WaPo's Rampell gets it wrong again, essentially.

 Another response to Catherine Rampell's attacks on universal direct cash payments.

Please explain how it has become "clearer" who has suffered?  Some 50% of Americans have lost income, across all income levels but certainly concentrated among the poor.  But as these comments show, 2019 tax returns will not reflect that.  So yes, in general, it has become clearer, but I disagree that there is a magic wand to decipher who is deserving and who is not.  But making it, say under 150K, like the last round of checks, you only leave out about 10% of the population, so only incur about 10% of the cost.  Not only will people like me, in the top 10%, who have not lost income, use it to pay off debt for schooling, invest in my retirement, give to charities, get work done that we have been putting off, and etc. but I am totally fine with a small extra cost to make sure that no children are left hungry b/c of a virus.

Agree, we need to tackle the problem of people who are under-banked.  See Andrew Yang's proposal for NY as a start.

I think your argument that some means tested programs are popular is a fallacy.  Welfare, however you term it, is not.  Period.  The specific case does NOT translate to the general, ie fallacy of illicit transference.

Since the racist attacks on "welfare queens" by Reagan, public opinion has soured on the concept.  Add in 50 years of stagnant wages for most Americans, uneven growth, globalization, and you get the kind of populist political backlash that gave us four years of Trump criminality.

The problem is not with providing universal benefits, that are hugely popular (see Bouie's article about how important it was that Trump put his name on the first round of checks), politically a winner, but on the tax side. 

Going from a top rate of 70% or more from 1946-1981, to 30-40 from 86 on has cost the government millions and incentivized all the wrong kind of behaviors from risky investments to massive executive salaries.  Get that rate back to 50%, then we can talk about who is deserving or not for relief.

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