[SML] D-Day

[June Abernathy]

Joe:

I’m sure this is going to be a wasted effort, when addressed to someone who considers any kind of relief funding to be socialism and feels the urge to quite Margaret Thatcher to prove their snarky point. 

The Federal government does have the power to authorize stimulus spending. They have done so repeatedly. The “power of the purse” lies with Congress. States also have a certain amount of funding that they can allocate.  Taxes are not just “other people’s money“, they are also MY money. And I would absolutely rather see MY money spent on direct relief to people whose industries have been devastated than see them go to Trump family and friends, various billionaire companies, and direct subsidy of the stock market. It’s not that the government is “running out of other people’s money”. It’s a matter of where it gets allocated. So far, where it gets allocated sucks for most of us. 

You want a quote from someone who isn’t an infamous asshole? 

The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover didn’t know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night, anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellows hands.
- Will Rogers

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jul 17, 2020, at 3:00 PM, stagecraft-request at theatrical.net wrote:
> 
> From: "jdunfee12 at yahoo.com" <jdunfee12 at yahoo.com
> 
> I think you have the wrong focus.? Thatchers statement, "The problem with socialism, is that eventually you run out of other people's money" is true.? And with an economy being dramatically restricted for so long, you just don't have as much other people's money to take.
> Also, such funds are really the domain of the state budgets. The U.S. Constitution (if you understand it to mean what all the signers understood it to mean) didn't give the federal government permission to do any sort of stimulus spending.Of course what the words meant when the Constitution was signed, seems to be widely ignored. But, there is at least the possibility that Americans will eventually say "enough is enough".? With a presidential election coming soon, it is hard to predict what will happen.? States have a lot more freedom to do arts spending.
> So, I think the emphasis needs to be on a more realistic reaction to the virus that can preserve the funds that the arts organizations need to exist.
> -Joe
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