The Erickson Report for December 9 to 22, Page Six: COVID relief still stalled

The Erickson Report for December 9 to 22, Page Five: COVID relief still stalled

I don't know what state this will be at when you see this; hopefully it will be a done deal. But history says be cautious, so I'll cover this now even though I hope it's already outdated.

GOPper Sen. Bill Cassidy of Lousiana predicted on December 6 that Tweetie-pie and Fishface McConnell will wind up backing a $908 billion COVID relief bill being worked out in bipartisan negotiations that went around the GOPper Senate leadership and White House.

It includes continuing the ban on evictions plus money for small business loans and state and local aid, along with renewing the federal unemployment insurance supplement but at a reduced rate of $300 per week. It would also direct funds to COVID vaccine distribution, schools, and the transportation sector.

The downsides, and they are significant, are it does not include any money to replicate the earlier $1200 direct payments despite their demonstrated effect at reducing COVID-driven poverty and does include a supposedly "temporary" federal liability shield for corporations fearful of being held responsible for their COVID-related cruelties and mismanagements - think, for example, of the people forced at the cost of losing their jobs to keep working in meatpacking plants without protective gear.

Those failures have lead to some, including Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to say they might oppose the bill.

As I prepare this, Congress is apparently planning to pass a one-week spending bill to keep the government running, with the House voting on December 9. The idea is to provide more time to nail down the final language of the proposal, which is part of the omnibus spending package.

So you may know more than I do on this. A final thought for me here is that this is a case where I separate from Bernie and AOC: They are absolutely correct that this is not nearly enough, that there really does need to be at minimum a repeat of the $1200 check program, but with a large number of small businesses on the ropes and people on the verge of losing both the unemployment supplement and protection against eviction, I think the need is so great that we're at the point where we just take what we can get, come back for more, and hope for some surprisingly good news on January 5.

Updates: The one-week extension passed (of course). And Fishface says he won't let this package, which for Democrats is a compromise of a compromise of a compromise, come to the floor. Making the assumption that he is not completely devoid of humanity, the only reason I can think of is that he wants the economy to crash and burn, the better to bring down the Blahden presidency - but after saying that it occurs to me that both of those are probably true.