April 16, 2020

"After privately suggesting to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that he be allowed to formally sign the checks, Trump settled for having his name printed in the memo section..."

"... according to administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The placement of Trump’s name on the stimulus checks was taken out of the hands of the IRS early in the process, according to two government officials. The plan has been closely held within the IRS, and Commissioner Charles Rettig has not discussed it on his daily calls with his top executives, senior agency officials said. When the decision came down from the Treasury Department late Monday that the first batch of paper checks would include 'Donald J. Trump' on the memo line, it was announced to just five senior IRS officials. The IRS, already tasked with quickly disbursing hundreds of billions of dollars in payments to Americans, is now rushing to prepare checks that bear Trump’s name.... While several senior Trump administration officials said they did not know where Trump got the idea for putting his name on the stimulus checks, many said they were not surprised by the move. Trump has long exhibited a desire for featuring his signature prominently on objects, including newspaper clippings, stock market charts and even Bibles."

From "Trump denied he wanted his name on stimulus checks. Here’s how it happened" (WaPo).

ADDED: Maybe I didn't spend enough time reading this article, but I still don't know "how it happened." Also what is the "it"? Is it that the name ended up on the checks or that Trump really did want his name on the checks and caused it to happen?

282 comments:

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Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

You are all a bunch of fucking socialists. The country is going to hell.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Tom:

They will have to authorize additional money [wish I could say I guarantee that] so hang in there. I just put my app in this morning before they said the money had been exhausted so I'm probably on hold like you.

Known Unknown said...

"Why the fuck is government giving money to non-viable businesses? It is a corrupt perversion of the role of government."

JFC.

Did you just blow in from stupidtown?

Seriously. This has to be a lame troll job.

Michael said...

ARM
Did your boyfriend beat the shit out of you? Are you a teacher? Where in the world do you live to be so out of touch? Incredible.

Michael said...

ARM
Would love a short review of your dinner out. Or has some fascist closed your restaurant?

J. Farmer said...

@Drago:

I'm familiar with this particular assertion, and you cut off about 2/3's of the rest of what he said he would have to have before going along with the pathway.

You don't do yourself any favors by truncating arguments like that.


"Evolved" was Hannity's word, and he specifically predicated it on the fact that the GOP needed to court Hispanic voters.

I live 30 minutes from Castle Pines and the snow just now let up a bit.

Bless you. I couldn't imagine.

Mark said...

according to administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity . . . according to two government officials. . . senior agency officials said.... While several senior Trump administration officials

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Michael ... boyfriend beat the shit out

Projection from someone looking for a government handout.

stan said...

Hmmm. We know that FDR personally decided how and where New Deal money would be spent to insure his re-election. On the scale of immorality in office, FDR gets a 97 and Trump's desire to have his name on the checks doesn't reach the level of a 1.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Michael said...
Or has some fascist closed your restaurant?


Most of the restaurants around me are in fact open. They are providing takeout. Many of them are not going to survive because of changes in consumer choice. Let the invisible hand sort this one out.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Unknown said...
Trump's desire to have his name on the checks doesn't reach the level of a 1.


Only because on the immorality scale Trump was already at 99.999.

J. Farmer said...

@ARM:

Let the invisible hand sort this one out.

I'm a bit confused by your position. Are you claiming that businesses need to factor into their planning possibly having no revenue for months as a result of a pandemic from the emergence of a new virus?

Matt Sablan said...

"I'm a bit confused by your position."

-- That's because you assume ARM is asserting some logical position instead of just trolling in bad faith.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

J. Farmer said...
Are you claiming that businesses need to factor into their planning possibly having no revenue for months as a result of a pandemic from the emergence of a new virus?


No. I think government is the wrong mechanism to deal with this problem. Government has long established procedures to deal with unemployment. Government bailouts should be restricted to industries that of strategic importance. I am on-board with a bailout for Boeing, that is core technology. The local Chinese restaurant is not core technology.

J. Farmer said...

@Matt Sablan:

-- That's because you assume ARM is asserting some logical position instead of just trolling in bad faith.

Ha. You can troll in bad faith and still make a coherent argument. Plus I'm bored.

J. Farmer said...

@ARM:

No. I think government is the wrong mechanism to deal with this problem. Government has long established procedures to deal with unemployment.

Then you oppose the individual stimulus checks as well?

Michael K said...

Most of these businesses need to go bankrupt

Hmmm. The ChiCom bulletin for useful idiots is getting pretty aggressive,

You can tell a government employee but you can't tell them much.

Drago said...

Farmer: ""Evolved" was Hannity's word, and he specifically predicated it on the fact that the GOP needed to court Hispanic voters."

That was just one part of what would be required to allow for a pathway according to him.

The rest involved changes to chain migration, a physical wall, etc.

Drago said...

Farmer: "Ha. You can troll in bad faith and still make a coherent argument."

Hypothetically, yes.

In this case, no.

Drago said...

ARM: "You are all a bunch of fucking socialists."

That disingenuous comment from Beijing's Man At Althouseblog could be construed as self-loathing.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Blogger J. Farmer said...
Then you oppose the individual stimulus checks as well?


Pitiful attempt to buy votes. The money should have been saved to deal with the problems that will emerge over the next year. I am also bored. Your questions have not proved very challenging.

Known Unknown said...

"Why the fuck is government giving money to non-viable businesses? It is a corrupt perversion of the role of government."

JFC.

Did you just blow in from stupidtown?

Seriously. This has to be a lame troll job.

J. Farmer said...

@Drago:

That was just one part of what would be required to allow for a pathway according to him.

The rest involved changes to chain migration, a physical wall, etc.


I'll grant you his "secure the border first" qualifier, but I don't believe he made ending chain migration one. At least not back in 2012.

But again, the point is what prompted Hannity's "evolution."

J. Farmer said...

@ARM:

Pitiful attempt to buy votes. The money should have been saved to deal with the problems that will emerge over the next year. I am also bored. Your questions have not proved very challenging.

I am not trying to be challenging; I am trying to understand what your position is.

Drago said...

Farmer: "I'll grant you his "secure the border first" qualifier, but I don't believe he made ending chain migration one. At least not back in 2012."

2012 is too far back. Stick with what was being discussed since Trump was elected.

If 2012 is ok, why not just go back to 1986?

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

J. Farmer said...
I am trying to understand what your position is.


Deep suspicion of government bailouts of companies/industries that cannot reasonably be considered to be of strategic interest. Would we be having this discussion if the topic was bailouts of cruise lines? Restaurants are not that different. These bailouts are too prone to corruption when applied broadly.


Drago said...

ARM: "Pitiful attempt to buy votes. The money should have been saved to deal with the problems that will emerge over the next year. I am also bored. Your questions have not proved very challenging."

It appears Beijing's Man At Althouse is not impressed with Farmer. Well.

J. Farmer said...

@Drago:

2012 is too far back. Stick with what was being discussed since Trump was elected.

If 2012 is ok, why not just go back to 1986?


Recall the point of my original comment that set you off on the Hannity digression.

Jamie said...

Hmm, I was given to understand that the rationale behind both the individual checks and the SBA loans/grants was that the government's obliging people not to work constituted a taking, and therefore people were entitled to recompense. A true entitlement, based on people's owning their own labor. If the money being returned to people has the effect of "stimulus," that's secondary (though positive)... and because of the taking thing, none of it is properly considered a "bailout." Nor "socialist." (And of course it won't be market value for most, but we are all hoping it'll be enough.)

Tom, I trust that because of the taking thing, there is no valid cause for the government's not to make more SBA money available. Of course we do live in the real world, so I'll keep you and all in your position in my thoughts. Best of luck.

Drago said...

ARM: "Would we be having this discussion if the topic was bailouts of cruise lines? Restaurants are not that different. These bailouts are too prone to corruption when applied broadly."

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you an American Lefty, circa 2020, courtesy of President Donald J Trump.

Just the other day, Certified Moron Joy Reid was telling people they should not be celebrating this government assistance because, and follow me on this one as you will become disoriented, when the govt provides funds its only money that it got from its citizens in the first place!

And that was just a day after democrats across the nation were making States Rights arguments, pleas for Federalism and praise for the 10th Amendment.

obambi was falsely portrayed as a "LightBringer", whereas Trump has demonstrated conclusively that he is a miracle bringer.

Drago said...

Farmer: "Recall the point of my original comment that set you off on the Hannity digression."

I do. Hannity's complete position on immigration should be articulated if you are going to critique it.

J. Farmer said...

@Drago:

I do. Hannity's complete position on immigration should be articulated if you are going to critique it.

I wasn't critiquing his position on immigration. I was critiquing his notion that the GOP needed to appeal to Hispanics in order to get elected.

J. Farmer said...

@ARM:

Deep suspicion of government bailouts of companies/industries that cannot reasonably be considered to be of strategic interest. Would we be having this discussion if the topic was bailouts of cruise lines? Restaurants are not that different. These bailouts are too prone to corruption when applied broadly.

I'll grant you the moral hazard of bailouts in general. But businesses are not facing problems because of market failures or mismanagement. They are facing trouble because of an unprecedented change in social behavior, a change that has been either directly supported or legally enforced by government.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

The current situation is very difficult but it is not driven by government policy, it is driven by the virus and people's reaction to that virus. Government is neither the cause of, nor the solution to, every problem. Some of the most successful responses to the virus in the US where led by the tech companies in Washington state who responded very rapidly to its emergence by shifting work patterns. If everyone had responded as quickly we would now be in a much better position.

The Godfather said...

The government orders businesses to close for a substantial period of time, but government helping these businesses to survive is — what? Socialism? When government helps people and businesses after a hurricane or earthquake or whatever, that’s also Socialism? Maybe I’ve been unfair to Bernie.

Drago said...

Farmer: "I wasn't critiquing his position on immigration. I was critiquing his notion that the GOP needed to appeal to Hispanics in order to get elected."

Understood.

One final point: hispanics do need to be appealed to for republicans to win...but in precisely the same way all other groups are appealed to...no pandering.

J. Farmer said...

@ARM:

The current situation is very difficult but it is not driven by government policy, it is driven by the virus and people's reaction to that virus

Yes, "unprecedented change in social behavior." But what of establishments that have been closed due to state or local orders or cannot due business because of stay-at-home orders? I don't really see how the market is supposed to accommodate such things.

Also, the comparison to cruise lines is not apt since they register overseas and flag their ships from different jurisdictions in order to avoid US regulations and tax burdens.

lb said...

I'm certainly hoping that all these people that have government jobs that aren't working are also not being paid. Park's closed? Park employees laid off. Schools closed? Teachers working a few hours a day on their computers? Pay is cut. Government offices closed? Clerks and inspectors etc. also not paid. It's easy to say let the invisible hand dictate - by that rationale we need none of these government employees either.

lb said...

Oh and top of the list....congresscritters and other elected officials that are swanning around eating ice cream from their two refrigerators...no paycheck

Sheridan said...

lb - canceling the paychecks of elected officials who are worth or have access to many millions of dollars is likely ineffective. Canceling the perks they receive "cadillac" healthcare, free plane-rides, etc. might better impact their sense of superior worth. Worth a try.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

@ J Farmer:

Whereabouts in Colorado do you live? My sister and her family live in Castle Pines, and I was aghast when she sent me photos of snow recently.

Answer: Boulder.
A friend texted me that we are at record snowfall in Boulder this season. 146"
most of it - today!

Michael said...

ARM would clearly agree that hotels and airlines should go bankrupt and disappear as a result of the "virus". Ditto car dealerships. Repair shops. Barber shops. Nail shops. Beauty shops. Book stores. Shoe repair shops. Best Buys. Garden shops. All the employers of the little people so loathed by the left. The deplorables. Let them learn to code.

lb said...

Sheridan..good point. I'm in - how do we do this?? Wishful thinking...

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

It's Christmas time in April in Boulder, CO.

Here's a titillating and exciting look at various locations around.. keep scrolling. try to curb your enthusiasms. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

bagoh20 said...

My entire life, I was never looking for a "good job", a "living wage", or "job security". I was just looking for a job, the best paying I could get. Luckily when I was unskilled and relatively useless there was a job at that level that employers could afford to give someone relatively useless like me. Those low paying jobs are the most important ones I ever got. After I developed some value, I could do the rest on my own.

I have gone from abject poverty to a multimillionaire, but that never could have happened without the early low paying jobs that got me a spot in the education system of American entrepreneurship. Once I got a job at a place where there was a lot to learn, I asked my employer if I could work for free on my own time. Although it was illegal, he let me. That was the real stepping stone, the absolutely irreplaceable step in my success - a job that paid nothing.

Michael K said...

Restaurants are not that different. These bailouts are too prone to corruption when applied broadly.

ARM: "I can't be responsible for every undercapitalized business."

Let them eat cake. What a nasty twerp you are.

Michael said...

bagoh20

Great story. Know a couple of guys who began with nothing. Both now millionaires many many times over. I hope you are as well.

iowan2 said...

I am also bored. Your questions have not proved very challenging. yea, we have a mentally challenged neighbor. He has never gotten a question wrong...in his mind.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

iowan2 ... mentally challenged

It is not complicated. The federal government shouldn't be bailing out the local chinese restaurant. How did this become the role of government?

iowan2 said...

How did this become the role of government?

Neat. Now do education,

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Educating people and maximizing a country's human capital is viewed as a key role of government in literally every country in the world.

J. Farmer said...

@ARM:

How did this become the role of government?

So is promoting macroeconomic growth and stability. Even if one were to believe as a matter of principle that the government had no role to help businesses facing extinction, we are clearly facing a rather novel situation at the moment. It doesn't seem very principled to say that the businesses must simply eat whatever losses arise from being ordered close or from people being ordered to stay home.

Ann Althouse said...

People who have been told they are banned need to stop posting. You know who you are. All your posts are deleted unread.

Comments that speak to these people are also deleted.

bagoh20 said...

"It is not complicated. The federal government shouldn't be bailing out the local chinese restaurant."

They should if they caused them to go broke. It wasn't poor management. Is Google or the Department of Education gonna cook my take out?

bagoh20 said...

"People who have been told they are banned need to stop posting. You know who you are. All your posts are deleted unread.

Comments that speak to these people are also deleted."


Don't you have to delete that?

Michael said...

ARM can do without any "unnecessary" operations. No shoe repair, barber shops, book stores, garden shops, auto repair shops. None of those businesses going broke now are deserving of anything than the contempt of our friend ARM.

iowan2 said...

Educating people and maximizing a country's human capital is viewed as a key role of government in literally every country in the world.

I am the governments capital? I always considered myself sovereign.

Look up Federalism. That would be the controlling authority.
Federalism, it is a real thing.

Michael said...

It is not complicated to let those businesses go down the drain. The entrepreneurs who slave to keep those little businesses are screwed without the loans from PPP. But it is not complicated to let them fail. They can learn to code. O

ken in tx said...

I remember when someone assumed that Trump would be offended, or someone wanted others to think he would, by seeing the McCain name on a ship, and covered it up. Trump didn't know anything about it. It could be the same here.

bagoh20 said...

Does it makes sense to allow a successful taxpaying business to go under and divert those funds to things like the Department of Education which is an unsuccessful tax taker? If our successful citizens and companies need money to remain successful taxpayers out of no mistake of their own, then I think we need to prioritize our expenditure in that direction before we throw money on the bonfire of government spending on itself. That's just good use of money. It's repairing the silo for your seed corn.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Michael said...
No shoe repair, barber shops, book stores, garden shops, auto repair shops.


Some of these will bounce back fine, auto repair shops aren't going anywhere. Book stores are probably largely gone. I love book stores, spend quite a bit of time in the local one, but I doubt it is going to survive. Should government bail it out, hell no.

As has been pointed out endlessly on other sites, although not much on this one, the economic consequences are due to people's reaction to the pandemic. I stopped going to the local restaurants and book store quite a while ago and won't be going back any time soon. Government had no effect on my decisions.

The mum and pop stores are in some ways better positioned to survive this than the big chains. They are more flexible and can find other income streams more easily. The bailout will, in most cases, bias the market in favor the big chains and against the little guys. Government should get out of the way.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

A society's seed corn is its younger generations, to whom schooling is largely directed.

Michael said...

ARM

They will "bounce back" how? Do you have any concept of rent? Debt service? Debt itself? You seem very very naive, way out of your depth on the implication of the shutdown. Virtually clueless. How do these operators pay their rent? How do their landlords pay their debt service?

Read about PPP. You will look a little less silly and a lot less callous. You, like most lefties, do not give one fuck about the people who have lost their jobs and their businesses. And who won't "bounce back"

We might have been able to survive if the government had decided not to help. If they had seen that the people were perfectly able to navigate through a very bad flue year.

iowan2 said...

A society's seed corn is its younger generations, to whom schooling is largely directed.

That should, would, actually is, exactly right. But the Federal Govt of the United States is not society. The Federal Govt is bound by the Constitution.

Stop digging

chickelit said...

Here in Irvine, schools and universities were the first to close and they will be the last to reopen. Again because they are under the purview of the state and the University is scared shitless of liability. I imagine it's the same at other state universities.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Everyone talks up free markets until conditions are such that free markets are actually free to do their work, and then suddenly everyone's a socialist. It is nuts.

Michael said...

ARM
If we had a free market you would be broke. Of which there is no question. You live in some world sheltered from the free market, immune to what is happening around us. Mostly you are too dense to realize how dense you are. Let em learn to code.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Michael ... too dense

bagoh20 said...

"A society's seed corn is its younger generations, to whom schooling is largely directed."

What does that have to do with the Department of Education, except make it cost more and deliver less? Where do you think the money comes from to teach kids, the government?

What happens to the business owners and their children after they go under? They stop paying into the system and now need tax money for much longer than the bailout. They need welfare, and tons of assistance that they could be paying for themselves while contributing to taxes, and how will the education of their kids be advanced by them going broke?

If you have a good car and it gets a flat, does it make sense to just leave it there, or should you dig into your savings to get a new tire and be back on the road, even if you have to borrow the money.

I bet I'm more libertarian than almost anybody here, but letting functioning capital and assets get ruined when they can be saved at a discount doesn't make sense. I'm not for propping up failed business, becuase that's just throwing good money after bad, but functioning successful business are not easy to come by or create, and letting them die from something beyond their control that would ruin any but the luckiest is itself bad fiscal management.


J. Farmer said...

@ARM:

Everyone talks up free markets until conditions are such that free markets are actually free to do their work, and then suddenly everyone's a socialist. It is nuts.

I've certainly never talked up the free market. The free market is a myth. One has never existed.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

bagoh20 said...
I'm not for propping up failed business, becuase that's just throwing good money after bad,


This is correct, but it means that government is then placed in the position of picking winners and losers. I think everyone agrees that government is not going to do very well at that so there are going to be vast amounts of wasted money, which has to be paid back in taxes. Yes you lose if good businesses go under, but yes you lose if the government wastes money propping up non-viable businesses. We are all going to lose because of the virus, it is now a matter of limiting losses. I see no reason to believe that your remedy is better than mine and mine has the advantage of not sinking the government into unsustainable debt.

iowan2 said...

Yes you lose if good businesses go under, but yes you lose if the government wastes money propping up non-viable businesses.

Thats what happened in 2008? Some people lost their houses? Tough luck?

Are we bailing out small businesses, or the financial sector? A small business with good histroy is working from borrowed operating funds, and borrowed capital expansion. That gets written off in bankruptcy, and maybe personal bankruptcy on top of that.
None of this happens in a vacuum.

I'm all for getting the govt out of the rescue business. That includes natural disasters, health care, and funding enterprises like housing, education, small business, etal.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

iowan2 said...
Are we bailing out small businesses, or the financial sector?


And this is the other concern. Where does much of this money end up? Are we must bailing out the banks again? Time for their bond holders to take a loss.

Michael said...

ARM
Look up the PPP program. It has nothing to do with banks.

You have never been in business. Made a payroll. Negotiated a commercial loan. Lost or gained a customer. Hired someone. Fired someone. You are sans clue.

Michael said...

ARM
Your banks and bond holders comment is comedy gold. Priceless. Utterly clueless. At least bother to learn the terms. LOL.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

As ever, you missed iowan2's point, which was that much of the money given to small business would end up in the hands of the banks. God you are stupid.

SGT Ted said...

"... according to administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations."

Sure, buddy. I've heard that claim before and it turned out it didn't happen.

Michael said...

ARM
PPP program goes 75% to employee costs 25% to debt service, property taxes, rent.

Michael said...

ARM
75% of PPP loans must go to employee costs, 25% may be used to debt service, property taxes, rent, insurance.

You might check what I do for a living before calling me stupid on a topic you are clueless about.

Robert Cook said...

"And this is the other concern. Where does much of this money end up? Are we must bailing out the banks again? Time for their bond holders to take a loss."

It will always be the big dogs that get the, uh, lion's share of any government largesse, even when that largesse is purportedly dispensed to help those in duress due to such catastrophes as our current one. If the wealthy see an indigent person get a paltry sum in time of need, they demand an emperor's sum.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

You are the one who misinterpreted iowan2's point, not me. Up to 25% of the money goes to a bank bailout. Who signed up for yet another bank bailout?

Cato said...

I did a Google search "Trump name on checks" and not a single image of a check with Trump's name on it appeared out of the 150,000,000 results.

I wonder why?

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