Paycheck Protection Program

[_subgenius]

One theory for why Pelosi ...

I am reminded of a thread/post from the past that fixated on President Monson's declaration "Let's go shopping!" and how Pelosi's "Let's go to Chinatown" isn't at all far removed from that same sentiment and circumstance.

[_EAllusion]

Schumer is confirming the general terms of the deal I outlined above today, which I'll take as a strong indication of what Democratic leadership is going to attempt to pass. The only interesting quirk not captured in prior reporting is that the Trump admin is getting 125 billion of the funds to administer directly rather than through the banks on the theory that it will help capture businesses unable to access bank loans and that you can trust the admin to administer funding without favor.

All of the above listed items are not being addressed and the half-trillion dollars in leverage Democrats had will be gone.

[_EAllusion]

Since it is widely reported that the PPP program ended up shoveling out billions and billions of dollars to large, wealthy, solvent businesses while many small businesses were left out cold, I am curious if even on these limited terms the cash infusion does anything to rectify that.

[_EAllusion]

I'll have to support my long list piecemeal honor as I wrote a long post with a ton of links that ended up going to nowhere.

1) Trump fires IG overseeing stimulus fund administration:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04 ... funds.html

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... f-spending

The tapped replacement is a Whitehouse attorney, incidentally.

This is part of a broader attempt to remove and replace seven inspector generals, though that's not relevant to the claim I was making.

2) Trump's signing statement for the stimulus (CARES act) announces its intent to disregard the provisions Democrats negotiated at the 11th hour that were intended to provide oversight.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-st ... sident-38/

I was going to screencap the relevant passages, but I think that might be what got my previous post ethered.

Here's this instead:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/2 ... ght-152560

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics ... ont-comply

The Democrats' "concession" of basic oversight to the Republicans, which is actually quite tepid even if followed to the letter, is directly implicated there. I'm not sure if you need a link showing that this is what Democrats held up passage of the bill and bargained for, but it is.

Democrats were all like, "Can we get a just a little oversight of trillion+ of dollars being administered by Donald Trump?," Republicans were like, "you drive a hard bargain Democrats *suppresses snicker*. Ok." And Trump then immediately went, "Nah." Suckers!" And not a couple weeks later, Democrats are back at the table treating them as good-faith negotiating partners handing over billions in exchange for allowing people who have COVID symptoms to get tested for COVID.

[_EAllusion]

Trump now promising to bail out the petrochemical industry, because it's definitely important to give billions of dollars to an industry that pays virtually no taxes, is subsidized to the tune of trillions by a foreign policy that routinely goes to war for it, is becoming technologically antiquated, and is actively destroying ecosystems on which humans depend. Trump has no statutory authority to do this though, so he might have to come for some money. I don't know. Maybe Democrats will give a few hundred billion to big oil in exchange for allowing people to get their mail once a week. Pelosi can then shutter Congress again and make "cute" videos about her ice cream stores in the middle of a devastating crisis that definitely won't be used in brutal political advertisements against Democrats.

[_EAllusion]

Oh my. It already exists:

https://Twitter.com/i/status/1252369647338319878

Half of the message is wildly misleading and the other half gets at an essentially true criticism. In any case, seems about as devastatingly effective as ads of Trump downplaying coronavirus are contrasting with what actually happened.

[_EAllusion]

[quote=Icarus post_id=1222287 time=1587414658 user_id=19355]
EAllusion what do you think of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on this?

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alexandr ... 5b5872da94
[/quote]

I have a different set of priorities, though I agree that the US breaking with *the rest of the developed world*, and using a quixotic bailout businesses and social insurance stopgaps instead of a ongoing UI as the core program is bad policy, but I agree with the general tenor of this. Democrats keep getting rolled for next-to-nothing because the rank in file are being kept in line while the leadership seems to think their job is to cave to Republicans in just the right way that it looks good for messaging even though that part is probably a failure on its own terms.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is laudable for standing up when it is politically difficult for others to do so. Intentional or not, Pelosi is placing a lot of pressure on parts of her caucus to fall in line simply by keeping Congress out of session.

On an aside, since she was initially branded as a ditz and continues to retain that reputation in right-wing media, it's worth noting that no matter how much you might disagree with her, she actually is pretty sharp and treats the job seriously enough to have competent people around her to keep her on top of issues and public communications in a way that is well above replacement. The contrast between the portrayal of her as an airhead and her obviously being way more on the ball than many of her colleagues is something. This also came out during periods of high-profile Congressional hearings where her questioning was always a cut above. It comes out in this situation as well.

[_Icarus]

Word is she may be challenging Chuck Shumer for his seat.

[_Icarus]

Just received an email to e-sign a document for funds to be transferred. Apparently we got approved for the Paycheck Protection program but I didn't realize they already passed the bill?

[_honorentheos]

Thanks, EA. I was expecting more about the current negotiations. But it raises the concern that a crisis minus an entire branch of government is outrageous. So point made.