Moscow Mitch: What's the use of a pandemic if you can't use it to boost your billionaire buddies?
From the AFL-CIO: Senate fails to advance coronavirus bill, Trumka on C-SPAN and more
On Sunday, Senate Democratic leaders blocked the proposed Republican coronavirus stimulus bill from moving forward. The proposed bill would have put money in the hands of corporations instead of working people who have been left behind in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In exchange, the AFL-CIO is asking the Senate to bring forward a better deal that protects health care workers and assists employees who have been laid off.
In addition, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka (UMWA) appeared on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” over the weekend, where he discussed the effects of the pandemic on America’s workers.
Watch the video: Trumka on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers.”
New York Times editorial: The Coronavirus Bailout Stalled. And It’s Mitch McConnell’s Fault.
Senate Republicans are blocking passage of an economic bailout plan that protects jobs and wages.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky failed to do his job this weekend. As the economy spiraled downward, Mr. McConnell, the Senate majority leader, said he would produce a bipartisan bailout bill authorizing an infusion of desperately needed aid.
Instead, Mr. McConnell emerged on Sunday evening with a bill that would provide a lot of help for corporate executives and shareholders, and not nearly enough for American workers. It would let the Treasury Department hand out hundreds of billions of dollars to corporations — potentially including businesses owned by President Trump — without requiring a binding commitment to preserve jobs and wages. And the bailouts could remain secret for six months.
From The New York Times: Republicans Add Insult to Illness
Greed, germs and the art of no deal.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
If you want a quick summary of the state of play over fiscal stimulus legislation, here it is: Republicans insist that we should fight a plague with trickle-down economics and crony capitalism. Democrats, for some reason, don’t agree, and think we should focus on directly helping Americans in need.
And if legislation is stalled, as it appears to be as I write this (although things change fast when we’re on Covid time), it’s because Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, is holding needy Americans hostage in an attempt to blackmail Democrats into giving Donald Trump a $500 billion slush fund.
From Public Citizen: Mitch McConnell keeps wasting time
Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans keep wasting time — time we don’t have — putting out unworkable schemes for how the federal government intends to help us all weather the impending financial storm.
Their proposals are crammed with bailouts and giveaways for Corporate America while doing nowhere near enough to ease the almost unprecedented hardship the rest of us will be (or already are) going through.
But just this afternoon, the House of Representatives put forth a draft for a serious plan to protect families, health care workers and our democracy.
The House’s draft proposal would:
- Require companies that get bailed out by taxpayers to keep paying their employees.
- Impose a moratorium on evictions.
- Ensure safeguards to protect healthcare workers from exposure to the coronavirus.
- Allocate $4 billion for states to carry out the 2020 elections with voting by mail.
- And much, much more.
The House and Senate are negotiating as I write this.
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Meanwhile, stay safe.
- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen
P.S. This message is part of our ongoing outreach to help you stay informed and involved as our nation and the world grapple with the coronavirus emergency. Public Citizen — like many nonprofits and other small businesses — is feeling the financial strain as this crisis intensifies. If you can, please consider donating to support the critical work we’re doing together. Thank you.
From The Huffington Post: The Republican Corporate Bailout Is Obscene
Welfare for the rich will do nothing to assuage the coronavirus crash.By Zach Carter
Over the next year, the United States will almost certainly go through a depression. Economists at Goldman Sachs currently expect the U.S. economy to shrink by an unprecedented 24% next quarter. They’re optimists compared to Morgan Stanley, which expects a 30% drop, and Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard, who predicted a 50% decline.
Even the best response from our government cannot prevent some form of catastrophe. But what Congress does next could mean the difference between millions of families muddling through and millions of families being bankrupted and evicted. Swift, serious action is needed to support ordinary people through the coming disaster, and to get American medical infrastructure up to speed ― manufacturing the supplies we are already running short on and training the personnel who are already overworked.