House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she’s confident Congress can pass another virus relief plan in the coming weeks. For sure, it won’t be this week, as they are out of session this week. They will all be back next week and as usual, they will begin to figure out how to spend all our money, not only ours’s, but that of all our kids, grandkids, great-grandkids, and on and on.
Pelosi also believes that the GOP will ultimately agree to spending levels closer to the $3.5 trillion proposed by Democrats. “I have no doubt they’ll come around,” she said in an interview on Bloomberg Television.
Democrats and Republicans are set to begin negotiations on another stimulus plan as the coronavirus continues to rage across the country, forcing renewed business shutdowns that are hobbling the U.S. economy. The number of Americans filing for unemployment barely declined last week in a sign that challenges to any recovery continue to multiply.
Among main differences: Who should qualify for another round of stimulus checks; the amount of aid to state and local governments; and whether to extend supplemental unemployment insurance and by how much.
The phase three relief bill, the Cares Act, provided an enhanced federal unemployment benefit of $600 per week for up to four months. These enhanced unemployment benefits, which will expire at the end of the month, have had an adverse impact because, in most instances, individuals are receiving more money on unemployment benefits than they would working a job.
Congressional Democrats are pushing to extend federal unemployment benefits. Paying workers more to stay home than to return to work will cause thousands of small businesses to go under.
Let’s hope Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans will stand firm and not allow this stimulus bill to pass. Our country can’t afford this. In order to get the country moving again, we need to stop incentivizing our workforce to stay home.
We all know that the democrats know that their chances of taking the White House and the Senate hinge on the state of the economy. This starts with no new spending as part of coronavirus relief bills.
