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Unsanitized: The COVID-19 Report for Sept. 22, 2020

Another Round of Unused Leverage for House Democrats
The government funding bill presents an opportunity

 

The book "Queens of the Resistance: Nancy Pelosi" on sale in Washington.
(Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images)

First Response

**** One thing that's angered me throughout the Congressional
response to the pandemic has been how Democrats have consistently given
up leverage to the opposition. Republicans wanted a corporate bailout,
and Democrats complied, without getting permanent support through the
duration of the national emergency. Republicans wanted more money for
small business, and Democrats added none of their priorities in the
exchange.

Now Mitch McConnell has identified something else that his caucus wants.
And Nancy Pelosi is ready to squander that as well.

At issue is the government funding bill that must pass by October 1 to
avoid a shutdown. Pelosi has long said that this bill would be a
"clean" continuing resolution, including no extraneous riders or
policies. Why is that a virtue right now, when more than 20 million
people are out of work and getting no federal supplement to their meager
benefits, when there's no additional funding

for nutrition assistance or small business survival or school reopening
or election safety and security? I don't know, it's just
Washington-speak. But whatever, bring on the clean CR.

And House Democrats did yesterday
,
funding the government through December 11. But in the Democrats'
conception, a "clean" bill means no additional funding for a New
Deal-era program that has been bailing out farmers through the trade war
and the pandemic. So $30 billion sought by the White House as an
election-year bribe was left out. This got Mitch McConnell upset.

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**** "House Democrats' rough draft of a government funding
bill shamefully leaves out key relief and support that American farmers
need," McConnell tweeted
,
apparently freelancing as the White House expressed little interest in a
fight, saying that a clean bill was their main concern. Whether it's
because of his re-election or more likely the re-election of some of his
colleagues in farm states like Iowa and North Carolina and Georgia and
South Carolina, McConnell unexpectedly rejected

the CR.

Well, this is a wrinkle. McConnell has now reopened the question of
whether the bill should be "clean" or not. There's a $30 billion
slush fund (the bulk of which has gone to the richest farmers and
agribusinesses
)
that he wants in there. That means Democrats can make a trade. What can
they get in exchange?

If you listen to Pelosi, nothing. She told Chris Hayes last night that
the CR is "a parallel track," and "we wouldn't even think of
threatening to shut down government." But McConnell is the one doing
the threatening. Now there's a negotiation. So what concession can be
wrung out of that negotiation?

Well, there's always an equivalent amount of money for a needy group.
If a $30 billion farm bailout is so desired, $30 billion for, say,
nutrition assistance could be forwarded, to benefit those on the endless
lines at food banks across America. This is essentially what the farm
bill is, an exchange of nutrition assistance for farm supports. Or the
$30 billion could go as a cash transfer to the unemployed.

The other option would go a long way to neutralizing the main near-term
threat to the now-certain selection of a conservative Justice to replace
Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The lawsuit that will be heard in the Court on
November 10 absurdly suggests that, because the individual mandate
penalty for the Affordable Care Act has been reduced to $0, it's no
longer a tax, which was the reason that John Roberts upheld the
constitutionality of the mandate in NFIB v. Sebelius. And if the mandate
isn't constitutional, then the whole law has to be thrown out. It's
a leap of logic but there we are.

All you have to do, as Jon Walker wrote for us in December and as we
re-ran today
,
is repeal the mandate. If it's severed from the law, then the law can
continue unimpeded. It's a one-line bill that could be put in, as the
price for the farm bailout. If McConnell opposes it, then he's
literally opposing the repeal of the individual mandate because he wants
to get rid of pre-existing condition protections too.

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The point here is that there's leverage, once again, which Pelosi is
refusing to use, based on some imagined honor code where the continuing
resolution to fund the government is sacrosanct, even if Republicans are
demanding to exploit it. It's hard to fend off the cynical take that
Pelosi and the Democrats want the healthcare of 20 million people to be
threatened, or that they want millions of unemployed workers struggling
to survive, if they won't use every tool at their disposal to get them
relief.

Tell the concert venue staffer who hasn't seen a paycheck in six
months, and is now cutting back on spending

because federal cash transfers have run out, that government funding
happens on a "parallel track." Tell the person with leukemia who
won't be able to get insurance if the ACA falls. Tell the family on
the bread line, tell the teacher digging money out of her own pocket for
facemasks and shields and risking her life by going to work, tell them
all that "parallel tracks" just prevent Democrats from using the
power granted to them by their place in Congress.

It's ridiculous and enervating to see this failure to wield power over
and over and over again. Mitch McConnell has opened a debate over what
should be attached to the CR. In eight days that bill has to pass. How
can you look that gift horse in the mouth and do nothing?

One final point: other members of Congress need to realize their power
on this too. They can file an amendment to the CR with any number of
ideas, including the one-line bill to save the Affordable Care Act from
the current lawsuit threat. Sure, Pelosi can prevent a vote on it at the
Rules Committee, but the riders could be an organizing tool that would
force her to defy her caucus in the process. It's called politics, and
it would be good if Democratic representatives took the time to practice
it.

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Days Without a Bailout Oversight Chair

180
.
Wow, six months.

We Can't Do This Without You

Today I Learned

* Zach Carter

on the Fed and municipal lending. (HuffPost)

* Those Wall Street guys are sure plugged in about coronavirus relief.
They just figured out

it's not going to happen? (Axios)

* The White House apparently set up a shadow agency

to review COVID regulations, placing all actions on the virus under
political review. (Bloomberg)

* Speaking of which, guidance from the CDC on how the virus travels
through the air quickly vanished

from their website. (New York Times)

* Shipping the coronavirus vaccine will be lucrative to UPS and FedEx
.
(CNBC)

* It may just be that the virus kicks up a lot of existing heart disease

rather than causing it. (The Atlantic)

* Pentagon transferred funds

for facemasks and PPE to defense contractors. (Washington Post)

* To be a true MAGA, you have to boo any support for facemasks
,
even if they say "Trump 2020" on them. (New York Magazine)

* How vaccines were distributed two centuries ago
.
(Marginal Revolution)

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