Relief Or No Relief
Yesterday afternoon, the President announced by Twitter that he was calling off negotiations with the Speaker of the House over a COVID relief bill until after the election. Granted, that’s less than a month away, but that’s a pretty pivotal month…not just in the life of the election, but in the lives of those affected economically by the pandemic.
Then came more tweets last night, suggesting a series of standalone bills for such things as PPP and help for airlines.
None of that, however, was new…Republicans have called consistently for stand alone bills, while Democrats seek a big money statement bill. But it’s more confusing than that, as House Republicans blocked a Democrat-backed stand alone for the airlines recently.
At a time when the country is still on edge, emotionally and financially, why has nothing been done? As Politico notes, there are essentially three reasons…first, the two sides are roughly a trillion dollars apart on the size of any package, and that’s a pretty big gap to overcome. Second, the number Capitol Hill Republicans were comfortable with, of $800 billion to $1.5 trillion never changed, so without GOP Senate support for anything larger, they note it didn’t matter how many times the Treasury Secretary and the Speaker talked. And finally, they note that surrogates mean nothing in the world of Trump, who speaks for himself…and among his base, that’s all that matters.
Politico says the Senate Majority Leader spoke with the President yesterday and suggested the Speaker was just stringing him along for political gain. Not long after came the “negotiations are off” tweet and the later stand alone bill tweets.
Another example of the fundamental differences of the role of government. And why the certainty that will come following the election will be welcome in so many respects.
