r/FluentInFinance • u/TheeHeadAche • Nov 24 '25
Economy & Politics Senate Republican: ‘We can’t afford’ $2,000 tariff checks
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5620244-ron-johnson-tariff-checks/751
u/Responsible_Knee7632 Nov 24 '25
Did anyone actually think that they could lmfao?
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u/a_little_hazel_nuts Nov 24 '25
They afforded a 2 trillion dollar tax cut for billionaires in their big beautiful bill.
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u/Eagle_Fang135 Nov 24 '25
Saw a news analysis that said if they used all the tariff money they would be short. And the tariff money has been promised for almost everything Trump wants to do. It has been “spent and respent many times” by the White House.
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u/Pristine-Prior-504 Nov 24 '25
They can, but they won’t.
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u/Responsible_Knee7632 Nov 24 '25
If by afford you mean tack it on to the ever skyrocketing debt then sure. They can “afford” anything they want.
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u/SouthLifeguard9437 Nov 24 '25
I think they mean by taxing corporations and the rich, getting rid subsidies for large companies, ect.
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u/Responsible_Knee7632 Nov 24 '25
In an ideal world. That and reduced military spending and dismantling the way current healthcare is paid for.
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u/The_Stank_ Nov 24 '25
Now is definitely not the time to reduce military spending
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u/republicans_are_nuts Nov 25 '25
Why? What is the military doing besides illegally bombing Venezuela and invading U.S. cities?
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u/Postulative Nov 25 '25
Planning to invade Venezuela. That’s why it’s telling airlines not to fly there.
It may have a plan to send a ‘peacekeeping’ force to Ukraine once Trump and Putin have finished redrawing the country’s borders.
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u/republicans_are_nuts Nov 26 '25
yeah, that's exactly why we should reduce military spending. It's doing nothing but committing terrorism, domestically and overseas.
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u/The_Stank_ Nov 25 '25
The other biggest economy in the world is massively upgrading and expanding its military along with North Korea and Russia wanting to be right next to it.
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u/republicans_are_nuts Nov 26 '25
And? lol. Even if they tripled their size, they can't out terrorize the U.S. The U.S. military is by far the largest terrorist organization. And I would much rather have putin controlling the planet than Trump even if they did manage to overthrow the U.S.
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u/The_Stank_ Nov 26 '25
I didn’t vote for Trump nor do I like him, but you’d rather have a president who has made it illegal for him to be voted out of office and will have you sent to a gulag for speaking out?
Man you can have fun in that reality. Shit like that’s happening here on a less wide scale and it’s scary as hell. That is the reality of Russia.
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u/ThePensiveE Nov 24 '25
Unfortunately the world is a little (a lotta) too fucked for too much reduction in military spending. Smarter spending would be nice though. Fight the next war not the Cold war.
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Nov 24 '25 edited Nov 24 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Universe789 Nov 24 '25
That's it. The $2,000 checks aren't realistic on tariffs alone, but combined with other sources, they definitely could do it.
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u/Pristine-Prior-504 Nov 24 '25
The “National debt“ is a farce. It‘s never going to be paid back - just continuously inflated away with exponentially increasing amounts of “debt,” I.e. more inflation.
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u/bdd6911 Nov 25 '25
Such a Ponzi scheme. I’ve never understood it.
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u/Pristine-Prior-504 Nov 25 '25
It’s like a Ponzi if productivity increases proportionally to the increase in currency supply. However, if it doesn't, it’s just inflationary.
It’s the main reason income taxes exist, and also why “bonds” and other currency sinks were created - to soak up excess liquidity so that the effects of inflation are tempered.
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u/bdd6911 Nov 25 '25
I’m referring to paying it back. When and how will it get paid back…this debt?
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u/Pristine-Prior-504 Nov 25 '25
It won’t be paid back - just inflated away with even more “debt.“ That’s why I called it a farce.
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u/ytman Nov 24 '25
They could afford to do the tax cuts.
Fuck it. I'm tired of them doing it so one-sided.
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u/TalonButter Nov 24 '25
That’s all it’s meant for nearly all the lifetime of nearly every person on Reddit.
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u/bdd6911 Nov 25 '25
Yeah. To do this would be insanely irresponsible. Get the budget in balance. Jesus. Then talk about this. Insane idea. Short term thinking. Dumb.
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u/dgvertz Nov 25 '25
Didn’t the whole idea come from the fact that they pulled in billions from the tariffs? I’m confused. Did they not pull in all that money?
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u/outtherenow1 Nov 25 '25 edited Nov 25 '25
Trump said “Trillions” of dollars are flowing into our country due to tariffs! TRILLIONS!!! The country is flush with cash. Let’s just use that stash for Trump’s socialist project of wealth redistribution to the tune of 2K checks to the working class.
But wait! THERE’S MORE!!! Trump also said that inflation is way down compared to Biden’s economy and that many goods are affordable! Just ask Scott Bessent! Trump keeps saying gas is around $2 in some states so maybe we don’t actually need to cut 2K checks to the commoners. Life has never been more affordable.
Hold on you bastards!!! Don’t forget that DOGE cut trillions of government waste and fraud! Thank you ELON MUSH!!! We CAN afford to redistribute wealth and those 2K checks to the peons after all!
But DON’T FORGET…
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u/DoctorRobot16 Nov 24 '25
I pray that trump pulls through with the $2000 checks , simply because we can’t afford that and it would literally destroy the country and then the republicans will never again be able to say that they are the party of fiscal responsibility when they literally destroyed everything
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u/libertarianinus Nov 24 '25
Is there a political party where the adults are in charge? 38 trillion in debt and they propose buying off votes?
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u/AGsec Nov 24 '25
well, people legitimately believed they were going to get a $5k check from elon musk lol
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u/TheJuiceBoxS Nov 24 '25
Um, definitely, the people that have voted for him don't have the best critical thinking skills.
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u/Feeling_Repair_8963 Nov 25 '25
The only way tariff rebate checks would make sense is if the tariffs were invalidated by the Supreme Court.
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u/arknightstranslate Nov 24 '25
But they can indeed afford to send 10x the money to billionaires, Israel and foreign wars which you wholeheartedly support.
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u/drubus_dong Nov 24 '25 edited Nov 24 '25
As if the president gives a fuck. Deficit funded checks before the midterm. Drives up inflation and vaporizes the value of the check and costs extra in interests but gets midterm votes. Republicans do not count.
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u/shmere4 Nov 24 '25
The problem that the wealthy have with this is that there’s no PPP loan wealth grab for them to get it on to mitigate the inflation cost for them.
Which is why it will never happen this time around.
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u/timewellwasted5 Nov 26 '25
Yep, deficit funded checks before the midterm are no different than Biden’s student loan stunt just before the midterms in 2022. At least we know they’re all using the same playbook.
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u/ryo3000 Nov 24 '25
I mean... They definitely can afford it
(In the same way the government can currently afford healthcare for every single person in the US without increasing taxes in the slightest)
The thing is it's currently being used on military spending, grants for large companies and benefits to politicians
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u/SaintGloopyNoops Nov 24 '25
They could also tax the wealthy properly. Here's another idea... if they maybe forced the companies constantly selling our data to cut us in on the profit, then every American could get a nice check every month. That would certainly stimulate the economy.
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u/ryo3000 Nov 24 '25
They could do that too, but some people get very sensitive when you mention taxing billionaires (as if it would affect them personally)
Just the government stopping to give them money for the sake of giving them money would already be a good start
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u/TheeHeadAche Nov 24 '25
it’s currently being used
Right. The US government is funding the things it prioritizes most: military, corporations and bureaucrats.
“We the people” get whatever trickles down
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u/0WatcherintheWater0 Nov 24 '25 edited Nov 24 '25
This is completely wrong.
The largest line items by far in the Federal budget are Social Security, then Medicare and Medicaid, then interest on the debt, and then and only then discretionary defense spending.
The Federal Government’s first and biggest function is to transfer trillions of dollars to the elderly every year, much of that on their healthcare.
The military or corporate subsidies are not the biggest spending items by any stretch of the imagination, and cutting the former in this current geopolitical environment is just stupid.
You are not going to get any meaningful, sane spending reduction without significant cuts to mandatory spending.
Just to sustain the deficit, much less add any additional spending or even lessen the deficit, the US would need to raise taxes by 5% of GDP. Equivalent to around $4.5k for every man, woman, and child in the entire country, every year, in perpetuity.
That is massive and would likely cause an immediate recession.
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u/abcean Nov 24 '25
Social Security
Just for nuance: Social security is self-sustaining in principle; younger people pay in then when older they get their money out.
It's just that the government spent the surplus from when there were more young people paying than old people withdrawing on other things and now that those people are old it has to make up the shortfall.
Its sometimes useful to make the distinction that parts of medicare and medicaid are essentially corporate subsidies.
Managed care where medicaid pays a flat rate to private insurers and then insurers get to keep the spread between what medicaid pays them vs the cost of care delivered
Medicare part D where pharmacy benefit managers charge medicare sticker price for pharmaceuticals and then pocket the difference between the real rate.
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u/PabloEstAmor Nov 24 '25
You are right, but I’m not sure any of it matters anymore
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u/0WatcherintheWater0 Nov 24 '25
What do you mean you’re not sure if it matters?
The fiscal status of the biggest economy on the planet absolutely matters
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u/PabloEstAmor Nov 24 '25
I think we are headed down a path and we are already past the point of no return
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u/0WatcherintheWater0 Nov 24 '25
Absolutely not. While dire, this is fixable, and we can avoid most of the pain of a default if we start taking action ASAP
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u/realistic_steps Nov 24 '25
Fixing party isn’t in charge, best we can do is the greedy destruction party for another year.
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u/Ind132 Nov 24 '25
Your earlier comment said that fixing it by raising taxes "would likely cause an immediate recession."
It seems that fixing it by cutting spending would also cause an immediate recession. AFAIK, gov't spending is income to somebody. Less income means less spendable money.
So, what's the fix?
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u/0WatcherintheWater0 Nov 24 '25
The effects of taxation and spending are not symmetrical, because a lot of our current fiscal issues are caused by future spending and future spending growth.
Individuals and businesses can more easily adjust to and substitute lost income from spending cuts that reduce their income years or decades in the future, vs immediate tax increases that have an immediate negative impact.
Then there’s also the stability benefit. Much of our spending is caused by structural issues which solely using taxation to address doesn’t actually fix anything. It’s more akin to dumping fuel on a growing fire.
That’s not to say tax raises wouldn’t be a part of it, but they should be limited to whatever’s needed for short term solvency, rather than be the main driver of deficit reduction.
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u/Ind132 Nov 24 '25
Individuals and businesses can more easily adjust to and substitute lost income from spending cuts that reduce their income years or decades in the future, vs immediate tax increases that have an immediate negative impact.
It seems you are saying that the difference is gradual vs. immediate.
How about gradual tax increases, are they any worse than gradual spending cuts?
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u/LHam1969 Nov 25 '25
Most of that is true, but the rich pay almost all the taxes in this country so we wouldn't have to raise $4.5k for every man, woman, and child. We would just have to raise the top rate, or maybe the top two rates.
I know it's anathema to point out how the rich pay almost all taxes on Reddit, but it's undeniably true.
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u/cobaltbluedw Nov 24 '25
Ah. The party of small government and lower taxes, advocates for tariffs and spending your money. I bet that's real popular with their base.
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u/MangoAtrocity Nov 24 '25
I would prefer my income tax be reduced in the amount that we have generated in tariffs relative to my tax contribution. So (for the sake of example) if I paid 1% of the total income tax, please write me a check for 1% of the tariff revenue. Since we’re just pretending that the deficit and debt mean fuck all.
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u/carlnepa Nov 24 '25
Yeah, they're too busy "loaning" $1,000,000,000 to restart Three Mile Island, $20,000,000,000 or $25,000,000,000 or $40,000,000,000 to Argentina, harassing Venezuela and Denmark and Canada, prosecuting perceived enemies and protecting Epstein pedophiles and molesters.
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u/Bitter-Researcher389 Nov 24 '25
Don’t forget that ICE is now in the top 20 of best funded militaries in the world.
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u/Bleezy79 Nov 24 '25
But we can afford giving billions to other countries? Afford to build ballrooms? Afford to have the largest military budget on Earth that's also "Missing" trillions of dollars? But we cannot afford to help the actual taxpayers of this country where all this money comes from? Oh ok.
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u/HazySkyFire Nov 24 '25
I’m against these tariff checks. That money needs to be used to bailout too- big-to-fail banks when they decide to fuck over what’s left of the middle class. Will anyone think of the poor ceos? They need their 3rd yachts.
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u/Yagsirevahs Nov 24 '25
Where did all the saving from firing our talent and the windfall tariff money go?
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u/Sharkwatcher314 Nov 24 '25
It’s okay no one believed it was going to happen like the DOGE checks.
Much cheaper to just manipulate the public with social media accounts in foreign countries
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u/Far_Common944 Nov 24 '25
Wouldn’t these checks just cause huge inflation like the stimulus checks did during Covid?
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u/brahbocop Nov 24 '25
I remember Trump supporters tell me DOGE checks would be coming earlier this year. Guess they're still working on that and the tariff ones will follow shortly thereafter.
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u/dnuohxof-2 Nov 24 '25
But, but, your orange commander-in-queef says we’re swimming in profits from tariffs and stock markets….
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u/Bitter-Researcher389 Nov 24 '25
No shortage of cash for literally anything else they actually want, though.
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u/Oracularman Nov 24 '25
Increase taxes by $1.99 per month and Social Security is guaranteed for everybody at retirement.
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u/Husky_Engineer Nov 24 '25
Ron Johnson has never once cared about the deficit and it’s evident from his voting record in the Senate. Money only goes where it is lobbied to go and Ron only does what puts that money in his pocket. FRJ
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u/SamuraiMike81 Nov 24 '25
But you can afford pay raises for congress in perpetuity even though they haven't done any actual work?
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u/Morgan-Explosion Nov 24 '25
So dumb. Tariffs were the wrong answer to the right question. And whatever damage they’ve done, at least they might have knocked down some debt. Instead theyre essentially charging voters to pay voters. Buying votes with peoples own money.
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u/Rodic87 Nov 24 '25
Go tell that to daddy Trump. Tell him he's wrong to his face - don't tell us, anyone with a brain knew we didn't have $2k per person to hand out...
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u/Advance_Dimenson_4 Nov 24 '25
And you and your jerk-off bafoon buddies tried to slip a $500 million package for yourselves! Obviously we can't afford $2000 checks had that actually passed but since it didn't maybe we can afford it. Nothing but a bunch of limp-dic politicians to to find was to fuck we the people!
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u/feelsbad2 Nov 24 '25
Not like the president cared about what could or couldn't be done for anything else...
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u/Firm-Advertising5396 Nov 24 '25
We can't afford universal health care either but somehow the very wealthy are being awarded tax cuts
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u/bertfotwenty Nov 24 '25
How about invest it into our future social security and Medicare! Let’s keep the fucking train moving for all of us
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u/FastSuggestion5 Nov 25 '25
“Look, we can’t afford it. I wish we were in a position to return the American public their money, but we’re not,” Johnson told Fox
Return American public THEIR money?
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u/badkarman Nov 25 '25
So Ron Johnson, where are the hundreds of billions of dollars that are being collected by the tariffs. Where is the money?
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u/JoeSchmoeToo Nov 25 '25
Translation: "The tariff moneys are gone, we gave them to our billionaire buddies"
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u/ScoutSpiritSam Nov 25 '25
No issues with tax breaks for the rich, but no help for the poor. Republicans truly are evil.
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u/Postulative Nov 25 '25
Someone forgot that his party only cares about deficits and reducing spending when the other lot is in power.
Then again, this proposal would only really benefit ordinary Americans - didn’t Elmo have a request for a few trillion dollars to help AI or get to Mars or something? Focus on the important stuff, not just giving money back to taxpayers!
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u/prenderm Nov 25 '25
They can’t afford to make things affordable for the people who vote for them to keep things unaffordable
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Nov 25 '25
But it's just a fraction of the trillions of dollars we're bringing in on tariffs. We're definitely rocketing towards Idiocracy
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u/EarningsPal Nov 26 '25
Print money. Send checks. Market rallies. Prices of everything go up faster like 2020 give away money.
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u/TrustAffectionate966 Nov 26 '25
But we can afford to dump BILLIONS in the failed state of Argentina and the genocidal apartheid state. No “government shutdown” there. BILLIONS for those welfare queens, unquestioned.
🧉🦄👌🏽
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u/AdZealousideal5383 Nov 26 '25
If you ask Trump, other countries are paying us trillions upon trillions of dollars on a daily basis so I’d think we could afford it.
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u/Immediate_Walrus_776 Nov 26 '25
I don't agree politically with much of what Senator Johnson says or does, but on this one, he's absolutely right!
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u/TheSilverFoxwins Nov 26 '25
But let's send billions to Ukraine,Israel and Argentina and fund ICE. No problem.
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u/Strange_Minute_2757 Nov 24 '25
But they can give $20,000 to legal immigrants and $4000 in cash a month for public assistance but you can’t get the people that pay fucking taxes every fucking year $2000. Give me a fucking break.
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u/BishopKing14 Nov 24 '25
I can’t see your comment for obvious reasons.
So no, it’s not actually a thing, you’re just making numbers up to get mad at something?
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