Re: best explanation of the relief bill

[robert <http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert>]

Sad to say, I hope nothing gets passed.  That way, we can get all the
rascals out of there, including the idiot in chief.

 > From: Noelle <noelle>
 > Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2020 06:38:46 -0700 (PDT)
 >
 > of course it's on electoral-vote.com
 > 
 > When Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) decided to 
 > develop his version of the trillion-dollar COVID-19 relief bill 
 > without any Democratic input, he told everyone to "trust him" 
 > because this was the most efficient way. After he said that, we 
 > wrote that the Democrats most certainly do not trust him, as he long 
 > ago lost the benefit of the doubt. It turns out we were right about 
 > that; the whole process is now bogged down, as yet another 
 > procedural vote on the McConnell bill failed yesterday, on a mostly 
 > party-line vote (with Sen. Doug Jones, D-AL, being the only one to 
 > break ranks).
 > 
 > There appear to be three things, in particular, that are holding up 
 > the bill. The first, and apparently biggest, is the roughly $500 
 > billion fund that Senate Republicans want to give to Treasury 
 > Secretary Steven Mnuchin to distribute as he sees fit, including the 
 > privilege of keeping the exact beneficiaries a secret until after 
 > the election. Team McConnell says that putting things in Mnuchin's 
 > hands allows maximum flexibility as circumstances on the ground 
 > change, while keeping things super-secret will stop the handouts 
 > from having an undue impact on the stock prices of corporate 
 > recipients. Democrats think that this would be a repeat of the 
 > errors of the TARP program, allowing corporations to suck up 
 > government money and then spend it in their own self-interest (e.g., 
 > buying up their own stock to raise the price) rather than the 
 > interests of the American people. They also do not particularly 
 > trust Mnuchin or his boss. And they note, quite correctly, that 
 > while TARP was actually a Bush-era program, Democrats got most of 
 > the blame for its shortcomings. Since the non-Jones Democrats in 
 > Senate are clearly holding the line on this, and House Democrats can 
 > be counted upon to do the same, Senate Republicans are going to have 
 > to accept some pretty big changes to this part of the relief 
 > package, sooner or later.
 > 
 > The second problem is essentially the yin to the yang of problem #1. 
 > The Democrats want more money for the most vulnerable members of 
 > society, particularly those who have lost, or will lose, their jobs. 
 > Republicans' concerns here are similar to the ones that Democrats 
 > have about the corporate welfare: Too much money, with too few 
 > restrictions, opens the door for all sorts of potential abuses. 
 > Presumably, the Democrats are going to have to yield a bit on this 
 > point. On the other hand, "we were fighting for more money for the 
 > people" is a much more salable position than "we were fighting for 
 > more money for big corporations," so it also appears that the blue 
 > team has the stronger hand to play here.
 > 
 > The third problem, meanwhile, is that it's near-impossible to have a 
 > trillion-dollar spending bill (and the price tag is now in the 
 > vicinity of $2 trillion) without a whole bunch of pork and other pet 
 > projects sneaking in the back door. The Democrats, for example, want 
 > higher fuel emissions standards for airlines, and expanded wind and 
 > solar tax credits. The Republicans, for their part, have even stuck 
 > some literal pork in the bill, in the form of relaxed worker visa 
 > rules for pig farmers. In general, the lobbyists on K Street are 
 > going nuts right now, recognizing that this is likely to be the 
 > biggest, fattest giveaway of their entire careers. And the lack of 
 > face-to-face contact is apparently no issue. "Have you adjusted your 
 > consultant strategy and team lineup in light of the new Corona virus 
 > realities?" wrote one lobbyist in an e-mail to potential clients. 
 > "Fidelis Government Relations now has best in class reach into both 
 > VP Mike Pence and incoming White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows."