Here are 5 of the most significant proposals attached to the Senate's coronavirus stimulus bill

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Published 55 mins ago on March 23, 2020
By Alex Henderson, AlterNet

After the U.S. House of Representatives passed an economic stimulus bill in response to the damage that coronavirus is inflicting on the economy, the U.S. Senate under the leadership of Sen. Mitch McConnell worked on crafting its own bill. And Roll Call’s Niels Lesniewski has listed five of the things that are being proposed and could ultimately be included in the final version.

According to Lesniewski, one of them is “promoting charitable deductions.” A bipartisan group of senators, Lesniewski reports, is “reviving a proposal to create an ‘above the line’ deduction for contributions to charity. The expanded standard deductions in the most recent tax code overhaul law has led to fewer taxpayers needing to itemize deductions.”

The second of the five that Lesniewski lists is “allergy testing.” Republican Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas, Lesniewski notes, has “filed an amendment seeking to provide specific coverage for allergy diagnostic testing services under Medicare and Medicaid. Some of the symptoms associated with COVID-19 overlap with allergies.”

The third, according to Lesniewski, is “bond buying by the Federal Reserve.” And the leader of that bipartisan effort is a Democrat: Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey. That proposal, Lesniewski writes, would allow the Federal Reserve to “buy and sell investment grade corporate bonds and those issued by entities like state, county and municipal governments” — and none of the bonds would have a maturity under six months.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/here-are-5-of-the-most-significant-proposals-attached-to-the-senates-coronavirus-stimulus-bill/

Let me say that this is Bullshit........................

[Roland99]

1. ignores the $500 Billion checkbook to give to Mnuchin w/no oversight

[turbinetree]

2. I ignores everything except the BS................of really doing nothing, just to say they have a

by partisan bill of nothing.........................so that the media, can say see.....................

[Newest Reality]

3. So part of that means?

That implies we should rely on the altruism of those who have gained so much and more and more than that all this time and their sweet, tax-deductible charity, now? That is, in place of the kind of support we need as a result of our years of paying taxes in order that our government will keep a social contract, and their sworn oaths, to provide for our general welfare.

WTF and NO! I mean, charity is fine, but how do us paupers and losers in this deal get it? Whim? Fancy? Self-promoting philanthropy based on egotism?

Charity instead of help, resources and a bailout for the people who desperately need it? Ah, I have a list of choice expletives for that GOP application of their greedy, drooling tongues to the packed, Sphincters of Industry right now.

Is the base all good with gettin' them some charity, maybe, who knows, perhaps, from somewhere, ahh, but you are on your own?

These decisions have the potential to sow a lot of discord with those who are not practicing fealty to Dinosaur Conservatism and on their frigging knees in pious reverence of El Presidente Loco.