House Democrats aren't going to pass the Republican party's latest coronavirus stimulus proposal in its current form, but it doesn't look like Republicans are going to pass it, either.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell threaded an impressive needle by releasing a proposal that literally no one is pleased with. The budget hawks aren't happy and vulnerable senators whose states are in trouble aren't happy.
No one is happy.
From CNN:
"It's a mistake," Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, said of the newest proposal. "I think we should be focused on reopening the economy not simply shoveling trillions of dollars out of Washington. I think this bill is the wrong approach."
Sen. Ben Sasse, a Republican from Nebraska, declared Tuesday "there are a hundred problems with the plan." [...]
"I don't want to see any new authorization of money," Sen. Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, said.
GOP Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana told reporters that he didn't think he could support the bill in its current form.
"In my opinion, we need to get back to the Trump economy not the federal government trying to replace it," Braun said. [...]
"It's a starting point," Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican from Ohio, said of the bill.
Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said he wished there was more money for state and local governments even as he recognized the GOP bill is the beginning of negotiations, not the end.
"Obviously, I've advocated for more state and local and I think at the end of the day we will," Cassidy said.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, questioned whether there was enough funding for education in the bill. The GOP proposal included $105 billion for schools with $70 billion appropriated to go directly to K-12 education.
We need to "get back to the Trump economy," Senator Braun says, which was never Great Again to begin with. I remind you that the Trump recession actually began in February before we shut down anything.
You could insert almost any insulting descriptor here and it would be applicable to the Republican party.
Over 32 million Americans are currently on unemployment because there are only 5 million job openings in the country and, by the way, there's still a fucking pandemic in progress. Several states have been forced to re-impose lockdowns. Some states, including my own, are teetering toward larger outbreaks. There's still no comprehensive, national strategy for tackling anything.
Republicans are utterly incapable of meeting the moment. This is not a political party that takes new information into account and adjusts their views or responds accordingly. They still want to pretend everything is normal.
Congressional Republicans are hopeless and that may be why the White House is now directly negotiating with Democratic leaders, not GOP leaders.
Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows have already began their preliminary conversations with Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Those talks come as Republican senators are uneasy about how Meadows and Mnuchin have negotiated with Democrats in the past.
Sasse made that much clear in a forceful statement Tuesday evening labeling Mnuchin a "big-government Democrat."
Can you even imagine how idiotic you must be to say Steve Mnuchin is a "big government Democrat?"
This isn't even the fifth time the Trump White House has had to bypass congressional Republicans and directly negotiate with Democrats and that should tell the world something.
Congressional Republicans are useless if you need to actually govern.