Job number 1 after the election is decided


Nov. 4, 6:26 CT

The presidential race won’t be decided, perhaps for days. But I don’t doubt that Biden will be the winner. That’s the good news. But the bad news is that Donald Trump will be president until January 20. There is huge damage to be repaired in all areas of governance – healthcare, foreign policy, trade policy, etc. Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer (who may or may not end up being Majority Leader when all is said and done, but who will in the worst case end up needing two GOP votes to prevail in the Senate, assuming Kamala Harris is VP) will be putting their plans and personnel together, and they’ll be ready to start taking action on January 21.

However, there are two areas that can’t wait for January 21; in fact, they can’t wait beyond say next Monday. Congress needs to get moving on both of them immediately. These are – surprise, surprise! – the economy and the novel coronavirus.

Fortunately, the vehicle for addressing both of these areas has been under discussion for months. There’s no aspect that needs to be studied further that hasn’t already been well studied, and there’s no element of the solution that hasn’t already been spelled out in great detail. This vehicle is the coronavirus relief bill that has been negotiated between Pelosi and Steve Mnuchin. They were very close to agreement last week, when Mitch McConnell killed any hope of getting it passed before the election (even though in theory it would easily pass the Senate with just a few Republican votes).

Yesterday, the Times described two studies that showed between six and eight million Americans have fallen into poverty since the additional unemployment insurance payments mandated by the Cares Act in April expired. Of course, many more will go that route in the coming months, especially since the coronavirus is spreading faster than ever now. Because the Trump administration has so adamantly resisted taking the smaller measures like mask wearing that might have ameliorated this new wave, it’s increasingly likely that more drastic measures will be needed, similar to the two-week shutdown of all non-essential businesses in the UK, just announced by Boris Johnson.

Do I think this bill will become law? Just assuming everyone were acting in the national interest, as well as their own political self-interest, I would say yes. But I also have been thinking that for a couple months, and it hasn’t happened. However, this bill can pass with just three GOP Senators voting in favor (since Mark Kelly, the Democrat who just defeated Sen. McSally in Arizona, will be seated probably at the end of November. McSally was appointed to fill the seat after John McCain’s death, and she surrenders it as soon as there is an election, not in January like any other Senators who are defeated).

Since McConnell is probably going to continue his opposition to any bill that provides more than a little pocket change to the American people (and that doesn’t make businesses immune to lawsuits over lack of coronavirus protections for workers, which is of course the one thing McConnell cares about), this probably means that President Trump needs to be onboard with the bill. Since I believe the last public statement Trump made on this topic was that he’d like to see a bill that’s bigger than the $2.2 trillion in the Heroes Act that’s already passed the House, and since once the election is decided, Trump won’t need to pay attention to what McConnell says anymore, in theory Trump would sign the bill without question.

Unless, of course, he were just mad at the American people for rejecting him and wanted to get even by screwing them economically. But would Donald Trump really do something that would lead to so much damage to the country he professes to love? Unfortunately, he not only would, but he has. See “Novel coronavirus, US administration response to, Feb.-Oct. 2020”.

I would love to hear any comments or questions you have on this post. Drop me an email at tom@tomalrich.com.

 

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