The House passed the $3 trillion HEROES Act Friday evening, a bill that Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump are so far refusing to consider. Those leaders of the Republican death cult believe the key to staying in power is "reopening" the country and denying the fact that there are more than 30 million people unemployed and hungry and facing homelessness. They see no urgency in saving those lives, and McConnell still has his finger on the "pause button" he pushed a month ago. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is doing her damnedest to overcome that resistance.
"Time is very important," she said on Face the Nation on Sunday. "We have lost time. Setting aside how we got here, we cannot take a pause. [Republicans] may think it's okay to pause, but people are hungry across America. Hunger doesn't take a pause. People are jobless across America. That doesn't take a pause. People don't have enough money to pay their rent across the country. We have to address this with humanity." Appealing to McConnell and Trump's humanity is a dubious cause. Humanity stops at people making less than $250,000 a year for that crew—now that they've exploited the pandemic to secure bailouts for all their corporate and hedge fund buddies, they're good.
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The HEROES Act actually would help people—not enough—but substantively. That includes these highlights:
- $1,200 one-time payment to everyone, up to $6,000 per family;
- $1 trillion in aid to state, local, territorial, and tribal governments to help offset revenue losses due to the pandemic shutdown and retrain public employees;
- $200 billion in hazard pay for the essential workers; a 15% increase in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits;
- $75 billion for testing and contact tracing as well as free treatment for coronavirus;
- an extension of the $600 bump to weekly unemployment insurance payments through January;
- $175 billion in new money for rent, mortgage, and utility payments;
- $25 billion in emergency funding for the Postal Service;
- $3.6 billion for states to run elections safely and securely during the pandemic.
That's a Band-Aid that would keep people afloat. It would save states and cities. It would keep the post office functioning. It would help make the 2020 election secure (which could be the one thing that Moscow Mitch most objects to). It's not enough to kick-start the economy once the crisis has abated, or enough to keep hundreds of thousands of small business from having to permanently close, but it could keep people fed and housed and keep hope alive.
Which means absolutely nothing to McConnell and Trump. When it comes down to it, a dystopian hellhole will be a lot easier for them to rule over.