Republicans in disarray over next round of coronavirus relief as time expires

Millions of Americans are facing the threat of eviction after the CARES Act federal moratorium on eviction of renters is set to expire on Friday. Courts around the country are going to be busy come Monday morning.

The Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC), which is the additional federal benefit of $600 per week attached to all regular unemployment insurance (UI) payments, pandemic unemployment assistance (PUA) payments, pandemic emergency unemployment compensation (PEUC) payments, or state extended benefits (EB) are scheduled to expire on July 31st, but for most states, the pay period ending July 25 will be the last payment.

Time is up; July 31st is not the deadline in reality.

The House passed the $3 trillion Heroes Act back in May some 10 weeks ago in anticipation that the coronavirus pandemic would still be raging and that further financial assistance to Americans was going to be necessary.

But the “Grim Reaper of the Senate,” Mitch McConnell, sneered his evil sneer and dismissed the Heroes Act as a Democratic “wish list” and declared it dead on arrival in the legislative graveyard of the Senate. The Reaper said we’ll wait to see what happens, hoping that the coronavirus pandemic would simply “disappear one day” as his “Dear Leader” promises.

Senate Republicans pissed away ten weeks that they could have been working on a plan instead of engaging in wishful delusional thinking.

Now that the CARES Act is set to expire, Republicans are negotiating amongst themselves on the best ways to screw the America people during a pandemic and an economy in free fall. Democrats, whose votes will be needed to enact any bill, are excluded from the negotiations by these authoritarian Republicans. What could possibly go wrong?

The New York Times reports, Congressional Republicans Are Close to Revolt Over Stimulus Aid:

Republican leaders labored on Tuesday to avert a party revolt over the next round of coronavirus aid, announcing that they planned to provide $105 billion for schools, direct payments to American families and more aid for struggling small businesses as rank-and-file lawmakers balked at the proposal’s cost.

Even as Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, divulged details of his emerging plan, expected to total roughly $1 trillion, President Trump had yet to sign on and Republicans remained deeply divided over several key elements.

Senate Republicans and White House officials were still fighting among themselves over how much money to devote to testing and the federal health agencies on the front lines of the virus response, whether to include a payroll tax cut that Mr. Trump has demanded, and how to address the expiration of enhanced unemployment benefits at the end of the month.

It was an inauspicious start to talks on the measure, and top Republican officials privately cautioned on Tuesday that the coming negotiation, a wide-ranging election-year brawl, was likely to stretch into August, leaving tens of millions of unemployed Americans without extra help as Congress hammers out the latest recovery plan and the virus surges.

Remember: Republicans pissed away ten weeks that they could have been working on a plan instead of engaging in wishful delusional thinking. You know whom you should blame.

[D]uring a private lunch that Mr. Mnuchin attended with Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, some Republican senators balked at the prospect of doling out another trillion dollars in taxpayer funds and bickered over what policy provisions should be included in their opening bid, according to five people familiar with elements of the discussion, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose details of a private meeting.

“What in the hell are we doing?” Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, asked at one point during the lunch, arguing that Republicans should prioritize reopening the economy instead of spending more money. Mr. Cruz warned his colleagues that if the economy is still shut down come November, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic nominee, would win the White House and “we’ll be meeting in a much smaller lunchroom” traditionally reserved for the minority party in the Senate.

This is all that “Teddy Calgary” really cares about, his dining accommodations, not the American people.

“I just walked out of a meeting that could be sort of a Bernie bros, progressive caucus,” Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, told reporters after the lunch. “I’m alarmed that we’re talking about spending another trillion dollars we don’t have.”

Senator “Aqua Buddha” didn’t have any problem with the GOP’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, tax cuts primarily for the wealthy and corporations. After 2 Years, Trump Tax Cuts Have Failed To Deliver On GOP’s Promises:

Passed on a party-line vote, the tax cut is the only signature legislative accomplishment of President Trump’s first term. He had campaigned hard for the measure, promising it would boost paychecks for working people.

In fact, more than 60% of the tax savings went to people in the top 20% of the income ladder, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. The measure also slashed the corporate tax rate by 40%.

“The tax plan will pay for itself with economic growth,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said. It hasn’t worked out that way.

“It was unbelievable at the time, and it’s proven to be absolutely untrue,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. “The tax cuts were never going to — and have not — come anywhere close to paying for themselves.”

Corporate tax revenues fell 31% in the first year after the cut was passed. Overall tax revenues have declined as a share of the economy in each of the two years since the tax cut took effect.

The federal deficit this year (2019) was $984 billion — an extraordinary figure at a time when the country is not mired in recession or widespread war.

The tax cut also failed to produce a permanent boost in economic growth, despite promises from Republican supporters.

The economy grew only 2.9% in 2019 — exactly the same as in 2015.

A Gallup Poll last tax season found only about 40% of Americans approved of the cut while 49% disapproved.

The point here is that Republicans have no problem with throwing money at their wealthy Wall Street masters, but they beggar American workers in a financial crisis that was imposed on them by the government due to its miserably failed response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Republicans have made clear that they intend to scale back the $600 supplemental payment, which they say disincentivizes work because it is larger than what workers in some parts of the country earn in regular wages.

You condescending assholes.  “The jobs aren’t there”: Why cutting off enhanced unemployment benefits would leave workers in the lurch: “If you cut off the $600 to incentivize people to go back to work, that will just be cruel, because for millions of people the jobs aren’t there,” says Heidi Shierholz, the former chief economist at the Department of Labor and current director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute. As Adam Serwer observed about Trumpism, The Cruelty Is The Point. The Times adds, End of $600 Unemployment Bonus Could Push Millions Past the Brink.

The AP adds, however: “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday promised a new round of direct payments to earners below a certain income level, similar to the $1,200 checks sent in the spring.” Yeah, don’t hold your breath.

The Hill reports GOP mulls a short-term unemployment extension, without providing any real details.

With state and local governments forced to lay off workers due to a substantial loss in tax revenue resulting in budget cuts, we get this from Bat Boy’s twin: “Sen. Rick Scott of Florida left saying it’s wrong to “bail out” cash-strapped states. “Florida taxpayers are not going to pay for New York’s expenses,” he said.”

This is the “blue state bailout” bullshit that Republicans love to lie about.  While Florida does better than most red states, most “red” states are dependent states, and most “blue” states are donor states in a recent WalletHub study. Most & Least Federally Dependent States (June 15, 2020).

Florida is the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic right now because of the gross incompetence of Governor Ron DeSantis. Who is going to bail out whom? (Trump is a resident of Florida now, so you can bet he’ll be steering federal money to Florida).

Also unresolved was the matter of a payroll tax cut, a priority for the Trump administration but one that most lawmakers oppose. Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, pushed back against the idea, arguing that direct payments to families, which would probably be sent out in October, would prove more meaningful to individual voters.

The AP adds, “Trump wants a full repeal of the 15.3% payroll tax, which is shared among employers and employees, and funds Social Security and Medicare. Experts say that alone would cost $600 billion.” “Easing the payroll tax is dividing Trump’s party because it does little to help out-of-work Americans and adds to the debt load.”

The unemployed do not receive a paycheck, so a few dollars of payroll deduction tax cuts will do nothing for them. This is just another evil GOP plan to weaken the social security trust fund to create a “crisis” in which to demand a radical overhaul again.

The Trump administration appears to have backed down from its indefensible position to “zero out” more money for  COVID-19 testing and tracing (note: almost $8 billion of the funds appropriated under the CARES Act has not been spent – Why the hell not?)

Mr. Mnuchin and Mr. Meadows appeared to warm to the idea of allocating billions of dollars for states to conduct testing and contact tracing and top health agencies. Administration officials had angered Republicans over the weekend by rejecting those proposals. Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana [a medical doctor], pressed Mr. Mnuchin in the lunch about the need for testing and later said he received assurances that there would be enough funding.

What Republicans are offering for schools is woefully inadequate, and comes with strings attached to satisfy Trump’s demands that children return to in-person schooling when he can’t assure the safety of students, teachers or staff.

[I]t was unclear whether the White House would accept the school funding proposal Republicans were assembling, or insist that any money be tied to full-time reopening of schools, in line with Mr. Trump’s strident calls.

Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, said on Tuesday that the $105 billion for education would include about $70 billion for elementary, middle and high schools, with more money available to school districts that reopen in the fall. Senate Democrats have put forward legislation that would provide $430 billion to schools.

“They’re going to have more expenses,” Mr. Blunt said, adding that $30 billion would be set aside for colleges and universities and $5 billion for governors to use at their discretion.

And then there is this deal breaker from the “Grim Reaper,” Mitch McConnell.

Mr. McConnell, who said he hoped to release a final version of his measure in the coming days, doubled down on his insistence that the package include liability protections for businesses, medical workers and schools — a proposal that Democrats fiercely oppose.

“I’m going to introduce a bill in the next few days that is a starting place that enjoys fairly significant support among Republican senators, probably not everyone,” he said at his weekly news conference.

This is looking a lot like what happened with the CARES Act and the other stimulus bills that followed. Mitch McConnell wants to show that he is large and in charge and force a bad Senate bill on Democrats in the House. But in each previous instance, McConnell has been forced to eat his bad Senate bill, which was easily defeated in the Senate, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi eventually would up with a bill more closely aligned with the House Democrats bill.

Nancy Pelosi eats your lunch, Mitch. Just pass the Heroes Act by Friday and take your certain defeat like a man. The American people need help today. If Republicans fail, Americans know whom to blame.