The Spark

the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist

“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx

Triple-Dip Stimulus for the Rich

Jan 4, 2021

In the first pandemic stimulus bill that Congress passed last spring, hundreds of billions of dollars went into the pockets of wealthy people. For example, much of the 523 billion dollars of the Paycheck Protection Program that we were told was going to small businesses actually ended up in the pockets of big companies. It was called a loan, but the companies were allowed to keep all the money as long as they kept their businesses going and paid their employees.

But these big companies were not satisfied with getting free money just once. So when the second stimulus bill was being written, these same companies went to their friends in Congress and were allowed to deduct from their taxes all the free money they had gotten in the spring. We guess that’s called a double dip.

And then there’s the triple dip. The new stimulus bill allows for a 6.3 billion dollar tax write-off for so-called business meals. You know what those are. That’s when the corporate bosses meet their politician friends for lunch and discuss how to take the tax money paid by working people and put it in the pockets of rich people.

That’s called capitalism at its finest.