“Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev killed three people and terrorized a city. He will receive a $ 1,400 stimulus check as part of the Democrats’ COVID relief bill,” Cotton said. tweeted Saturday to his approximately 142,000 followers. Cotton, who voted against the bill, posted a virtually identical message on Facebook to his 308,000 followers there.
Cotton tweeted a similar message about Dylann Roof, the perpetrator of a 2015 massacre at a well-known black church in Charleston, South Carolina. Cotton too asked on Twitter: “How will sending stimulus checks to murderers and rapists in jail help solve the pandemic?”
Cotton complained again about inmates who received checks during a Fox News appearance Monday morning and said it was a ‘crazy’ democratic idea.
Cotton’s attack on Democrats was echo by North Carolina Representative Madison Cawthorn on Sunday on Twitter. Fox News meanwhile turned Cotton’s tweets into an ominous headline on the front page of its website: “FINDING OF FORGOTTEN KILLERS. Democratic COVID bill gives mass murderers taxpayers money out of your pocket.”
But Cotton’s attack left out an extremely relevant fact.
Facts first: Prisoners also received checks from both bills on the pandemic signed by President Donald Trump and voted for by Cotton. Not the account Trump signed with Cotton’s support in March and neither did account Trump signed in December with Cotton’s support, containing any language prohibiting inmates from getting aid.
The Trump-era Internal Revenue Service did try to prevent inmates from getting money from the first bill. Tax law experts across the political spectrum have said the IRS has no authority to do so as the text of the law does not exclude prisoners. After prisoners filed a class action lawsuit, a federal judge ruled in October that the government should give prisoners access to the cash.
“The IRS did not try to pull the same stunt with the second bill,” said Kelly Dermody, a plaintiffs’ attorney in the class action lawsuit.
We can not confirm that Tsarnaev and Roof in particular are one of the prisoners who actually received assistance from the two bills that Trump signed. Many inmates had to submit new paperwork to the IRS to claim the money, which was a major obstacle for some of them.
But it is clear that convicted murderers, like other people convicted of crimes, were generally eligible for the Trump era.
“Assuming that (1) Mr Tsarnaev’s adjusted gross income fell below $ 75,000 in 2019 or 2018, (2) he had a valid social security number, and (3) no one could call him tax dependent. claim, then he would have been eligible for the two previous checks issued under President Trump, ‘says Patrick Thomas, a medical clinical professor of law at the University of Notre Dame and director of the Notre Dame Tax Clinic .
The fact that the Trump-era bills did not exclude prisoners was particularly notable because the stimulus bill signed by President Barack Obama during the 2009 economic crisis made prisoners unfit for checks unless they were only recently locked up.
Cotton’s voices in the past
Prisoners, like other individuals, were eligible for checks up to $ 1,200 per individual from the first bill Trump signed and up to $ 600 from the second bill Trump signed, depending on their income.
Both of these bills were approved by a Republican-controlled Senate – and Cotton voted for both.
The first bill, the CARES Act of March 2020, was passed 96-0 by the Senate; Cotton was one of the 96 in favor. Cotton’s press secretary James Arnold told CNN that the IRS has issued guidelines that detainees are not eligible for the checks from this bill. The bill itself, however, again did not include any such prohibition, and therefore the court ruled the prisoners.
The second bill, the Consolidated Credits Act, was passed by Senate 92-6; Cotton was one of the 92 in favor. Arnold noted that there was no opportunity on the Senate floor to present amendments to this bill. Republican leaders, however, could have inserted language before the bill got the word out to ban checks for inmates. They did not.
CNN also asked Arnold if Cotton had ever criticized Trump or his fellow Republicans for sending emergency money to prisoners. Arnold did not answer this question.
On Saturday, with the Democrats now in control of a 50-50 Senate, the Senate voted 50-49 according to party lines to pass a bill, the U.S. Rescue Plan Act, that includes checks of up to $ 1,400 per individual, depending on of their income. The bill, which now requires another House approval, is expected to be sent to President Joe Biden this week to be signed into law.
This time, as Cotton noted in his appearance on Fox News on Monday, Senate Republicans were trying to make a change – from Bill. Cassidy and Cotton of Louisiana – to deny prisoners the checks. The amendment was postponed by 50-49, with all 50 Democrats opposed to it and all Republicans present.
Challenges for prisoners
Advocates for inmates say it makes sense to send emergency relief money to people behind bars. The Prison Policy Initiative, a research and advocacy organization, noted in 2020 that many inmates will be released soon and that high unemployment from the pandemic era makes it especially difficult for former inmates to find work. The Prison Policy Initiative also noted that family members and friends of inmates on the outside, many of whom are low-income people themselves, often have to bear the burden of the inmates’ basic supplies, medical co-payments, and phone calls and messages. .
“Promoting incentive funds to inmates helps protect the health and well-being of those behind bars and provide relief to their loved ones at home,” the Prison Policy Initiative said in 2020.
Wanda Bertram, a spokeswoman for the Prison Policy Initiative, said Monday that inmates still have “a lot of trouble” accessing their money from the first and second bills.
“One common problem is that the IRS sends people in jail these prepaid debit cards rather than checks, and debit cards are useless in jail. Many people have applied to receive checks they never received last year and nothing from the IRS. “And for people who get the checks, we still see criminal justice systems, child support agencies, and even private companies taking out hundreds of dollars before the check ever reaches the person,” she said.