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Unsanitized: The COVID-19 Report for Dec. 9, 2020

The Dealmakers Don't Want to Make a Deal  

Mitch McConnell keeps dodging and obfuscating

 

McConnell is dropping clearly unacceptable provisions into the COVID
relief package. (Sarah Silbiger/Pool via AP)

First Response

Maybe it was the holiday spirit. Maybe that's what has sucked me back
into the COVID relief vortex. I certainly want to believe that Congress
can put a deal together to help desperate constituents in the middle of
a pandemic. I want to believe that Mitch McConnell won't let partisan
politics and the desire to damage an incoming Democratic president take
precedence over the lives of millions of people. Maybe the Georgia
runoffs were going so badly that he saw his control of the Senate tied
to a relief package. Maybe his Grinch heart grew three sizes that day.
It would be nice to think so.

Not as such.

The conclusion of yesterday's events only has me more convinced that
McConnell is on the same path he's been on since March. After
corporate America got a rescue commitment, there was nothing else
McConnell really wanted on COVID relief. He's mildly interested in
giving corporations legal immunity, if only to set up for a kind of
total immunity down the road. But destroying the Biden presidency is
what really gets him up in the morning.

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Here's the story so far: there were no talks on COVID relief until a
bipartisan, bicameral group put together a $908 billion deal. (They now
call themselves the 908 Group.) The deal includes
,
per a just-released summary: $160 billion for state and local
governments, a $300/week enhancement to unemployment insurance and
extension of two expiring unemployment programs

affecting 12 million people, $300 billion for the Paycheck Protection
Program for small business, and a grab back of significant funding for
minority communities, transit, schools, hospitals, vaccine distribution,
testing and tracing, rental assistance, food stamps, agriculture, USPS,
child care, broadband, and addiction services.

The last bit was an undefined compromise on a corporate liability shield
for COVID-related lawsuits. This of course was the only thing that
McConnell cared about. So after Democrats endorsed the 908 Group

as a starting point for negotiations, McConnell barged in and demanded
his language

on liability protection, which is expansive, written by the Chamber of
Commerce, and clearly designed as a template for getting corporate legal
immunity more generally. Though a couple Senate Democrats started to
waver, in general the party (notably the House) held out, creating an
impasse. "Bipartisan does not mean Democrats must agree to whatever
the Republican Leader wants," Chuck Schumer said
on the Senate
floor yesterday.

Then yesterday, McConnell decided to try to solve it by taking the two
most contentious proposals-liability protection and the state and
local government funding-off the table. The state and local aid in the
908 plan isn't nearly enough at $160 billion, and without that,
you're talking about the total destruction of public employee jobs and
services, from teachers and firefighters and police (there goes Mitch
McConnell defunding the police again) to playgrounds and parks and buses
and subways. Los Angeles is already cutting hundreds of city jobs

and it's just the beginning. No state and local aid would mean a lead
weight on any recovery, with austerity offsetting any economic boost.

We Can't Do This Without You

This may have been pitched as McConnell "pulling back
"
on his liability demand, but he knew what he was doing. No state and
local aid is a red line, and the liability piece is a poison pill. He
was trying to crash the talks.

Then another country is heard from; the White House (remember them?).
After bipartisan pressure, the Trump administration offered their own
$916 billion plan
,
which added in $600 one-time stimulus checks. But to compensate for
that, it nixed the $300/week unemployment boost. This is a terrible
trade; the unemployed need the relief the most, and the weekly benefit
is far more than the single $600 check. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer
immediately called this unacceptable, though McConnell and Republican
House leader Kevin McCarthy immediately endorsed it
.
(The McConnell liability shield and the inadequate state and local aid
are both in the White House proposal.)

I hope you can figure out what's going on here. The Republicans are
running out the clock. They have offered up increasingly untenable
proposals in a bid to pin the responsibility for no deal on the
Democrats. They are disinterested in actually getting to yes and helping
people. It conflicts with their overriding desire to make life miserable
for the incoming administration.

Back in March-I can't believe it was that long ago-I assumed that
there would only be one chance for COVID relief in this Congress, and so
the negotiators had better make that one count. I thought that once
corporate America was set right (and with the vaccine on the way and
light at the end of the tunnel

for pulling out of this crisis, they're set right), leverage would be
lost. I thought that inequality would skyrocket

and the relief for ordinary people struggling in the crisis would run
out. I thought the lack of state and local aid to cover revenue
shortfalls would prove a fatal mistake.

Absolutely all of that has come to pass. It was a tragedy of
shortsighted policymaking that's going to cause a lot of pain, even if
we manage to get some eventual half-measure. Governance has failed often
in this era; add this to the list.

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Today I Learned

* I talked to Meagan Day about the Biden cabinet picks; you can read
that here
.
(Jacobin)

* One in five women have left the workforce

since the pandemic began. Wow. (HuffPost)

* More people are having trouble making rent
.
(National Multi-Family Housing Coalition)

* The AstraZeneca vaccine will probably need more trials
,
amid a lack of faith in its results. (New York Times)

* The further adventures of the mall apocalypse

are on the way. (CNBC)

* TimeWarner's pandemic-triggered plan to end the theatrical window

has filmmakers furious. (Hollywood Reporter)

* We still don't really know if vaccinated people can still spread the
virus
.
(New York Times)

* Sick leave benefits are also expiring

December 31. (HuffPost)

* UPS can't deliver pillows to me on time, I confess to some
nervousness with them handling vaccine shipping
!
(Bloomberg)

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