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Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw bashed stimulus checks during a conversation with fellow Texan Joe Rogan on his podcast, saying they are bad policy. Crenshaw, a Navy SEAL veteran who has been in the House of Representatives since 2019, has often spoken out against the idea of sending direct payments to Americans as part of COVID-19 relief efforts. During the April 2021 interview with Rogan, Crenshaw railed against what he sees as policies that create a “weak society.”
Crenshaw told Rogan on the JRE episode #1630, “There’s value in suffering. In today’s society we have convinced ourselves there is no value in suffering. The entire role of government is to end your suffering. But this is a false promise. Not only is it a false promise, but it will create a weak society that is unable to sustain itself. … This is why victimhood politics is so dangerous and I would say populism is too. I think the two are almost indistinguishable from each other. People are always trying to talk about populism, on the right and the left. Here’s what populism is: it’s telling you what you feel, it’s mirroring your feelings back to you, it’s telling you what you want to hear opposed to the truth. … I don’t like it.”
Crenshaw added, “A lot of people are for $1,600 checks that are free, that doesn’t mean it’s a good policy.” Rogan chimed in, “If people voted and said, ‘do you want $100,000 free a year,’ everybody would vote yes.” Crenshaw added, “Why wouldn’t you? But is it a sustainable policy? Of course not.” Rogan agreed, “Of course not.”
Congress has approved three rounds of direct stimulus checks in the year that the U.S. has been dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. Crenshaw voted for the first package, but voted against the second and third bills. Crenshaw tweeted in March 2021, “Bribing people with their own money is dishonest and unsustainable.” During an appearance on Fox & Friends, Crenshaw added, “If you’re really happy about getting a $1,400 check — again, imagine that: Giving free money to people is popular, I get that — but here’s the thing: It’s costing you $5,700, give or take, and if you’re not paying for it, your kids are.” He said policies like that “will destroy the next generation.”
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Crenshaw Told Rogan ‘Welfare Policies’ & ‘Infrastructure Spending’ Are ‘Populism on Steroids’
Crenshaw said “welfare policies” and “infrastructure spending” is “populism on steroids.” The Texas congressman told Rogan, “It’s not telling you the truth. … We have to get back to truth and we have to get away from this victimhood mentality where we actually elevate this idea of being helpless. That’s what’s changed in the past decade.”
Crenshaw added, “It used to be that you might feel some shame if you were the type,” to take help from the government. “That used to be the American way. We need a safety net, nobody would disagree with that. We need to help people who have truly fallen on hard times, who have lost their jobs because of COVID. But does that also mean we have to provide a $1,400 check to somebody who never lost their job and whose biggest hardship has been Zoom meetings? Of course not. But over a 100 million people were getting checks that never lost their jobs.”
Crenshaw told Rogan about the stimulus checks, “There was no backlash for this. Even on the right. I was a little frustrated with the president, or the ex-president, Donald Trump. The president I voted for. He was pushing for those $2,000 cash payments.” Rogan said Trump was likely pushing for those to earn political points and Crenshaw responded, “That’s the point. That’s exactly the point. There’s an incentive now to pay people off with their own money and it’s not good.”
Crenshaw Also Talked About the ‘Political Polarization’ of COVID-19 & His Views on ‘Vaccine Passports
Crenshaw also talked with Rogan about the “political polarization” of COVID-19. “I was blown away by the politics of it,” Crenshaw said. “The division fell on partisan lines. About whether to lockdown or not to lockdown. Whether people liked masks or didn’t like masks. And at first that seems really odd, so I spent a lot of time analyzing this, because it shouldn’t be that way. It should be mixed. You would think,” he said. “I think there was some political opportunism. I think that if Trump says something people reactively say the opposite.”
Crenshaw added, “However, after Trump lost the election, that didn’t stop. That movement, pro-lockdown movement, didn’t stop.” Rogan responded, “Once people get committed to an ideology or committed to a narrative, just because Trump lost and now Biden is in power, it’s not like everybody just abandons this narrative and creates a new reality based on objective truth.”
Rogan also brought up people’s suspicions about the government and hesitancy to get the vaccine because of that. Rogan asked Crenshaw, “What are your thoughts about this vaccine passport concept? Because a lot of people find that deeply problematic, giving the government this ability to let people travel or not travel based on whether or not you’ve been vaccinated.”
Crenshaw responded, “The left cannot let go of COVID. They want it around, they want to keep spending money based on this moral stance that we need to keep supporting communities because of COVID and that we need to keep doing things and taking excessive action because of COVID. … Because they love collectivism and they love centralized control of economy and the country.”
Crenshaw added, “It’s not practical at all. … It seems like a really bad idea.”
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