We’re being slammed by the pandemic and are about to get slammed harder. Lots of states and cities are reinstating restrictions on businesses, especially bars and restaurants. Every day on the teevee news I see interviews of tearful small business owners who are on the edge of losing, or who have already lost, their businesses. And millions of Americans are heading into the holidays unemployed and over $5,000 behind on rent.
The business owners are angry at whatever government official ordered the restrictions, but they ought to be angry at Congress. People in the same fix in other countries are getting life support funds, but not here.
There is a stimulus bill in Congress. There is also an urgent need to pass a spending bill this week to avoid a government shutdown. It’s expected Congress will pass a one-week extension to that negotiations can continue.
If Congress doesn’t act by Friday, thousands of government workers considered nonessential would again be furloughed or forced to work without pay until the shutdown ends. A shutdown would likely have ripple effects, affecting everything from air travel to government health agencies handling the coronavirus pandemic.
National parks may close, airport operations could slow as workers are furloughed, and the paralysis could affect the economy, which has been battered by the coronavirus pandemic. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated tax revenue was down $2 billion in 2019 because the IRS had halted some operations during the shutdown.
So what’s holding it up?
Some of the biggest sticking points, according to a Democratic aide, revolve around immigration, as they have in years past – with funding for a wall along the southern border and immigrant detention beds for Immigration and Customs Enforcement – at the center of the dispute. Another hurdle is possibly adding language on police reform after a summer of protests over the killings of unarmed Black people, including George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Both sides then would have to agree come to an agreement on COVID-19 relief. The biggest hurdles revolve around money for state and local governments, a key item Democrats have insisted on, and liability protections for businesses, something Republicans have required in any relief bill. Though there is optimism growing on passing relief, Democrats and Republicans will have to quickly come to a deal so both chambers can pass a bill before Friday’s deadline.
The current stimulus bill under negotiation does contain $288 billion in assistance for U.S. businesses, it says here. This includes another round of funding for the Paycheck Protection Program. Another portion of the $288 billion is being set aside for restaurants. The bill also provides “another $300 per week from the federal government on top of their existing state unemployment benefits, assuming those have not been exhausted.” But what if those have been exhausted?
And then there’s the money for state and local governments, which Republicans have opposed, on the theory that only those bad Democrat states would get the money. Greg Sargent wrote last week:
But now numerous Republican senators seem to be increasingly gravitating toward a new $908 billion economic rescue package that is being negotiated by senators from both parties.
And one reason for this might be that some red states, too, are now facing serious fiscal crunches as the economic outlook darkens amid the surge of coronavirus that is only getting worse by the day.
Right now some of the states hurting the worst are red states. Whether Mitch McConnell cares, I do not know. What Mitch McConnell mostly cares about is liability protection for businesses, and that’s a sticking point for Democrats.
Here’s something I didn’t expect:
The $908 billion economic rescue package that a bipartisan group of senators have been pushing does not include one of the things we need most right now: direct cash payments to individuals.
This has created a budding left-right populist alliance of sorts between Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who are both pushing for inclusion of these payments.
Hawley plans to run for president in 2024, everybody says, even though he’s never shown any particular competence in any other office he’s held. But he’s gone right to Trump himself and asked him to veto any bill that doesn’t contain a direct payment to individuals. And Bernie Sanders has said he would not vote for a bill that didn’t include cash payments. So we’ll see.
The bill in its entirety doesn’t seem to me to be big enough. Nancy Pelosi and the House Dems have been holding out for a bigger bill. But more recently she has relented, saying that now that we’ll have a new president everything will be better. Maybe; that depends on Georgia. See also David Atkins, Democrats Should Tell the Hard, Partisan Truths About COVID Stimulus.
And I’m not seeing any appropriations for vaccine distribution. That’s going to be a mess, folks. Just warning you.
