xtr

I agree. It didn't make sense that lower income people would less like $600 in one of the earlier proposals. I'm glad that lower income people will get the full amount. This will help most working people. Now.granted some people that have been unemployed for a while and have things like SSI benefits are upset because they aren't getting anything. As well as people who were claimed as dependents on tax returns (like grown college students). It would have been nice if they would have gotten something as well. But I am at least glad working lower income people will get the full payment.

An agreement on the stimulus bill was made early this morning. It will be a one time payment of $1,200 to anyone who has an income up to $75,000. Lower income people who don't make much will also get the full $1,200.

I was reading up on Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat's recent proposal for a stimulus bill. I also read up a bit more on Mitch McConell's bill. It is more generous than what Mitch McConnell was trying to do, but there are some similarities as well. I could see the Republicans/Democrats doing some type of fusion of both bills. Nothing has passed yet, but here is some important information to know and what I think people may need to be on the lookout for should a bill pass. Both sides want to give money to taxpayers. Both Bills are saying they want these funds to go to taxpayers. Which is definitely good. Though, taking that into consideration it doesn't look like any people who were unemployed for the past couple of years or are disabled are going to get any payments. (Unless they change things). Both Bills are saying they will be looking at either the 2018 or 2019 Tax Returns to help determine who to make payments too. Mitch's bill said they would also look at 2019 Social Security records, for people who haven't filed Tax Returns for either years. So if you haven't already, definitely get your tax returns for those years filed. Even if you made only a little bit money, you may still be eligible to get a payment. The way the Democrat's bill is looking, if you just worked and filed a return you could get stimulus money. Mitch wants to start giving money to people who made at least $2,500. But either way if you worked at least a little bit you could probably get some sort of payment. I also want to note that if you were a dependent on someone's return during these years, it's looking like as of right now you wouldn't be eligible to get a payment. Say you were like 17, 18 both of these tax years and were claimed by your parents. And now you're 19, and now out of the house, it's looking as of now you aren't going to get a payment. Likewise if you were a full time college student (and under 24), who worked a little during these years and were claimed by your parents, it's looking like those people aren't getting payments either. Even if you were like 21 and 22 during these years and were working a little. The Democrats proposal was talking about giving each taxpayer $1,500, plus $1,500 per child. That is more helpful to individuals and definitely families. The income people have to make in order to possibly get this payment phases out a little higher than the Republicans plan. Both of these current proposed bills could have the money being paid out recalculated on people's 2020 Tax Return. The Republicans want it to act and be recalculated as an advanced payment of a credit that will be computed again on the 2020 Return. Some people could end up having to pay some of the money back, and I think that the types of people who are more likely to do this are people who have higher income (But I will definitely ask/research more about that, including at work, once a bill is finalized, and that's included in there). The Democrats also wants to use it as a credit on the 2020 Tax Return. People will get a credit on that return and it will be compared against the Advance Credit you got for the payment. If it's greater, you'll get to reduce your tax liability, if it's more it will be recognized as income and people will have to pay at least a portion of it back. Here is an article from Forbes talking about the differences in these plans and the implications it could have on people's tax returns. https://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonynitti/2020/03/23/house-senate-coronavirus-relief-bills-offer-drastically-different-cash-payouts-to-individuals/#66f295447110

I definitely hope that you and your family end up being okay. I saw you said you in another post that you don't have any symptoms. Hopefully, you don't have it, or if you do, you're asymptomatic and you'll end up being okay. It seems like a lot of people who have contracted this disease so far have been asymptomatic, and will be okay. Also, I did see a figure from a twitter account that is tracking recoveries of this disease, saying like 100,000 people have recovered from the coronavirus so far. I believe it's true because I also saw an article from Newsweek mentioning that. Hopefully, that figure can people some comfort knowing that a lot people have recovered from this. I wish more testing would become available so that people who have been exposed to someone/have severe symptoms can get tested. Those are the top two types of people who really need to be able to get testing right now, especially with the tests being limited. I hope they are working on getting more tests available for people and I did see somewhere where some places were starting to get the drive through testing sites. I hope you end up getting access to a test.

Thanks. I just wanted some of that type of perspective to this thread. And maybe help try and calm people's fears a bit. We really do need more information about this virus, so we can best figure out how to deal with it. And I don't think we should be making long term decisions about things like the economy right now, until we have more information. I'm fine with taking it a little bit at time. Some things are closed down now for a couple/few weeks, I think that things can be re-evaluated after those periods are up. And maybe something will happen between now and then to help make decisions easier to make. And going back to the virus, I was looking at this chart and seeing how it's affecting the different states in the US, including my home state in NC. In NC, we have at least 300 cases (and I saw one chart that said 400) (And at least 8438 tests have been completed) but zero deaths so far. I believe the governor today said he was grateful there haven't been any death so far. Which I am also very grateful for. Last time I checked we had like three cases in my entire county. And at least one of those cases I believe was a young marine who had recently come back from Italy, and was in quarantine for like ten days already before it was even announced he had been quarantined. What's interesting about my area in NC., is that we are one of the youngest areas in the US. (Largely due to us having a lot of military bases in this part of NC.) The average age of people where I live is 24 years old. And that actually went up from a couple of years ago, lol. With a lot of people talking (and also IMHO doing too much) blaming of young people for helping spreading this illness, I have to wonder what might be reflected among the really young population here. I hope not too much. Right now I'm glad we don't have many cases or deaths. This chart is showing how many cases/deaths are in each state. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ I have noticed is how several states in the South, including NC, Alabama, Arkansas, West Virginia all have zero deaths so far. I've also noticed that some of the states in the Northeast like Maine, Delaware, Rhode Island, even less populated states like Wyoming, North Dakota, and Montana, and states that are further away from the other states Alaska, and Hawaii all have zero deaths, thus far. Now some of these states, one good guess for why they haven't been hit as hard as other states is because they aren't as populated and/or visited as much. And I find the news so far about some of the southern states optimistic (at least for now) and interesting. Especially since people often like to crap on the South and our ways of doing things. I wonder how things will change with the states. I hope it doesn't get much worse for them, especially the ones that have been hit the hardest. But if some states end up having a much slower spread of this illness and significantly less deaths, and it's for other reasons than a state isn't as largely populated, maybe people can learn from that. And possibly study/implement some of the habits of these states.

North Carolina today ordered some more businesses to be shut down, including personal care and grooming busineses, entertainment businesses that don't have any dining, etc. Some of these businesses include gyms, nail and hair salons, movie theatres, martial arts facilities, bowling alleys, and yoga studios. So many people are going to be put out of work, until I don't know when. I feel so bad for all of these people. This is really going to hurt our local economy. He did at least give them until Wednesday at 5pm to close, so maybe they can pick up some extra business between now and then. I was supposed to get my hair done on Friday, but I'm texting with my stylist and I'm going to see if I can get it done by the deadline to put some money in her pocket, before her shop has to close down. She has another job which she's not working at right now, and I'm not sure she's going to get paid at that job either. I'm going to give her a good sized tip to try and help. Maybe some of the other people who she normally styles on Fridays can come in and get their services done early, before the shops have to close. Also schools have been shut down until May 15th here. This isn't the first time schools in my area have shut down here in NC for a while. A couple of years ago after Hurricane Florence happened schools were shut down here for at least a month. Maybe longer. Kids were going to school well into the Summer time. During that time, I felt it wasn't necessary to keep kids out of school that long. In our particular area, it wasn't that bad, and other areas with worse damage, sent their kids back to school earlier than our area did. I could see kids now going back to school well into the summer like they did then. And speaking of Hurricane Florence, we still have people in the state waiting on aid from that in areas, that suffered a bigger impact from the storm. Here's hoping that the coronavirus aid comes much faster than the aid for the Hurricane has.

Amen. I also think that we need as much transparency as possible, about what is going on regarding this virus. It's just mostly a lot of panic mixed up with various numbers and the full story (or more of the story) is nowhere near being told. How many people of the case being diagnosed are asymptomatic (It seems like a lot). And of that number how many of them live with/closely associate with high risk people? How many of them have around higher risk people that have died from this or contacted this illness so far? What is the real trajectory for people that may die from this disease? I see a lot of stuff being thrown around and it seems misguide/often exaggerated to say the least. Also transmission, I would like to hear more stories about how people contacted/or at least think they contacted the illness. Were they around any sick people, did some one cough on them or what. It seems like people are acting like you can just be in the same room/less than six feet from someone with corona and get it. Even if they aren't showing symptoms or doing any sort of coughing, etc... Was it the likelyhood of contact the illness this way. There are a lot of questions that needs to be answered and it's all being pushed aside, and overrun by people panicking. And that's not really doing anybody any good. I know people are worried and scared, but the "He's going to kill us all" stuff is not going to happen. It's not. We're not all going to die from this. Most of us are not going to die from this. More people have died and will die from other things than coronavirus. Even taken into consideration that it's more contagious than other illnesses. There are things right now killing more people and will kill more people this year and in the future than coronavirus. People being concerned and scared is very understandable, but I do believe that most people in this country will survive in spite of this illness being around. And I do believe that a lot of people curbing their behaviors will help prevent more people getting it/death and a lot of people getting it are healthy and will be fine. We need to do what we can to help the high risk and those that are suffering with this illness, but all these people being afraid they are going to die (especially those that aren't high risk, have knowingly been exposed to anyone and don't have symptoms) is actually doing harm in some cases. And could also be contributing to some of the shortages of important resources (like people doing things like hoarding medical masks, sanitizers, going to emergency rooms when they really don't need to etc...)

I do really bad for homeless people in a time like this. They are already at serious risk for various dangers as it is. And now they are even more at risk with this situation regarding this virus. Some of them not being able to keep up with their personal hygiene because the gyms are closing is just the tip of their problems. I did read about what Newsome was doing and I wish more could/would be done to help them all over this country. I did see somewhere that some of them were actually taking over houses in places like California that were owned by the state and living in them. Now granted, that also presents it's sets of problems. But I can understand that they are scared and vulnerable and how more than ever, they really don't want and need to be on the streets right now. I also saw some one post a statistic, that there are actually more homes than homeless people. (I think it's like a 6:1 ratio or something like that.) That is shameful and more needs to be done to help them during and after this pandemic.

The more you learn.... (And I wouldn't be surprised if more stuff comes that out that would contradict the less try and force as many people to stay at home idea that people are pushing). Honestly, this makes more sense than trying to force most people to remain cooped up at home. Regardless of whether they have the virus, showing symptoms, or are even live/usually interact with higher risk people. I've always felt one of the first priorities should have been trying to shield/protect the higher risk people. But that doesn't mean to try and force as many people as possible including healthy people without symptoms to stay at home for longer periods of time. Healthy people should go to work and just be careful in regards to doing other things. (An exception being if they are in an area, where the virus is widespread.) Go to work/provide for yourself/your family (Including possibly the high risk people who can't work right now or at all), and don't do things like gathering in large groups for a while/riskier behavior for a bit until things calm down. All of this forcing people out of work and to be cooped up, presents it's own set of problems..., problems that could also be dangerous and unhealthy people. Could you imagine being cooped up with a bunch of family members for several days especially in a small space, like an apartment, instead of being allowed a bit of break to go out and go to work. Especially if a family member already has it. I can see how people would get sick from that/spread sickness... It makes sense. Let healthy people work and hold down the economy while we do our best to try and protect the higher risk people. Higher risk people are the ones that should be at home/safe guarded. We've already been implementing this at my job. Really high risk people are now working from home. My pregnant co-worker I believe is about to start working from home. And some of the higher risk, that want to come into the office (and would have to to fully do their jobs) we have taken measures to protect them. We've arranged to where they aren't going to be interacting face to face with clients, but can still interact with them via email, phone and can still do work for them. We even changed the way we operate in the offices and have made physical changes, Toys from the waiting rooms are now gone, we offered discounts to encourage people to do drop off services, we've changed from using rolling chairs to straight back chairs, so clients are less likely to roll around and interact with people. We've limited it to two people (including children for appointments). As well as making sure we continue to wipe/santize/clean things. And we're a business that is actually deemed essential, yet we still are taking those extra steps to protect people, to include employees and clients. There's stuff you can do, to protect people, without shutting down businesses and taking away people's jobs. Heck, I would have rather governments as a whole allowed most people to work but issued some type of ordinance about how you are only allowed to work/do essentials things for a little bit. And say they would fine people, if they didn't follow that rule, instead of just shutting down businesses and taking away people's jobs. Now granted some people would have still said trying to fine people is extreme, but most people would take that over losing their jobs.

I can understand why people are upset about Trump's leadership and weary of decisions he wants to make that. That being said while I don't agree with Trump when it comes to a lot of things, but I do think that evaluating things after a couple weeks is actually a good idea. Though, I don't know what/how definitive decisions can be made at that time. I think that people need to take things a bit slower here, especially since there is still things we don' t know about the virus. I do feel like are trying to make long terms decisions and that those decisions could will have long term and devastating ramifications for people and the economy. Things that could end up being more damaging than even the impact of the virus. Losing jobs creates it's own set of problems including health problems for people to include hurting people who suffer from depression, are suicidal, need to work to try and pay for medications to help deal with serious health conditions etc... I feel like these things are being overlooked in all of this hysteria over the virus. Heck even something that would seem not that big of a deal like closing down gyms hurts at risk people like the homeless. Many people who are working homeless got to places like gyms in LA and shower/shave. Now that the gyms are closed down, where they are supposed to go maintain personal hygiene. I saw mention that some of the shelters there are inadequate and aren't equipped to help them. More people not being able to clean themselves will definitely help the spread of a virus. That could exacerbate the spread of a virus much more than people just going out to some place. But that's the type of stuff that a lot people aren't thinking about in all of this panic. I also wonder if we could see an increase in crime as people become more despondent as they are losing their jobs and not having any resources. I do think that the ramifications of the panic over this virus could have an even worse impact than the virus itself. And at some point are going to have weigh the other issues that are resulting from all of the panic and shutting down things against the actual damage the virus is actual doing. And at some point, people are going to have to open back up the economy for most people. They are going to have to. Most people can not sit home long term (or even short term), and they still haven't come up with an agreement on the stimulus plan. And even if they do, unless it's monthly payments for a while, it;'s only going to do so much. I think that some people on places like Twitter live in a fantasy world, where they think that a lot of people can just stay at home long term and it's not like that. I wonder how many of these people actually work or depend on working people to survive. I honestly don't get them or their line of thinking. I do see people pushing for long term shutdown and I don't think that's the direction we should go in. We have to be realistic when it's all said and done about what can and can't be done. I do feel like things need to be evaluated periodically and that long term decisions shouldn't be made right now. It might have to start with at a point, opening back up the economy for more people, but still encouraging/insisting they go home after work type of thing for a bit. (Unless they need to get stuff like groceries). I think they would have been better off doing that initially and encouraging the high risk people to stay at home. And people to be careful/protective of the high risk people. And do whatever can be done regarding things like trying to get more tests/create a vaccine.

I think the best idea was to give everyone the $1,000 plus $500 per child. And if they aren't going to do that then I think giving everyone who makes under $75,000 a full sum of money is better than what Mitchell McConnell is proposing. You could help more people that way, than by doing his plan, which will give the poorest people the least amount of money or nothing. I did see that the Dems rejected his plan and that both sides are still working things out regarding a stimulus plan. Hopefully, they can come to an agreement on something that will benefit American people as a whole. I don't think that's the best idea. I do think that people that have been exposed and definitely have it should stay home. While healthier people without symptoms or known exposure should be allowed to work. And for some of them whenever these restrictions/shelter in places orders are lifted. I wonder what states/cities plan are after these orders are limited. I can understand that people want to slow the spread of the virus, but they aren't really providing answers as to what degree is acceptable for them to let people live a bit more normally again. Shutting down all of these businesses is going to be catastrophic for the economy. A lot of people have to work and don't have the luxury of being able to afford to go two weeks without work/income. Let alone a month or more. If the governments don't get together some sort of plan to help working people, the impact of the economy collapsing is going to be more harmful than the virus itself. It's already headed that way IMHO.

The $75,000 number was being thrown out earlier when they were talking about who should get money, and including the possible $1,000 payment. That figure was being used by some people who was saying that everyone who made underneath that amount should be sent the $1,000 that was initially suggested. This newest plan by Mitch McConnell does seem closer to a tax credit. (It reminds me of the earned income credit) And from what I heard/read is that around $50,000 are the ones that will benefit the most from this plan. People in that income range are the ones who are most likely to get the $1,200 credit. People who made beneath that range in 2018 (between $2,500-less than $50,000) in earned income would get the $600 credit. I'm not sure what exact figure a person would have to make to get the full $1,200 amount, but my boss mentioned that people in the $50,000 range would benefit the most from this plan. And that it could phase out around $99,000 which would stop the higher income people from getting it. The article that was posted pointing out the problems with this plan did give an example of how an adult making $35,000 wouldn't qualify for the full $1,200 and only get $600. It was used as an example to show how this current proposal would give less money to lower income people. (Even though they need the most assistance.)

Going to smaller stores is a good suggestion. Sometimes you can look in them and find some things you need. I have to think at some point that some (maybe a lot) of these people that are selfishly hoarding, (especially those that are repeat offenders) will be low on funds. And maybe they won't have the money to keep going out and buying up stuff that other people need. The hoarding is wrong, there is enough supplies for everyone and what they are doing is selfish and also possibly wasteful. If someone who lives by themselves or has a small family (and even some with larger families) keeps hoarding stuff especially perishable items that stuff could spoil/expire before they eat it. I usually grocery shop once a week, and buy just what I need for the week. ( I love to cook but I shop like this so I don't buy too much food and have a lot of waste). Though this last go around, I did end up doing two weeks worth of grocery shopping. And I'm glad I did because a lot of the meat and stuff was sold out in grocery stores where I live too. And going back to the conversation a few of us were having some pages back about the store running out things like chicken, meat, etc.... Here is some more suggestions if you go somewhere and want to find stuff like some meat/protein and there out of packages of chicken/steak: Try the frozen food aisle. Sometimes you can find vacuum packed fish like salmon there. And if push comes to shove they could have frozen fish fillets/fish sticks. Chicken wings, tenders and nuggets are also in this aisle. And you can even find whole frozen chickens, and cornish hens in this aisle. Look at the aisle where the sandwich meat and bacon normally is. That's usually a separate aisle than the regular meat aisle. Sometimes in this aisle, not only can you find sliced meat and bacon, but things like sausages, including ground italian sauces. You can also find things like slabs of ribs, including pre cooked seasoned/sauced ribs, and also containers of pulled pork, pulled chicken and pulled ribs in this aisle. Try the deli where you can order sliced meat. And also sliced cheese. Hopefully, they haven't run out of meat/cheese in that section.And a lot of times they will have a different assortment of cheeses there. Granted is more expensive than the regular meat/cheese aisles, but that could be an option for people who want some meat/dairy. Often times you can find cooked Rotisserie chicken over there and things like prepared chicken and tuna salad. Sometimes they will have fried chicken over there as well. If your store is running low on fruits/vegetables, you can also try the frozen aisle and get frozen packs of those things.

Last night during an office call for work, we learned a few more details about this potential plan from my boss. Right now it's being based off of the 2018 Tax Return, and people who have not filed that return yet, should think about doing so. There is also rumblings they could look or maybe even change it to the 2019 return. But right now it's just 2018. The people that may benefit the most from this plan (and more likely to get the full $1,200 amount) are people that make around $50,000 a year. And I believe that is per individual not household. The average household in America makes around $61,000. So it's very possible that many adults will not get this full amount. And it was stated that the stimulus amount would phase out around $99,000. So right now if this bill is passed it, looks like a lot of people, (probably most) would get less than the $1,200 amount Mitch McConnell is touting. A lot of people would only get the $600 amount. (Which is better than nothing, but people getting at least $1,000 would be more beneficial, especially as more and more people are being put out of work.) I do think this plan could leave a lot of people out, including unemployed people, severely underemployed people, grown full time students (like college age and up), disabled people, etc... And also people who are afraid to file their 2018 return for some reason. (Like maybe they owe student loans and don't want their refund completely taken.) Though anyone that makes over a certain amount, should be filing, regardless of what happens to the refund. (If they're not filing, that could come back to haunt them.)

This plan is definitely no where near as good as just sending everyone $1,000 per adult and $500 per child. It looks like people that didn't work in 2018 (or had income of less than $2,500) would get nothing. And as the author pointed out in the thread, it doesn't seem like it will create relief for a lot of other areas including not helping a lot of workers who will lose their jobs, or giving fiscal relief to states.

In addition to Tax Day being moved payments, Trump has said that Federally student loan payments could be suspended for 60 days without penalty or interest. https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahhansen/2020/03/20/trump-temporarily-suspends-payments-on-federal-student-loans/

It seems like some of the Republicans want to do different things. There is a report that said that Lindsey and Mark was trying to get the president not to do these payments. And then Lindsey came out and said that he was willing to pay up to 75% of people's income going up to $80,000. Mitt Romney was in support of one $1,000 check and said he was trying to work on some type of compromise with Lindsey to convert funding for the second check into more unemployment benefits. Another republican senator was saying that the GOP was considering making payments for individuals who make under $95,000 a year and couples who make under $190,000. And there are some who just say they want to give people cash payments in general. Here is an article mentioning these things: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/coronavirus-relief-lindsey-graham-mark-meadows-pushing-trump-to-oppose-cash-payouts/ I like the two payments of $1,000 for all adult americans. and $500 dollars for each child. It's simple and won't take as much time as other plans would. A lot of people are going to need money quickly especially as more and more businesses are shutting down and people are losing their jobs.

I hope you guys can end up doing something for them, though it may be later on. Some of my co-workers had brought this up at work, and they were suggesting maybe some schools could do something for kids in the fall, if they were able to do so. I hope that a lot of people who will be getting their hair/nails done during these last couple of days will give their stylists/barbers/technicians nice tips. This is going to hit them hard like is hitting other people in other industries. I wonder if they will end up doing this in other states. I'm get my hair done often. I always tip my hair stylist, but I'm going to give her an even bigger tip than usual next week. So she can have at least a little more money in case NC decides to do something like this as well in the future. Though, I don't know that they will go that far. (So far to my knowledge we've only had one confirmed case of the virus in our county and no one has died from it.) The mayor did issue a state of emergency here the other day, but he said that he wasn't shutting down businesses. And that one of the reasons he called the state of emergency is because some businesses/people can get some type of relief, if that is officially called. Also, some of the banks and financial institutions, where I live have now closed down the lobbies and will only do drive thru telling or talk with people on the phone. I wonder what other cities/states have banks where they are closing down lobbies. I could see things getting really backed up, especially if they do send out the stimulus checks, if these banks shut down for a while.

According to the Treasury Secretary Steve Mnunchin the deadline to file taxes has been extended from April 15 to July 15th:

Right now he's currently talking about fast tracking anti viral treatments for patients with coronavirus.

Yeah, I just read hey would like to get checks out within the next three weeks I also read that the Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is saying right now they are looking at plan to possibly give every american adult $1,000. If people have children they could get an additional $500 for each child. And then six weeks from now if this still a crisis there could a second disbursement of $1,000 for each adult/another $500 for each child. Here is an article talking more about this. And also what financial help may also be given to some businesses/industries: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/488412-mnuchin-americans-could-get-two-coronavirus-stimulus-checks-within-9

Thanks. I think that Nancy along with some other people who support means testing are worried that money will be "wasted" on the rich people in this country if universal income is supplied to everyone. But I think that if the best way to make sure most Americans get some extra (and often times much needed) financial help is to also to give the rich a check,too, so be it, IMO. In the grand scheme of things there are way more people who could use this money than there are rich people. And the rich can always donate their money to Charity or put it back into the economy if they choose. (And I believe that some of them will do that.) Means testing could help a lot of needy people fall through the cracks and will take more time, than distributing checks for Americans. One of the suggestions that I saw it was reported Nancy suggested would be to do refundable tax credits. That could benefit people in the future, but that's not going to be of much help right now for a lot of people. A lot of people have already filed their taxes this year, especially people with families. And usually tax returns with refundable credits taken longer to process, because often times the IRS is holding them over long due to checking for things fraud. For example the IRS didn't really start processing returns with Earned Income Credit, Additional Child Tax Credits/Education Credits until February 15 this year. (Returns that fall underneath the PATH ACT) Even if people with these types of returns filed them as soon as the IRS opened on January 27th. And not too long ago, the IRS told people that they were holding some of these types tax returns for at least an additional 45 days, after the Feb 15th date.. (And I've heard as high as 60 additional days from people. I've seen reports about these things at work). It could be quite a while before people get a refundable tax credit due to this. And if they have those other credits, it could prolong their refund even more. If Nancy wants to do a refundable tax credit for next year's return in addition, to cash payments, I think that would be fine. (And I did see somewhere on Twitter, she was open to that, but still wanted to do means testing.) But I think think it's best if people aren't means tested for this. I hope they can get this passed, I think they could if people are more cooperative. It actually seems like Trump is in favor of this. I read that Andrew Yang was actually in contact with him about this. (Which I think makes sense, given Andrew was one that was really pushing for this earlier when he was running for president.)

I see a lot of people are understandably upset about the stimulus plan not getting passed right now. Many of them are posting on Twitter under the #PeoplevsPelosi trend. They are blaming Nancy Pelosi for reportedly being against a cash transfer for Americans, because it's being reported she wants to do means testing. I do agree that means tested is not the best way to try and get the payments to people, for lots of reasons. Here are some of the reasons that were highlighted by this post on Twitter: Most people could definitely use the extra money especially right now with people losing jobs and a lot of uncertainty going on in the economy due to the coronavirus: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/18/refusal-pelosi-consider-universal-cash-payments-response-coronavirus-pandemic?amp&__twitter_impression=true

I want to touch on some comments mentioned by posters here about some of the recent events that have been going on: It's unfortunate that children, including high school kids have to miss out on special moments like prom. I wish something could be done for them down the line to help make up for some of the stuff they are losing out on. It is very unfortunate that people in France are being permitted from even taking a walk outside. I love exercising and not being able to exercise at all, would be rough. It's bad enough that people are already feeling pretty cooped up. Exercising like walking can be very relaxing and not only benefits people's physical health, but often times benefits them mentally and emotionally. I did see that at least LA has closed down places like gyms as well. The gym here is still open (I've been going late at night, when hardly anyone is around) And late last night I saw they have blocked off several of the machines to create at least six feet of distance between people. Stuff like this could help and make people safer, but still allow them to work out, at least in some places. Also I saw that the Governor of NC had mandated that restaurants no longer be open for dine in. When I first heard that he did mandated something for the restaurants I was concerned they wouldn't be allowed to be open at all. And this is not because I love to eat out/eat out a lot. (I love to cook and don't eat out much.) I was just concerned for restaurants and their employees and how this would impact their business and wages. I'm glad they can still do takeout, delivery, etc...) I will start to order at least a little more takeout to help support them during these times. I feel bad for people like the waiters, servers, bartenders, etc..., who are going to lose a lot of work/wages. I wish they would end up getting some type of financial help. And while talking to an elderly client today, and trying to figure out how to best provide a service for him. (He didn't really want to come into an office and also didn't have a computer to do a virtual appointment), I thought of some ways that people can help the elderly/people with compromised health during this time. If you have an elderly relative or client that may need to come in for some type of appointment you can do things like: Try to schedule the appointment as early as possible. Try to aim to get them the earliest appointment in a day. They can be the first person in a place and get out of there before more people start to come in. This could even apply to something like a hair appointment. A lot of elderly women (including very old ones) get their hair done every couple of weeks. Try to arrange for them to be seen early, or maybe even see if the hairdresser can come in even earlier than the shop is usually open to accommodate them. Depending on what your business may do, you can offer to help serve them virtually. Though, I have found that quite a few elderly people are not really tech savvy or even own computers. Their kids/grandkids/family members need to help them out here. (And I know that a lot of family members already do this). Ask them if they need anything done and help set up virtual stuff for them. If they don't have kids/grandkids or any nearby a neighbor could check in on them and try and help out as well. Also see if there are drop off options for them if they aren't tech savvy and don't have anyone that can help them do virtual stuff from home. They can drop stuff off and then get out of a business as quickly as possible and pick it up later. Or family members can also drop off stuff for them. Family/friends/businesses try to help them as much as you can.

They weren't trying to get that steak, they spent that steak money on toilet paper, lol. I bought some at the commissary, (which does have it considerably cheaper than the regular grocery stores.) largely due to the chicken being gone. (Outside of the ground chicken, which I got a pack of.) Sometimes I will go the commissary around a military payday, and they will be really low on items chicken, so I have to rethink things a bit, if I planned to cook with chicken. But I make it work. On the positive note, even though people are buying up stuff like chicken, there still is in general enough food for people. Though, of course dietary needs and costs could and do impact things as well. I'm not one that would try to go vegetarian and I definitely don't want to go vegan lol, (though I do love vegetables and eat a lot of them). Though, people are definitely free to go that route if they want to. But here are some more suggestions for people who primarily eat poultry/fish as their protein source, if a store is out of regular chicken. When you go to the grocery store and this happens you can try seeing if they have ground chicken or turkey. Or see if they have whole chickens or smaller hens for sale, which sometimes might be in another aisle. Sometimes they also have chicken/turkey sausages and sometimes you can find things like salmon in the refrigerated/frozen aisles.