It's been 131 days since the House passed the $3.4 trillion HEROES Act, which Mitch McConnell has refused to take up. The election is in 41 days. But there appears to be an agreement on government funding that provides minimal coronavirus relief and puts us in a potential government shutdown fight in December, while we could also be fighting Donald Trump's efforts to throw out the election results. This could have gone much better.
The House passed a continuing resolution that lasts until December 11. It's not as if anyone was going to be having a holiday anyway, between coronavirus, the onset of an economic depression, and Trump's efforts to start a civil war. Sure, give him the tool of a government shutdown in the midst of all that. The bill does provide a larger amount of nutrition funding for children and families than had been on the table before—$8 billion as opposed to $2 billion. It also replenishes the $30 billion line of credit from Treasury to the Commodity Credit Corporation to make payments to farmers, a Republican demand.
It extends the flexibility in the food stamp program from the CARES Act to allow states more leeway in granting the assistance, and expands the school meal program to children that were in child care centers that have been closed in the pandemic, widening the pool of children available for the program, and provides new funding for the school subsidized meal program. That at last answers a portion of the pandemic need.
Democrats included language that will keep the Treasury from diverting any of that money intended for farmers and ranchers from going to oil refineries. Because that has been an effort by the Trump administration—diverting agriculture funds to oil companies that have not received waivers of their ethanol obligations under the Renewable Fuel Standard. Basically, oil companies haven't lived up to their bargain for producing so much of their fuel from ethanol, and Trump has wanted to reward them for it by taking money from a program that's supposed to help stabilize farms.
So there wasn't an effort to save Obamacare, the bulk of necessary pandemic relief still hasn't been secured, and Trump could force a shutdown in December to use in his likely fight to overturn the election results. Not having a government shutdown now, just before the election, is the advantage. Given that Republicans are the ones likeliest to lose in the election, Democrats could have used their leverage more effectively.
At least it's one less crisis between now and the election to have to worry about. Now it's just the absence of coronavirus relief and another stolen Supreme Court seat. McConnell is expected to bring the bill to the Senate floor by early next week. Trump is expected to sign it. It being 2020, however, who knows for sure.