Democrats are trying to pass a bill providing paid sick leave, expanded unemployment insurance, free coronavirus testing, and emergency food aid. Republicans are saying no to that aid to working families. According to Mitch McConnell, the Grim Reaper of the Senate’s legislative graveyard, the bill is “an ideological wish list that was not tailored closely to the circumstances.”
It’s exactly tailored to the circumstances of COVID-19’s impact on families, though it’s true it’s not tailored to getting a vote in Mitch McConnell’s Senate or being signed by Donald Trump. But then, those would be challenges for any bill doing the right thing.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said the bill “comes up short,” when what he really meant was “does more for low-income people than Republicans are willing to do” and that it contains “glaring problems,” which, ditto.
But the reality is this, as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi put it: ”We cannot slow the coronavirus outbreak when workers are stuck with the terrible choice between staying home to avoid spreading illness and the paycheck their family can’t afford to lose.” The House bill tries to break that choice by providing paid leave for those who have jobs but need to stay home and by providing expanded unemployment insurance for those who lose their jobs because of the pandemic’s impact on the economy. It tries to keep people from going hungry—particularly women with small children, kids who rely on school meals, and seniors. It provides for free coronavirus testing and protections for healthcare workers.
According to Republicans, though, it’s time to think small. “I hope that Senate Democrats will not block potential requests from our colleagues today to pass smaller, noncontroversial pieces of legislation right away that would bolster particular aspects of the fight against coronavirus,” McConnell said Thursday. So Republicans are going to hold up the big response needed and then try to slam Democrats for focusing on that big picture rather than on picking around the edges.
Both McConnell and McCarthy tried to portray their objections as being to what McConnell called the Democratic bill’s proposals for “new bureaucracy that would only delay assistance.” Not so convincing when he’s also calling for “smaller” responses and whining about “left-wing political messaging” in response to calls for paid sick leave as a response to a pandemic.
