Speaker Pelosi and the Brink of Unemployment and Eviction Crisis
Dec. 15, 2020 (EIRNS)—An entire political party’s relying on rigged polls and mail-in ballot fraud has consequences. With only two weeks before 12-13 million Americans would be left unemployed with no benefits, and 10-11 million would fall into the mills of court eviction and foreclosure, some Congressional Democrats and their staffs are now expressing great anger at what may perhaps now be passed as COVID relief bill number four. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are negotiating for “relief” at levels less than half the amounts they dismissed as pitifully inadequate when Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin proposed them three and four months ago.
Investigative journalist Matt Taibbi has an article out based on discussion with one or more Democratic Congressional aides who describe Speaker Pelosi as having “totally caved” on almost all forms of relief which were in previous bills passed by the House. The roughly $750 billion relief bill now presented by a “bipartisan grouping” led by Mitt Romney, Susan Collins and Mark Warner involves far less aid—especially to states, cities, and households—than the White House and Treasury ($1.6-1.8 trillion) and even pinch-purse McConnell ($1.1 trillion) proposed during the fall.
The Democrats, led in negotiations by Pelosi, completely prioritized defeating President Donald Trump by any means necessary and gaining control of both Houses, over any relief—not to speak of a real, productive economic stimulus, which was never under discussion. Taibbi quotes Pelosi from Oct. 10: “When the President talks about wanting a bigger relief package, his proposal appears to mean that he wants more money at his discretion to grant or withhold, rather than agreeing on language prescribing how we honor our workers, crush the virus and put money in the pockets of workers.” She refused it out of hand, counting on getting far more in a lame duck session overawed by Democratic domination of both Houses in the incoming Congress.
She got the dubious mail ballot “win” for Biden for President, at the expense of the loss of most of her House majority and likely Republican control of the incoming Senate. Now the “bipartisan” bill—if passed—has no aid for states or cities, some of them bankrupted during the pandemic; no household relief checks; no transport system aid; even the funding for the COVID vaccination program is down to $6 billion from $16 billion a couple of weeks ago.
What a difference there is, between President Trump’s willingness constantly to try to spur the American economy and raise household income, and Mitch McConnell’s brutal parsimony. As a result of Pelosi’s steely resolve to bring down the President, Democrats will now probably have to live with the latter.
And for those who are thinking, “Well, it’s still $750 billion,” there is the factor Taibbi overlooks in his article. More than half of that amount is already in the Treasury General Fund, having been clawed back from the Federal Reserve, “saved” by Mnuchin from higher than expected federal tax receipts during 2020, or not spent under the CARES Act from March.
