Conservatives gutted the social safety net. Now, in a crisis, they're embracing it.

[Zorro]

Throughout his term, President Trump has chipped away at the social safety net, proposing budgets that gutted housing assistance, food stamps and health insurance for the poorest Americans. When Congress rejected those cuts, the Trump administration enacted rules to make it harder to access federal benefits, such as requiring recipients to work.

Now, with businesses shuttered, workers laid off, and scores more worrying about buying groceries, being evicted and getting sick, the swelling need for federal assistance has forced even conservative lawmakers to embrace government protections in a series of sweeping stimulus bills.

Under the $2 trillion stimulus deal reached in the Senate early Wednesday, Republicans are proposing sending direct cash payments of $1,200 to individual Americans, an idea that, on the surface, echoes former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s universal basic income platform. They want to bolster the unemployment insurance system after many GOP-led states spent years enacting restrictive criteria and reducing benefits.

“Anybody who is a moderate-wage worker who just experienced an economic lockdown in their state is in distress. Most people don’t have savings,” said Robert Rector, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that guides much of the Trump administration’s policymaking.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/25/trillion-dollar-stimulus-checks/

[gratuitous]

1. "Most people don't have savings"

Well no shit, Sherlock. But thanks to the Heritage Foundation (I suspect Robert Rector is still drawing regular pay) and its ideological allies, wage earners have not seen an uptick in their income since the early 1980s while their productivity has increased several fold. Where did all that wealth generated by labor go, if not into the pockets of the workers?

[UpInArms]

2. Their heads have been under a rock for years

Ultimately, the researchers landed on a plausible explanation for both the discrepancy and why so many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck — debt. Many of the people who have $400 or more available to them likely have already earmarked that money for another obligation (and so, in other words, the cash isn’t really available to them).

[malaise]

3. Look who's getting the virus

Follow the money

[Hoyt]

4. Better late than never. I believed we'll see a number of positive changes

from this, including a big win for Dems in November.

[Turin_C3PO]

6. Yeah some analysts

are predicting the end of the Reagan-era. They’re saying this pandemic has the possibility to usher in Scandinavian style safety nets. That would be nice but I’m still a bit skeptical.

[cojoel]

5. more conservatives would support the social safety net if...

it was limited to only white people

[justhanginon]

7. Sad but unfortunately true.