House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was willing to cripple her own party and watch people suffer from the pandemic, all for the greater purpose of ensuring President Trump’s defeat on Election Day.
She did it by blocking any reasonable bill that would have extended added unemployment benefits for the millions of people out of work and sent direct cash payments that would have further pushed the battered economy in the right direction. That could all wait if it meant Trump would no longer be president.
She was successful in that mission. Trump did not win reelection. Now she might consider helping actual people who state and local governments have forced to give up their jobs and sit inside to wait for a handout.
A bipartisan group of senators on Wednesday put forth a nearly $1 trillion proposal that would do everything Pelosi has been asking for, only at a smaller scale. It includes $300 per week in added unemployment benefits, plus her precious demand for assistance to state and local governments.
True, it’s about $1 trillion short of what Pelosi had been wildly demanding before the election — but it was stupid of her to reject money then, and it would be stupid of her to reject it now. Workers need the money. Employers need the money.
The same now goes for Senate Majority Mitch McConnell. He rightfully resisted the obscene amount of money Pelosi was demanding. But the difference now is that vaccines with unexpectedly high success rates are set for distribution. This, Democrats said, is what we’ve been waiting for. OK, it’s here. There’s nothing unreasonable about pushing out one more lifeline for a public that needs it while the distribution is underway.
Following that, though, Republicans need to call it quits. After the initial round of all-too-generous relief money went out earlier this year, Democrats saw an opportunity to turn the crisis into a selling point for “universal basic income” and “canceling student debt.” All of that talk can be flushed down the toilet, and Republicans can block any and all future attempts by Democrats to keep people at home by paying them more to remain unemployed than they would make by working.
We’re at the end of this, and one more round of relief is needed. McConnell, don’t be a Pelosi.
