It’s unusual for what is done privately and quietly on Capitol Hill to be carried on so brazenly. Yet, that’s what Democrats did in targeting the $2 trillion stimulus bill as if left-wing policies were supposed to be attached to it.
They weren’t, unless you think companies struggling to stay afloat or the millions out of work are in desperate need of imposing Green New Deal standards on airlines or relieving the postal service of its debts. But the bill, drafted by a bipartisan group of senators, was created simply to keep the public alive and well fed during the coronavirus crisis and to revive the economy. The agenda of the Democratic Left was out of bounds.
But Democrats haven’t tried to hide their effort to push the bill to the left. Rep. Jim Clyburn, the party’s House majority whip, said the anti-coronavirus battle offered “a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.” And, as usual, the media has mostly gone along.
“Many liberals see the response to the virus as a way to enact quicker versions of the broad social changes at the heart of the Warren and Sanders campaigns,” the Washington Post reported. The stimulus bill “is rapidly becoming the venue for hashing out the party’s — and the nation’s — larger policy debates.”
Elizabeth Warren, whose bid for the Democratic presidential nomination failed, certainly thinks so. She attacked the bill’s $500 billion in aid to faltering companies. “Millions may now lose their jobs,” she tweeted. “And Trump wants our response to be a half-trillion dollar slush fund to boost favored companies and corporate executives.”
Warren was “ranting,” the Wall Street Journal declared. Indeed, she was. A slush fund? Hardly. Nearly all — $450 billion — of the money is to be turned into loans by the Federal Reserve, which is spearheading the effort to stave off corporate collapses. Sad to say, Warren has followers. Joe Biden echoed her “slush fund” charge.
Bernie Sanders soon stepped in, demanding deep oversight of the loans. “Can you imagine giving the Trump administration $500 billion … to do anything they want with that money, to give to any company they want, any state they want, with no transparency at all?” he said.
The result was an application of the Warren treatment. She insists she supports capitalism. But her idea of capitalism is close to the Sanders brand of socialism. Companies don’t become state-owned, they just lose any independence, are forced to take on hostile board members, face mounds of restrictions, and the list of regulatory burdens goes on.
To avoid a fight that would delay enactment of the stimulus, President Trump had to OK an inspector general and an oversight committee for companies that get loans. And that’s probably just the beginning, assuming Warren and Sanders stick around in D.C.
The biggest impediment to enacting the stimulus, though, was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She produced her own bill, a paean to identity politics. It “uses the words diversity or diverse 63 times, the word inclusion 14 times, and the word minority 109 times as it lays money aside for large and small pet projects based on national divisions that depend on race, ethnicity, sex, disability status, etc.,” wrote Mike Gonzales of the Heritage Foundation. Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska denounced “Pelosi’s shameless attempt to pack an emergency relief bill with partisan demands that have nothing to do with the current crisis.”
He read aloud on the Senate floor from her recommend policies. They included: setting funding standards for community newspapers, bailing out the U. S. Postal Service, mandating diversity reports on corporate boards, and canceling public and private student loans up to $10,000, among others.
Sasse’s GOP colleague, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, said Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer “are willing to risk your life, your job, your retirement savings for a radical, left-wing wish list that has nothing to do with the virus. Disgraceful.” Cotton cited a dozen irrelevant items from the Pelosi legislation. They included: “For companies accepting assistance, 1/3 of board members must be chosen by workers … provisions on official time for union collective bargaining … greenhouse gas statistics for individual flights … required early voting … required same day voter registration.”
Pelosi caved. “One can only imagine how bad the Democratic polling must have been to cause such a hasty retreat,” John Hinderaker of PowerLine wrote. “The Democrats had no one behind them except their most extremist supporters, like the New York Times.” An editorial attributed to the editorial board of the Times was headlined “The Coronavirus Bailout Stalled. And It’s Mitch McConnell’s Fault.”
Fred Barnes is a Washington Examiner senior columnist.
