Dave Ramsey Argues Against Stimulus on Fox News
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
By Joe DePaoloFeb 11th, 2021, 1:14 pm
With former President Donald Trump out of office, fiscal conservatives who sat silent as the national debt exploded on his watch are rediscovering their principles. And one Fox News guest is voicing his objection to President Joe Biden's proposed stimulus in a manner not likely to sit well with much of the working class.
Appearing on America's Newsroom Thursday, conservative financial talk radio host Dave Ramsey blasted the idea of $1,400 stimulus checks by arguing that recipients' financial difficulties are not related directly to the pandemic.
"I don't believe in a stimulus check," Ramsey said flatly. "Because if $600 or $1400 changes your life, you were pretty much screwed already. You've got other issues going on. You have a career problem, you have a debt problem, you have a relationship problem, or a mental health problem. Something else is going on if $600 changes your life."
Ramsey added that the checks amounted to "peeing on a forest fire."
On his website, Ramsey advocates having an emergency fund of at least $1,000 (with a goal of eventually saving 3-6 months of income). A CBS News survey found that only 39 percent of Americans could cover a $1,000 emergency without borrowing the money. The proposed stimulus would, by itself, fund Ramsey's recommended minimum emergency fund for tens of millions of Americans who may or may not have "something else going on."
Watch above, via Fox News.
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I dont think 600 or 1400 dollars changes anyone's life. I think it is intended as spending money. And most people who get it will probably spend it in pretty short order, helping the overall economy.
The larger issue here is that we see the government doing something financially for the working class and the lower middle class. There is an ideological component to this action. People who favor government assistance to people will like it, people who favor "small government" wont. It is a sliver of "income redistribution" and a toenail in the door of universal basic income.
Dave Ramsay seems to take the tired old conservative line that if you just apply yourself properly everyone can raise themselves out of poverty. That is absolutely untrue. There will always be poor people in a capitalist economy. It is a feature not a bug.
My opinion, the government went at this the wrong way. They tried a shotgun approach due to the urgency but while some pieces of all the pandemic relief have done some good a lot of other pieces missed the mark.
IMO, all the stimulus money over the past year was mostly the wrong approach. The idea behind it was that giving this money to people, the people would then turn right around and spend it to help local businesses. But once that check is in the hands of the people the government has no more control over it. I still believe that a better approach would have been to not have the stimulus checks but to improve with more money the unemployment systems to help the people who lost jobs due to the pandemic. Make the system easier for them to get into, but also increase the money in unemployment checks so that the people who actually needed it were able to get it. PPP monies needed to be better controlled but the government pushed it out with little instructions to banks and how much of that money went to businesses who really didn't need that money? How much of that money went to charities and food banks? Not enough if any IMO...
The money should be aimed at where it will do the most good. I do not believe that anybody who's financial health really didn't change should have gotten any of this money. If you are drawing social security, you already have government money coming in and your lifestyle is not greatly impacted by the pandemic (other than not being able to go to restaurants or casinos) so I don't see why this group got the checks. Same thing for a family of 4 or 5 with an income of $200k, they don't need that money IMO. The money should have gone to people who were out of work, to landlords to cover costs while rent is not being paid.. lots of areas where it could have done more good.