It's no time to go low
Sen. Durbin holds out hope for aid to state and local gov’ts, but compromise relief bill is just a stopgap
A worker processes a family in need at a Texas food bank earlier in the pandemic. (Shutterstock)
By Ameya Pawar and Ted Cox
It’s no time to go low — not from the nadir of a pandemic.
U.S. senators and representatives are working desperately to pass a compromise COVID-19 relief bill before they break for the end of the year and return with a newly elected Congress in 2021. A small bipartisan, bicameral group of legislators is trying to break Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s logjam opposing a more ambitious Democratic proposal, the HEROES Act, first passed with $3 trillion in proposed aid in May and then passed again with a smaller $2 trillion price tag in October.
The initial compromise recently proposed was for a $908 billion package, including additional funding for unemployment, food stamps, farmers, renters, public transit, the Postal Service, hospitals, nursing homes, clinics, COVID-19 testing, and vaccinations. But a new “base consensus bill,” as U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin called it Tuesday while speaking on the Senate floor, would be worth $748 billion.
That’s moving in the wrong direction. Working families need a cash infusion now, in addition to increased and extended benefits for the unemployed and coronavirus relief for state and local governments that have seen tax revenues sapped by the pandemic.
The emergency stimulus we need now is not the “base consensus bill” being debated in the halls of Congress. That’s a half measure at best, and once a half measure is passed it’s likely to act almost as an obstruction for something more ambitious, while millions of people fall between the cracks — making it only more difficult to lift them up later.
U.S. citizens continue to struggle to pay rents or mortgages. They’re facing increased food insecurity, while food banks are tapped out and struggle to replenish supplies — with Christmas at the end of next week.
It is no time to settle for scraps.
Durbin seemed to recognize that. Even while praising the “group of 10” bipartisan legislators trying to reach a compromise, he seemed almost resigned and despairing about the limited consensus they were able to achieve. He specifically cited much-needed aid to state and local governments, which he said, “I support completely,” and he held out hope that it might be added to the compromise at the 11th hour.
“I hope that changes even today,” Durbin said.
Durbin understands that governors and mayors are being placed in an impossible situation, forced to make cuts in social services without adequate revenue, even as those services are more important than ever. What’s more, cuts made in government only threaten to have an exponential effect on the larger economy. The Federal Reserve’s Municipal Liquidity Facility, created as part of the earlier CARES Act relief package, has proved woefully insufficient, as it continues to charge interest and penalties on loans drawn by cities and states — resulting in few local governments taking advantage of a program that provides them no advantages in the first place. As we’ve stated before, why not grant them the same backstopping of debt and no-interest loans that have been provided to big business?
So mayors and governors are in an impossible situation just as restaurants are, unable to remain vital with only outdoor dining as winter closes in. And many everyday people and working families are in impossible situations as well, deprived of their livelihoods by the pandemic and with no adequate compensation for that in sight.
They all need aid now. And if our current president would drop his ridiculous and now moot claims of voter fraud to actually act in the public interest, even as a lame duck, there is ample support in Congress to back additional $1,200 stimulus checks, according to various news outlets — if Trump would only push Congress to deliver.
Unfortunately, the president, as ever, has only his own concerns in mind.
Many in Congress seem content to pass what little relief they can now and wait for President-elect Biden to sort it out after his inauguration Jan. 20. (That’s 36 days, but who’s counting?) That’s asking families in need to wait more than a month for additional help, even as extended and expanded federal unemployment benefits are set to expire, and with rent and mortgages due all over again with the new year.
Everyone recognizes the need for additional COVID-19 relief, so why are we waiting? Is it really that McConnell is putting business interests — and ridiculous calls for corporate liability against COVID-19 lawsuits — ahead of working families? Is it really that his Kentucky Senate partner Rand Paul refuses to grant the same critical relief to restaurants and bars as he’s already granted for airlines?
Don’t wait. Act now on what needs to be done. Political expediency does not trump social need and desperation. There has already been abundant damage done, and we need to keep the damage from getting worse. Otherwise, are we only going to tell hungry people lined up in cars outside food banks in the midst of the holiday season that this is the best we can do for now?