August 13, 2020
President Signs EOs Funding Corona Relief
It’s mid-August and in Washington, D.C. it’s a month break from the hustle and bustle of Capitol Hill while both Chambers are in August recess. But this year has been different. While the Senate continues to work in passing judicial nominations, the House left under the promise they’d, unfortunately, be back to pass a phase 4 Coronavirus stimulus package.
Negotiations actually started in July and the Senate proposal, the HEALS Act, was introduced at the end of July. A series of combined bills costing about $1.1 trillion dollars that continues unemployment assistance at $200 per week, provides stimulus payments for individuals and families, and encourages U.S. manufacturing. But, this bill has yet to go anywhere. As Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-SC) said on the Senate Floor:
“For weeks, Speaker Pelosi and the Democratic Leader stalled and stalled in backroom negotiations with the Administration’s team. For weeks, they held up important aid over non-COVID-related demands. They stayed true to their comments from very early on in this pandemic. They saw this pandemic as, quote, “a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.” That was the House Democratic Whip. Speaker Pelosi herself put it this way: “This is an opportunity. Every crisis is…These are the Democrat demands that stood between all this help and the Americans who need it. Here’s one: Democrats say nobody gets another dime of relief unless state and local governments get about a trillion dollars in extra money…Clearly this isn’t really about COVID at all. Democrats think they smell an opening they have wanted for years — to make Uncle Sam bailout decades of mismanagement and broken policies in places like New York, New Jersey, and California. And so they’ve decided that no working family anywhere in America can get another cent unless they get to create a trillion-dollar slush fund for mismanaged states, completely out of proportion to pandemic needs.”
This gross example of the lack of stewardship our Federal lawmakers have when dealing with our taxpayer money should signal the end of trillion-dollar relief funds to not only hard-working Americans but also Republican leaders. Sadly, this wasn’t the case. After the stalemate reached in the Senate and House on phase 4, the President was rumored to issue a series of Executive Orders providing economic relief, and this past weekend he did. Together with the set of 4 EOs:
- Defer payroll tax
- Continue payment towards disaster relief funds, like those established in the CARES Act
- Extend deferment of evictions and foreclosures
- Extend the temporary end of payments and interest on student loans
We can only hope that this means the Senate and House together will not pass another relief bill. Our nation simply cannot afford to keep funding these bills.
And in case you missed it, Kanye West advocates for life in the presidential campaign platform in an attempt to hurt Biden’s campaign.
