Paycheck Protection Program

[_EAllusion]

1) Pelosi and Schumer and their staff/allies are in negotiations with McConnell and Mnuchin to pass an infusion of several hundred billion dollars into PPP.
2) This is occurring while Pelosi has kept Congress in an extended recess (that was recently extended to early May), which forces Congressional members out of a more vocal role in negotiations and dares them to take heat for holding up a unanimous consent vote and delaying relief.
3) Terms of the deal both sides say are close are being reported in the press as including about 400 billion to PPP in exchange for about 100 billion to medical providers and some other lesser add-ons. The latter is being treated as a negotiated concession.
4) Following #3, despite Democrats having significant leverage over a Trump admin in need of propping up the economy, the negotiations do not include, among other things, post office relief, election security measure such as funding for VBM, no-excuse absentee voting, etc., UI, hazard pay for essential workers to discourage seeking superior UE benefits, aid to state and local governments, automatic stabilizers to tie relief to conditions in case Democrats win in November and Republicans react like they have for years and go into sabotage and obstruct mode, and so on.
5) The Trump admin is indicating, as reported by Axios and Politico, that they are holding firm on no aid for state and local governments because they do not want states to resist a federal push for them to "re-open" their economies and cratering local budgets are motivation for them not to do that.
6) After phase 3 negotiations concluded and the legislation was passed with some weak oversight measures compromised at the very end supposedly to get Democratic buy-in, Trump issued a signing statement that announced the admin's intent to disregard every meaningful piece of accountability negotiated in the bill, then engaged in a purge of IG's that directly impacted that bill's enforcement mechanism, then has already started to operate around the intent of the legislation's transparency measures. Democrats, so far, have reacted to this with basically nothing. That can at least in part be explained by the fact that they are in extended recess. That they aren't trying to fix this in the next round of negotiations; however, cannot be explained by Congressional recess.
7) The Trump has repeatedly, in a variety of public and private contexts, told state governments to develop their own supply chains for medical equipment they are in need of - everything from respirators to vents. The Trump admin, despite this, has been systematically seizing shipments of medical equipment states have secured at ports and airports, leading to state governments and hospitals engaging in some elaborate attempts to evade the Feds. The Trump admin has also been outbidding states for equipment on the market. While there is no transparency over what the Federal government is doing with their seized and outbidded equipment, there is some information on at least where some of it is going. This includes shipping it out as political favors, if only because Donald Trump has announced doing so on Twitter on multiple occasions.
8) The Democrats negotiation of this funding doesn't seem to address this issue according to reports, as they probably view it as distinct from small - well "small" - business funding rather than the Trump's need for appropriations as a leverage point to do something about it.

Ok. This can be broken down even further obviously, but which of these are you looking for links for?

[_EAllusion]

My guess is that Pelosi is going is eventually allow Democrats pass things like election security, UI, etc. in a separate bill after they've handed all their leverage over to Republicans, have it immediately shot down, and go "Well, We tried. What do want? The mean Republicans stopped us. Please vote for us."

[_honorentheos]

Any and all. I'm not really chasing news these days. But as I said, if what you are saying is going on, it's pretty outrageous and people ought to be outraged. So I'm interested in going right to the sources but haven't seen this in my minimalist news diet I'm on during my current wfh arrangements.

[_EAllusion]

[quote=honorentheos post_id=1222236 time=1587356804 user_id=7137]
Any and all. I'm not really chasing news these days. But as I said, if what you are saying is going on, it's pretty outrageous and people ought to be outraged. So I'm interested in going right to the sources but haven't seen this in my minimalist news diet I'm on during my current wfh arrangements.
[/quote]
Oh boy. It's late. I'll put together a link list tomorrow when I have time. I was hoping that you already were aware of most of this and were just looking for me to source a point or two.

[_honorentheos]

I did read earlier today about a congressperson from I think Chicago who made the point the big stimulus bill was basically created by a handful of people negotiating over phone calls such that no one really had much say as to what should be done or engaged in much debate or even discussion in it's creation. His point being it was pretty unrepresentative and possibly a bad direct for representative government if Congress isn't actually functioning as a body but rather as just props for a few of the most powerful to hold out as somehow legitimizing what could ultimately prove to be poorly thought through and damaging legislation. So what you are saying has some similarities with the bonus of being current rather than retrospective. So maybe that covers your first three points or so.

[_EAllusion]

One theory for why Pelosi is keeping Congress shuttered while 20+ million people have lost their jobs, the economy is in the early stages of Depression, a pandemic killing 10's of thousands of people and upturning normal life is that by doing she can have better control over negotiations for bills. While Congress is closed, Pelosi, Schumer, and a few select others are still negotiating complex legislation involving 100's of billions of dollars that's intended to be passed. Congress just gets to either consent to it or not with "not" risking a lot of heat to whomever stands opposed. On this theory, it's a move against allowing the progressive part of her caucus to force concessions with the leverage Democrats have over Republicans by virtue of Republicans being more likely to be punished by voters for bad conditions leading into an election.

This is plausible, but I'd like to see more before I believe it. Sans that theory, however, and nothing else comes to mind besides unfathomable incompetence / dereliction of duty. Pelosi hasn't explained herself here beyond some banal statements that are quite unpersuasive. This is the biggest emergency, at least in scope, since WW II and Congress is *closed*.

*shrugs*

Whatever the case may be, it's Pelosi and Schumer's negotiation rather than Democrats as a whole under normal conditions. So you have to split hairs and make sure you point out this is the stance of "Democratic leadership" rather than what the Democratic caucus might do together if they were a functioning body, which they are not.

The failure to even protect elections, of which propping up USPS probably is inextricably linked, is what I regard as the most outrageous. Almost everything the Democrats punted on in the previous phases and are reported to be in this one are things that are wildly popular in polling. It's just stunning, and ultimately counter-productive political cowardice.

[_Icarus]

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/ ... democratic

I think this goes over EA's concerns

[_Icarus]

EA what do you think of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on this?

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alexandr ... 5b5872da94

[_EAllusion]

Oh God dang it. I just wrote a very long post that was swallowed up.

[_Icarus]

Nooooooooo