There is an awful lot of bad in the coronavirus relief package Sen. Mitch McConnell is struggling to put together with his divisive Republican conference. One bright spot seemed to be that the extremely bad idea from Donald Trump of a payroll tax cut has been finally put to rest. It seems that laying the groundwork for eventual big cuts to Social Security and Medicare by starving the trust fund in this bill was too controversial and too transparent for Republicans. So they decided to do it a much sneakier way.
Sen. Mitt Romney has decided to show his true colors again. He might not like Trump, but he's still a Republican and he still wants Wall Street to steal our Social Security and Medicare, and he got help this time from not-really-a-Democrat Joe Manchin. The two have written the TRUST Act (an ironic bill name if ever there was one) that would create a bipartisan "rescue committee" to fast-track future cuts to Social Security and Medicare. McConnell confirmed Thursday that he's going to include it in this relief package.
It's the horrible Simpson-Bowles "Catfood Commission" all over again—in fact, Romney says it is "[m]odeled after the Simpson-Bowles fiscal commission," which, by the way, was a failure, "to create a process to rescue each of the major, endangered trust funds which are now headed for bankruptcy. At the same time, it would put us on a path to eliminate the federal deficit and reduce the national debt." They cannot stop trying to steal everything not nailed down for Wall Street.
These trust funds, by definition, cannot go bankrupt. They are set up so that if they approach insolvency, they are replenished by Congress. Also, Romney is repeating the zombie lie that Social Security is responsible for the deficit. It’s not!!!! Even Ronald Reagan debunked this one. "Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit." Never has. Never will. Romney and Manchin know that. But it's a convenient lie that the deficit peacocks will not give up on, not until they've stolen the benefits we have all worked all our lives for and have earned and thrown them to the wolves of Wall Street.
They're trying again to do it with unaccountable, unelected "commissioners" outside of the public hearing process and without public scrutiny or input. Romney's and Manchin's bill would create the committee and fast-track its proposals straight to the floor, bypassing public hearings. McConnell is trying to sneak this shit into the a bill that's supposed to be saving people's livelihoods and lives.
That's what makes its reemergence so enraging. We talk about must-pass bills all the time, and how leadership uses them to get their wish lists passed. But this is truly must-pass because people's actual lives and livelihoods are depending on it. We're literally talking about whether people can protect themselves and their families from 1) a potentially fatal virus, and 2) starvation and homelessness because of the economic impact of that virus.
McConnell is trying to use that urgency to pass this bullshit. Putting it in any relief package is a poison pill, it will not survive in the House, and it will only prolong the agony of all the people desperately waiting for help. We're used to McConnell being a monster at this. But this is extreme, even for him.