Here we are this weekend, facing another deadline — a manufactured crisis and “must-pass” situation, as if we were surprised by it. The majority of Congress is sitting here on Capitol Hill twiddling our thumbs, while leaders in both chambers pretend to battle over last-minute negotiations.

In May, the House passed the HEROES Act. To be fair, I did not vote for the HEROES Act. I felt it spent far too much on items completely unrelated to the coronavirus pandemic. House Democrats had taken Rahm Emmanuel’s advice and did not allow a crisis to go to waste. So, they packed coronavirus relief with other liberal wish-list items. I will never argue that the Senate needed to pass the HEROES Act, and I would vote against it again today. But the Senate could not get two of their own relief bills passed, either.