All those Democrat 'priorities' might just keep the coronavirus bill from passing
Democrats have always had, to put the term delicately, their "priorities."
They've also got an ethos of never letting a crisis go to waste.
But it might be that this time, it won't work in the coronavirus bill. According to Fox News:
The House overwhelmingly okayed the emergency coronavirus package in the wee hours of Saturday morning after more than 20 phone calls between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin."What made it hard is that we could never get everyone in the same room," said one source.In other words, social distancing contributed to a problem in the drafting of the legislation and trading of offers. Usually, the sides would lock themselves into a room and go around the table. But not in the age of coronavirus.
A second problem, the television network noted, is that the Senate is gummed up in passage of the unrelated FISA bill on government surveillance. They apparently have to get that done first before they can get the coronavirus bill done.
A third problem after that is when it starts to get sticky — no one knows what the cost of this bill is going to be — and that's reason enough for Senate Republicans to want to make changes.
But here's a fourth problem, so typical of this Adam Schiff House: they didn't do all their homework, and now they need to get elements of the bill passed a second time. Until that happens, the Senate will stand by and wait, Fox notes:
A top aide to McConnell e-mailed the Capitol Hill press corps after the House finished voting in the wee hours of Saturday morning. The staffer observed it would take the cooperation of 100 senators to start work on the coronavirus bill — regardless of FISA. But, since the House must still resolve problems with its own bill, McConnell suggested Sunday night that it would wait for the House to re-approve that measure.A senior House Democratic aide expected the House to pass the fixed version of the bill via unanimous consent this week — that's so long as no one objects. An objection from any lawmaker would stall the bill in the House and require all House members to return to Washington to vote.
What it seems to be coming down to is Democrats seeking to use the coronavirus crisis as their own personal vehicle for advancing pet causes they can't sell to voters in ordinary times. There has been talk of abortion add-ons, for one. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she wants to use this opportunity to tack on free stuff such as ending evictions and rent subsidies.
The problem, recall, is one of a disease running rampant and some carefully targeted industries that are being impacted.
Throwing on the kitchen sink is a surefire way of ensuring that the horse-trading and back-and-forth of legislating will continue till the cows come home — particularly with the social distancing described by Fox.
Trump wants this package, and so do farsighted Republicans, because there's a crisis on. Yet Democrats are taking their sweet time, using the coronavirus as an occasion to throw in programs they have always been after yet have no particular resonance to the crisis at hand.
If they don't pass the big package, they will have to pass small individually targeted ones. Maybe that would actually best.
What it really shows is that Democrats are fundamentally unserious about the coronavirus response package, as they are prioritizing their hobbyhorses over the needs of the people. It shows just how unfit they are to rule.
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