To hear incoming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer tell it, the nation is crying out for $2,000 checks to stimulate the economy, on the one hand, and radical climate legislation that will cripple it, on the other. And the Senate, he argues, must act quickly, because America has never been in a worse place.
“The nation,” Schumer writes, “is facing unprecedented challenges: the greatest economic crisis in seventy-five years, the greatest public health crisis in a century, the climate crisis, and worsening income inequality and racial injustice.”
Oh, the hyperbole. Not one of these challenges is actually unprecedented — racial injustice, for example, is a pale shadow of what it once was, and the economic crisis of 2009 was much harsher and longer-lasting than the current one.
But in any case, Schumer does not want to leave anything to chance, so he writes ominously, “If our Republican colleagues decide not to partner with us in our efforts to address these issues, we will not let that stop progress.”
This veiled threat to do away with the Senate’s minority protections, the revolutionary abolition of the Senate filibuster, is probably an empty one. But either way, is this really the new tone that the mixed election result calls for?
Schumer’s recent letter to colleagues cites this month’s violence at the U.S. Capitol, then proposes a lengthy Democratic policy wish list. The juxtaposition of these two things within the same letter is not a coincidence. The one is being used as an excuse for the other. In the old days, this was known as “waving the bloody shirt.” Schumer is cynically gambling that the rioters’ criminal behavior can be used to justify stretching his tenuous Senate majority further than it could ever go otherwise.
Schumer’s subtle, ominous mention of “restor[ing] workers’ rights and fairness in our tax code” refers, in fact, to something quite extreme — first, a national abolition of state “right to work” laws, and second, tax increases on the middle class. The latter could be especially pernicious because Schumer is on the record wanting to raise taxes in order to pay for the restoration of big tax deductions for his wealthiest suburban constituents that were abolished by President Trump’s tax reform bill.
Schumer’s talk of a measure to “defeat the climate crisis by investing in clean infrastructure and manufacturing” is an apparent reference to the $90 trillion Green New Deal. Or maybe, it just implies a dismantling of the nation’s profitable, self-sustaining, and world-leading fossil fuel production industry.
Then, Schumer goes on to say that “that’s just the beginning.”
In the current tense political environment, neither Schumer nor President-elect Joe Biden should be riling up their base with hopes of such transformative measures. And the notion that an attack on the Capitol somehow figures into this is just a non sequitur.
Even with respect to the least ideological of Schumer’s stated agenda items, the $2,000 pandemic relief checks, not even his own party is unified behind it. Nor should they be. Those checks, initially Trump’s idea, would go out to the employed and unemployed alike, at a time when the unemployment rate has already substantially improved. They represent an inappropriate response to a situation that has economically crushed some households while leaving others relatively unscathed. It is, as Sen. Mitch McConnell put it, “socialism for rich people.” It is one thing to extend unemployment benefits, but COVID-19 should not become an excuse for giving government assistance to life’s winners — those unaffected by or even thriving during the pandemic.
Where Schumer tries to push the boundaries, the new Republican Senate minority must hold firm. Biden must also show leadership if he is to unite the country in difficult times. The voters in 2020 opted to give neither party the numbers or the power to effect radical change. The voters want some normalcy — some stability. In order to respect their will, the political opposition must do what it was elected to do: oppose such nonsense. And the new president needs to resist the worst impulses of his party’s left wing.
