Americans are just days away from going over the economic cliff, and the president and Senate Republicans are attempting to sabotage any coronavirus relief package. Let’s start with the most indefensible position first. The number of deaths from the novel coronavirus surpassed 140,000 in the U.S. on Sunday morning according to Johns Hopkins data. The U.S. confirmed on Saturday more than 71,500 new cases in 24 hours — the second highest number to the record 75,600-plus set last Thursday. And yet, the Trump Death Cult is pushing to block new money for testing, tracing and CDC in upcoming coronavirus relief bill: The Trump administration is trying to block billions of dollars for states to conduct testing and contact tracing in the upcoming coronavirus relief bill, people involved in the talks said Saturday. The administration is also trying to block billions of dollars that GOP senators want to allocate for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and billions more for the Pentagon and State Department to address the pandemic at home and abroad, the people said. The administration’s posture has angered some GOP senators, the officials said, and some lawmakers are trying to push back and ensure that the money stays in the bill. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to reveal confidential deliberations, cautioned that the talks were fluid and the numbers were in flux. [T]he conflict between Trump administration officials and Senate Republicans on money for testing and other priorities is creating a major complication even before bipartisan negotiations get under way. One person involved in the talks said Senate Republicans were seeking to allocate $25 billion for states to conduct testing and contact tracing, but that certain administration officials want to zero out the testing and tracing money entirely. Some White House officials believe they have already approved billions of dollars in assistance for testing and that some of that money remains unspent. Trump and other White House officials have been pushing for states to own more of the responsibility for testing and have objected to creating national standards, at times seeking to minimize the federal government’s role. We all know from where this batshit crazy policy comes. Trump believes that if we don’t test, we don’t have COVID-19 cases. Close your eyes and pretend to make it go away. What this really means is that we are flying blind in an unchecked pandemic that is overwhelming our hospitals. Trump has crossed the line from criminal negligence into willful manslaughter. The next sticking point is Trump’s insistence on a payroll tax cut which takes money from payroll deductions for social security and medicare. Trump demands payroll tax cut in next Covid relief bill. “President Donald Trump has signaled to Hill Republicans that he will not sign a new coronavirus stimulus package without the inclusion of a payroll tax cut, according to three sources close to the issue.” More than 32 million Americans are receiving some form of unemployment benefits. Over 17 million continue to claim traditional unemployment benefits. This number has dropped from its peak at 25 million in early May, but it remains at depression levels. Another roughly 15 million are on the rolls of other unemployment programs, including the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program. That’s 32 million unemployed Americans – which does not include many more Americans who have applied for unemployment but have not yet qualified – for whom a payroll tax deduction is meaningless. They are not receiving a paycheck. They need direct financial assistance to survive, to keep a roof over their head, and to feed their families. Most of the expansion of benefits — applies only to benefit weeks that end “on or before July 31.” July 31 is a Friday.
On July 25 or 26, and millions of workers will see their incomes plunge 60 percent or more just a few days from now.
A new plan from Senate Republicans to award businesses, schools, and universities sweeping exemptions from lawsuits arising from inadequate coronavirus safeguards is putting Republicans and Democrats at loggerheads as Congress reconvenes next week to negotiate another relief package. The liability proposal, drafted by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and senior Republican John Cornyn of Texas, promises to shield employers when customers and workers are exposed to coronavirus by moving lawsuits to federal court and limiting legal liability to acts of “gross negligence or intentional misconduct,” according to a draft of the plan obtained by The Associated Press. McConnell has said for months that some form of liability shield will be in the next COVID response measure, telling an audience in Kentucky on Wednesday that he won’t send the next, and fifth, coronavirus response bill to the floor without it.
Why destroy the country? It seems like a crazy question to ask, but given what’s happening right now, it’s a hard one to avoid. Even as the Republicans face an electoral catastrophe that might be mitigated by easing America’s economic pain, they seem more interested in getting a couple of small ideological victories than in actually doing what’s necessary to prop up the economy. We’re on the cusp of an eviction crisis, millions of Americans have lost their health coverage, and state and local budgets are imploding. Meanwhile, the coronavirus pandemic is erupting. And what does McConnell want? He’s supposed to deliver a stimulus bill next week, and his highest priority is limiting people’s ability to sue businesses, hospitals, or schools if they contract covid-19. A source who was present on a conference call of Senate Democrats on Tuesday tells me that Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) told his colleagues that he has gotten no outreach from McConnell on the bill. According to other reports, McConnell hasn’t spoken to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) about it either. Which suggests he’s just going to drop something he knows Democrats will reject out of hand, and which will therefore go nowhere. That doesn’t mean we might not get some kind of agreement eventually. But it will probably take until after the enhanced UI benefits expire, delivering a vicious blow to the economy at the worst possible time. That’s not to mention the fact that we can’t have an economic recovery until we get the pandemic under control. Yet both the Trump administration and congressional Republicans are acting as though they did their best to stop the pandemic and now there’s nothing more to do, so they’re giving up.
Trump certainly has. He seems to genuinely believe that, as he has said many times, eventually the virus will “sort of just disappear,” and therefore all that’s necessary is to force businesses and schools to open.
But McConnell knows what’s happening. He has surely looked around and realized that with the pandemic surging, there is simply no way the economy is going to come roaring back before November. He’s seen the polls showing Trump trailing presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden by 10 points or more. He knows that the political environment grows less favorable to the GOP by the day. He understands that the odds his party will retain control of the Senate are probably 50-50 at best. So from where he sits, the best outcome now may be to use the next stimulus package to win some minor ideological victories, but not allow it to be substantial enough to set the stage for a genuine recovery. That way, if and when Biden becomes president in 2021, the situation will be no less dire than it is now — and maybe more so. And the worse things are in the country at that point, the better it is for Republicans. Just as they did when Barack Obama was president, they can blame Democrats for their own mistakes, then force austerity measures that sabotage the economy and slow the recovery.
If you were a Republican and you thought that Trump was doomed no matter what, this might be your best-case scenario. And that’s why the next stimulus will be completely inadequate to the crisis we face.
Combine Trump’s catastrophic incompetence with McConnell’s nihilism, and this is what you get.
Like Nero burned Rome, Trump and McConnell plan to burn it all down to leave Democrats a pyrrrhic victory and America in ruins.