More Americans Are Demanding $2,000 Permanent Monthly Stimulus Checks

The federal government has spent $42,000 per taxpayer on COVID-related relief and spending programs.

Millions of Americans are unhappy and demand a monthly $2,000 stimulus check.

The Change.org petition that started in 2020 continues to gain signatures, and it is nearing the 3 million milestones. Newsweek reports that if this goal is reached, it will be one of the most popular Change.org petitions of all time.

Sign this petition, and urge Congress to support families with $2,000 for adults and $1,000 for kids now. And ask them to set up stimulus checks that will give out regular payments during economic hard times. This is especially helpful in the face of the current pandemic and future recessions.

As far as I can see, a lot of people want more taxpayer-funded checks. I don't think that's a good idea.

As millions remain unemployed, more than 2 million Americans turn 65, and the gap between rich and poor widens, the American people deserve financial support. So it’s time to give permanent stimulus checks as “giving money to the people.” But some argue that this concept is falsely framed. They say that Americans don’t deserve handouts because they caused their own problems.

The trouble with Socialism is that you run out of other people's money. And resources cannot be created out of thin air. Resources can be hard to come by, and when they are, they’re expensive. Resources are not unlimited, and when you run out, you have to take them from others.

If you want a society to be prosperous, it needs the resources. Taxes from the rich and big companies will not do it alone. You need a lot of money from many different sources to make a society prosperous.

A hard truth? Giving working-class Americans monthly stimulus checks would require, directly or indirectly, increasing taxes they must pay. To not see this truth is to be a victim of the Santa Claus principle.

Mises said in Bureaucracy that "the truth is the government cannot give if it does not take from somebody." This means that the government cannot provide resources but rather must take it from somebody. Just like Santa Claus, the government does not have unlimited powers to provide resources because it can only spend what its citizens give up.

Government "stimulus" schemes don't stimulate the economy after all. They simply take money from one place and put it elsewhere, often losing much of it to waste and fraud.

Governments will often choose to invest in less economically productive areas because it can be politically motivated. For instance, a country might invest in a sports stadium with low economic productivity. That same political motivation also leads to the push for companies with low economic productivity, such as perpetual $2,000 relief checks.

It takes money to help people, so if you’re taking it, don’t put it back. And with the federal government's efficiency, some of the first stimulus checks sent contained billions of dollars that were mailed to dead people and Europeans.

Americans who are still struggling may be drawn to the idea of perpetual "free" government aid, but most people know better. It's a soothing fiction that often fails to adequately consider a person's needs. When people don't think they're getting a fair deal, they'll leave for greener pastures.