Oh, hey, Democrats. Specifically, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. Here's a free tip: STOP REINFORCING REPUBLICAN TALKING POINTS!
It's like a reflex with old-timey Democrats like Hoyer to insist that both sides have a point or some stupid thing. On CNN Tuesday morning, Hoyer said that the Republican argument that the $600 per week unemployment boost to the millions of people out of work because of the pandemic is keeping lazy people from going back to work "has some validity to it" and that "we ought to deal with that." No, Hoyer, it doesn't have validity. And you don't deal with it by cutting people's assistance, which is what he's talking about doing here. And you really don't go into the very beginning of a negotiation saying, "Look, it's not $600 or bust." That was a gift to Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that a Democratic leader has no place extending.
"To say that $600 or nothing, no, that's not where we are," Hoyer continued, digging even more. "We're prepared to discuss this. But we're also not prepared, however, to let down the American people, to let down the states, the cities, the local governments who hire people, who are meeting this pandemic's crisis, including health personnel." That's precisely what you're doing if you start giving this critical assistance away. That's not just bad bargaining—it's terrible policy.
Economists are in large agreement that the $600 per week payments have been keeping the economy going for the past several months and that cutting it at all will cost jobs and economic stimulus in the next year. That means when Joe Biden is president next year and faces the incredible challenge of saving the nation and the economy from the Trump virus (in all its incarnations), the hole he has to climb us out of will be slightly less deep if people get their goddamned $2,400 a month now.
It's not a whole hell of a lot to ask. It's a lot more reasonable of an ask than telling people to go out and endanger their lives and their families' lives by returning to work. Because that's why people aren't going to work—that and the fact that there aren't so many jobs to find now because WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A PANDEMIC.
Whatever this was from Hoyer, it's not helpful. It undercuts House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s and Senate Democrats' negotiating positions. It credits Republicans for the absolutely worst and most offensive position that American workers are inherently lazy and are using this excuse to sit at home raking in sweet subsistence wages. It's harmful all the way around and Hoyer, as usual, just needs to shut up and help people.