
Anything. Literally just change the rules! The Senate can do that!
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.
please visit the Organic Shelter blog website!!! https://organicshelter.life
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.
No. I’m saying that they can’t get things done until we do our part. We have to give them a majority that can make people like Manchin irrelevant. It’s our fault that things are like this, not theirs. Operating within the rules and not pursuing their lust for power is just one of the reasons we ought to be helping them attain that majority.
There’s plenty of blame to go around. The current political climate and the restrictions they’re operating under is not something that can reasonably be blamed on the White House or the current Senate Democrats.
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
Operating within the rules and not pursuing their lust for power is just one of the reasons we ought to be helping them attain that majority
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
Are you seriously going to ignore the good legislation Democrats have passed in the last twenty years and say shit like that?
Go away.
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.
There’s absolutely nothing the democrats could have to prevent this. It just wasn’t possible. If they had dared to try instead of talking about the importance of a strong republican party and the importance of compromise the parliamentarian would have immediately impeached Biden.
Make sure you vote blue no matter who. They’ll definitely do something next time
the parliamentarian would have immediately impeached Biden
the parliamentarian doesn’t have the authority to do that but still
The parliamentarian doesn’t have the authority to do fucking anything its some unelected beurocrat nobody had ever heard of until liberals needed a fresh excuse to not do anything.
That’s the entire point
I forget, is Joe Manchin president, or Joe Biden? Some liberal experts with knowledge of civics and critical thinking, please enlighten me.
I am not a “liberal expert”, but am generally familiar.
The president can’t do anything they want, forever.
Biden used an executive order to enact a bunch of assistance programs during the end portion of covid. Included in that were things related to this topic.
Executive orders are temporary, and exist to allow the president to make fast adjustments to hopefully help people out or protect the country, on lots of topics. For example, if the president believes there is an imminent security risk, they can mobilize the military for a short time without Congressional approval.
If it seems like a topic that should be continued (like this one), Congress takes the issue up for a vote. Only Congress can make longer term budget decisions.
In this case Joe manchin campaigned on being aligned with this type of issue, and being aligned with Democrats on a variety of core positions. On several occasions in his career he has gone against this alignment at critically painful moments, and sided with republicans. Essentially not acting as he advertised. With Congress being closely split, his vote really matters.
So bidens temporary appropriations are now ending, and Congress didn’t continue them when it was expected they should be able to.
If Biden tried to just order it again, it would be struck down in courts due to this vote. This is an example of the balance of power between executive, representative, and judicial.
Biden is literally the most powerless person ever to exist while Trump was a dictator, even though both guys occupied the same political office. I am extremely intelligent.
Dunno about that but you’re just another hb kid, cya
Today you learned about separation of powers and that in spite of what Donald Trump told you, Presidents aren’t kings.
How did separation of powers apply in 2008 when Obama was president, 60 democrats were in the senate, and the SCOTUS was “moderate”? Why didn’t the democrats pass universal health care and codify Roe during that time? Oh yeah, because they’re controlled by the same white supremacist bourgeoisie that controls the republicans. Now you’ve learned about the existence of class struggle—congratulations! And you’ve also learned that you’ve taken the side of the global 1% versus the global 99%, so pat yourself on the back!
The person you’re looking for is Joe Lieberman. He took that 60th vote away which kept the filibuster going.
Congratulations!
Lol fuck your shitty do-nothing government system. You look like a nerd in high suspenders for pretending it can be saved
Oh wow how unusual, a hexbear user being an absolute useless pile of garbage, how unusual…
Death to america
Such an intelligent take
hating a country for starving its own children isn’t exactly a hard take to arrive at
Someday you’re going to get tired of the smell of your own anus and pull your head out of there
Can we fucking defederate from hexbear already? I’m so tired of these tween shitheads having the worst informed hot takes and trolling. Generally, I don’t mind a good trolling, I can appreciate the humor of it, but these guys don’t have any. They’re just fucking Edge Lords for the sake of it. Be gone
It’s not trolling to have different political opinions than liberals
Fun fact: when someone says “benefits will be used on drugs!”, that person is not a Democrat; that person is a fascist who “others” people for his own selfish gain.
Joe Manchin is literally a member of the Democratic Party, won the Democratic Primary for his seat with the majority of Democratic Party Primary voters voting for him.
Your shit-ass party owns this monster.
Yeah I dont think you understood the point.
You said Manchin wasn’t a Democrat even though he is. What point did I miss?
Nominal Democrat vs philosophical
I keep forgetting how shallow the genpub is with nuance and reading comprehension
What exactly is the Democrat philosophy LOL. They have no consistency. They are just the opposite stance of the republicans on any particular issue (except for sucking off their corporate sponsors), so they will left or right wing on different subjects. For instance they used to be the party of free speech, which is absolutely a leftist stance, but since the right wing has latched onto it, now the Democrats are no longer in support.
I am not a Democrat apologist, but Manchin consistently acts like a conservative Republican so there fire not a Democrat and I dont give a fuck what party is next to his name.
And free soeech rights DO NOT extend to genocidal Nazis and white supremacist shitbags. Those fuckers broke the social contract and as a result they get no rights. This has nothing to do with Democrats. The right wing DO NOT believe in free speech; they only believe in amplified fascist speech. They have openly censored the speech if others.
If you disagree with any if this, that’s fine…but you would be a liar.
You sound like a reactionary and you haven’t been paying attention. The free speech issues have spread WELL beyond the small population of Nazis and white supremacists, but go on with your straw man… I’ve seen videos of right wing journalists of asian ethnicity being attacked due to being a “Nazi”. Everyone you don’t like is a crypto Nazi, which is why your attitude is the fascist one. Unless they claim to be a Nazi, doing salutes and wearing swastikas, then they aren’t a fucking nazi. That’s why Germany has very specific laws about this.
Theres no such thing as a “philosophical” Democrat. They’re just a bourgeois capitalist party doing the bidding of their bourgeois capitalist masters.
Ill blame Manchin when the DNC does and opposes his reelection.
Dumb. He’s in a heavy red area and only has the seat based on family name. Any other Democrat would be steamrolled.
By who, someone that’s gonna oppose all their legislation? Oh thats Manchin already.
where are my stimulus checks?? the democratic party owes me money
where is my healthcare?
where is my loan cancelation?
why are billions being sent to ukraine?
why are the kids still in cages on the southern border?
why did you say covid is over?
Thank you for your trolling. Goodbye.
who opened the cages? Obama
who was president during Roe-Wade restriction? Biden
troll = someone who is left of me and correctly realizes the futility of electoralism.
Go cry to the others in your liberal echochamber
Bexbear: helthcare pls
Lemmy:
oh fuck they want us to become republicans
>thanks for trolling, goodbyeAh yes, silence a genuine grievance with “oh you’re trolling, shut up”
That’s so childish and dismissive it feels like a
skit
Democrats are useless bureaucrats who will never do anything good. Servants of the capitalist class, all of them, including the supposedly good ones like AOC.
Joe Biden owes me another stimulus check. Joe Biden owes me $20,000 in student debt relief.
Abolish the American capitalist class and immediately stop their ruthless destruction of lives and planet Earth
On the bright side, just think of all the cheap labor that capitalists will be able to wring out of starving kids.
