It was a contentious Monday in Washington as Democrats insisted that the coronavirus stimulus bill drafted in the Senate unfairly favored large corporations.
Republican lawmakers were outraged when Nancy Pelosi torpedoed what was largely considered to be a bipartisan effort to save the American economy. But Democrats insisted their efforts were ‘courageous’ and driven by the needs of the people.
Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi claimed she was drawing up her own bill for the good of the people. She dismissed claims that she was using the crisis as an opportunity and many believed her. After all, it was her word against her opponents’ as the content of her bill wasn’t public knowledge.
Pelosi knew that Americans would have no idea what kinds of demands she’d included and that when Republicans refuted it she could point the finger at them for holding the public hostage.
On Monday night, a leaked document of Nancy Pelosi’s Coronavirus stimulus revealed her true colors. Despite Democrat lawmakers consistently saying they were concerned about small businesses and families, the document shows their bill is packed full of unrelated initiatives.
The bill shows that Pelosi the Democrats are unbothered by the time-sensitive nature of this bill. The coronavirus stimulus package will dole out much-needed funding to hospitals, small businesses and US workers who desperately need it. Adding in unrelated, hotly debated issues like same-day voter registration is certain to prolong the process.
It should come as no surprise that Pelosi doesn’t respect how urgently Americans need this stimulus package— she said as much earlier this week. Her attitude indicates that she’s willing to delay the bill for as long as it takes to get what the Democrats want.
Nancy Pelosi’s stimulus proposal also assumes democrat voters aren’t smart enough to understand what she’s doing. The Democrats claim their worry about the initial stimulus bill drafted in the Senate was corporate bailout restrictions. Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer described the bill as a “large corporate bailout with no protections for workers and virtually no oversight.”
Fair enough. But in Pelosi’s revised version that amendment is only a tiny footnote. She does call for restrictions on executive compensation, stock buybacks and dividends, which makes sense. Corporations that take federal loans should be held accountable. But that provision is one of several totally unrelated demands.
Here’s a look at some of the absurd issues she believes are worth considering in this time of crisis:
Whether or not democrat voters support those initiatives, most are likely to agree that now isn’t the time to debate them. Americans are asking for political unity to fight a common enemy, the coronavirus. Love them or hate them, the Republicans have offered that with a streamlined bailout that doesn’t include the usual pork fat that lawmakers debate over.
Debating the content of the stimulus and whether it needs to be amended is understandable, that’s what the US government was made for. But using a crisis to jam policy initiatives down Americans’ throats is unthinkable.