Last week, Cortney wrote about how MSNBC’s Katy Tur stepped in it by trying to factcheck the recent slate of bonuses companies have been doling out to their workers. She noted starting a family costs over $5,000, making the $1,000 bonus worthless. It’s all part of the liberal media’s tantrum for eating crow over how the tax bill isn’t Armageddon, how it’s made for a better job-creating and investing climate, and how companies are reinvesting back into America and their workers. In an epic game of moving goal posts, now they’re saying the bonuses are nothing to American families, while Democrats have described them as “crumbs.” If one has to wonder what happens when the base of a political party becomes increasingly urban-based, over-educated, and absolutely detached from reality, you only need to look at the Democratic Party.
Gentleman at Ohio Trump event says he's going to save to start a family with his 1,000 dollar one time bonus.
— Katy Tur (@KatyTurNBC) February 5, 2018
Average cost to give birth to one child in Ohio is $5,836.
https://t.co/owGFTcQdR6
It must be nice not being poor. Seriously, to have the gumption to denigrate and spit in the faces of America’s working families, to let them know that these bonuses, which were not doled out under the hyper regulatory state of the Obama years, are nothing; maybe because the Democratic Party has zero members within its ranks that fit the bill. They’ve all swung to Trump.
It is hard to overstate how uninformed about taxes and unqualified @KatyTurNBC is at her job. https://t.co/MvGvez7Cer
— Lee Doren (@LDoren) February 7, 2018
It’s amazing to see how much contempt the mainstream media holds for working class families, where every dollar actually counts. https://t.co/r1Gt35JjFe
— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) February 6, 2018
Well, of course, Tur got ripped on social media for her condescending analysis, so she decided to double down, asking if she was really out of touch with her bonus remarks. Oh, but at least she said that the $1,000 bonus was a big deal and a great thing, but also not good enough, or something (via RCP):
KATY TUR, MSNBC: On Tuesday [sic] (editor's note: it was on Monday), the president highlighted a pair of workers in Ohio who were using their $1,000 bonus to save for some big-ticket dreams: starting a family, owning a home and sending kids to college. We applaud them. Every dollar counts and $1,000 is a very big deal. But along with cheering one-time bonuses, shouldn't we be pushing for long-term salary hikes, the kind of sustained help that would transform big-ticket dreams into everyday realities? Because think about it, starting a family, owning a home, sending your kids to college, these should be within the reach of every American, bonus or no bonus. Or does that make me seem out of touch? I'm just not sure...
These one-time bonuses, $1,000 is a big deal. Nobody's scoffing at $1,000. But is that where we should stop sharing, or should there be a push to change the system and get wages up so that workers can afford more of these everyday things?
Yeah, talk about walking a waffled line. Lady, just own it. You stepped on a rake; it hit your face—hard. Now, just own it. Also, we should all thank God that Tur didn’t decide to become a financial adviser. National Review’s Charles Cooke points out that no one thinks that $1,000 will buy everything progressives want to socialize, make totally free, and in the process destroy this country, but it does (getting back to real life here) offer a nice start for a family to save—something that has evaporated from home budgets over the past quarter century. Cooke takes the time to pretty much rip Tur’s whole position, while showing how incredibly out of touch the Left has become when it comes to these bonuses.
I must confess to being slightly confused as to what point Tur is trying to make here. Surely she can’t think that the “gentleman” in the first tweet believes he will only need $1,000 to “save to start a family”? And surely she can’t think that the “woman” in the second tweet, who said she’d use her “$1,000 bonus and tax cut to help buy a home and pay for her two kids who are going to college,” believes that a home in Ohio plus college for two will cost only $1,000 in total? And if Tur doesn’t, then surely she can see that, for both of these people, having $1,000 more today than they did yesterday is a welcome development? Given that nobody has claimed otherwise, the fact that the extra $1,000 won’t buy everything immediately is immaterial. Per these voters, it’ll help with their long-term goals. In what universe do we respond to people who say they intend to start saving for a home, a family, or a college education by suggesting that they are actually too poor?
[…]
Tur’s examples are peculiar. Most people do not buy homes outright, and, indeed, most people find collecting the down payment, not the monthly payments, the most challenging part of buying property. At the moment, the average down payment on a home is between 8 and 11 percent, depending on the buyer’s age. As such, a home worth $277,582 would require a down payment of between $22,000 and $30,000, and monthly payments of around $1,200. Of course a sudden $1,000 bonus (plus an ongoing tax cut) will help here — not least for those who are close to having saved enough, but who are not quite there yet. The same is true of medical bills.
If Tur is correct to predict that the “gentleman” who wanted to “start a family” would end up paying $5,836 for a birth, then the bonus he’s received will cover up to 17 percent of that (taxes depending) — a not inconsiderable amount. Moreover, in the event that he can’t afford the expense all at once (an awful lot of people pay medical bills over time), that $1,000 will help his cashflow to no end. I am struggling to imagine Tur exhibiting the same reaction if, for example, a Democratic Congress had voted to subsidize every birth with $1,000 in parent-directed cash. Why is that? As for college, the cost of which Tur puts at between $19,000 and $35,000 (presumably per year), it is hard to ascertain what she’s complaining about. Assuming that a parent saved an equal amount for each child in each of his pre-college years, $1,000 represents a whole year’s saving for a year at public college, and half a year’s saving for a year at private college.
Yeah, those bonuses, which over 250 companies have distributed to over three million workers, are terrible things. Who thought relief to middle and working class families would expose liberals as insufferable snobs? Oh right—that’s what happens when you’re the party of the coastal elites.
If I received a $1,000 bonus, it would cover my student loan payments for almost three months. You can disagree with the tax bill, but it’s wrong to demean people because of what they’re using that money for https://t.co/FYmbfYdx4e
— Melissa Quinn (@MelissaQuinn97) February 5, 2018
Good Tweet, Katy. What a total loser this guy is! He should probably never save money and plan for the children and the family he doesn't have yet. He should return the money to the government as taxes and let them spend it for him instead. https://t.co/4iyqgOvCvO
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) February 6, 2018
The ignorance of those who have never lived paycheck to paycheck is astounding. https://t.co/D4Ro2WfzSM
— Caleb Howe (@CalebHowe) February 5, 2018
Weird trend: successful NYC/DC dwellers mocking an extra $1K in Americans’ pockets.
— AshLee Strong (@AshLeeStrong) February 5, 2018
We should probably cut taxes even more then. https://t.co/ZbQYuw8KX9
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) February 6, 2018
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