David Dayen writes regular reports on the politics of the pandemic for The American Prospect.
First Response
I read this interview between Ezra Klein and Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Pramila Jayapal, and I have to say I’m tiring of what amounts to a bunch of excuses for how progressives have been functionally locked out of policymaking during this crisis. Jayapal sniffs that “it’s a lot easier to be on the outside and to be pure and never having to make compromises,” and says that there aren’t enough progressives willing to use their power to stop legislation outright. She essentially says that, as long as there’s a bone in there, members can be easily picked off.
But the problem isn’t about compromise, it’s about invisibility. Nancy Pelosi has run the House of Representatives by fiat for close to two months, and there hasn’t been a single word of protest as she locks every other member of the Democratic caucus out of policymaking and hands them take-it-or-leave-it legislation to rubber stamp. If Jayapal has ever objected to that you sure wouldn’t know.
As Ezra points out, instead of organizing around one thing, progressives supply 100-item wish lists that everyone knows won’t be fulfilled. This has two consequences: the wish lists show progressives are not completely serious about governing, and the leadership can always pick like 2 of the 100 out of the list and give members something to justify voting for a bad bill.
Read all of our Unsanitized reports
Meanwhile, Pelosi has been talking about what she’ll add to the next bill, and it’s relatively unconstrained by wish lists. One of the elements is changing the eligibility standards for PPP small business loans to include 501(c)(4) and (c)(6) nonprofit organizations. You might know (c)(6) organizations by another name: lobbyists. Unbelievably, K Street has asked for a bailout and is on the road to getting it. I mean lobbyists are good at lobbying, I guess.
As far as I can tell, lobbyists have not stopped lobbying amid the crisis. There’s been a “frenzy” of lobbying around Mitch McConnell’s desire for a corporate liability shield from coronavirus-related lawsuits, for example. Why do high-powered lobby shops need a free $10 million per firm, exactly? Also, PPP will be out of money by the time any bill passes. Does tweaking eligibility signal giving more to this program, in part to just shovel money at lobbying firms?
Meanwhile, Jayapal’s bill to guarantee payroll support from the government for the duration of the crisis was “very worthy of consideration,” said Pelosi. That’s code for “nice work but it’s not getting in the bill.”
The House Democratic slogan is “for the people.” And that’s selectively true. Pelosi listens to some people, powerful people. And she pays lip service to others. She does this because she knows she can get away with it. There’s been essentially no dissent from those on the losing end of that equation. The House still doesn’t even have remote voting in place, and caucuses are doing Zoom calls rather than official hearings. Hundreds of members of Congress representing hundreds of millions of people have been disenfranchised. If there’s state and local government aid in a future bill (if it ever happens), progressives are going to shrug and support something with a lobbyist bailout in it. You can see it now.
If you funnel all lawmaking through one person, you’re going to get things laundered through a certain perspective that has a likelihood of occasionally being myopic. The K Street bailout is the dumbest political maneuver you could possibly make right now. Businesses already have access to insanely generous support at the federal level; the Federal Reserve has propped up their equity and credit markets. Who do you think pays lobbyists? The PPP is an underweighted program that isn’t going to save most small businesses, it’s not even designed to do that. All you’re doing by adding lobbyists to it is stoking public anger. And the anger is well-placed; lobbyists really don’t deserve free money right now.
But when there’s no pressure whatsoever on the one-woman Congress, you stumble into mistakes like this. Surely progressive lawmakers don’t like being alienated from their professional duties in this fashion. Maybe they should say something.
Jared’s Boys
To facilitate sleeping at night, I try really hard to avoid the unavoidable reality that Jared Kushner, someone with about as much policy talent as the agave plant in my front yard, is managing huge sections of the government. But the description of Kushner’s operation to secure medical equipment reflects the farce that our policymaking apparatus has been turned into, a combination of kleptocracy and total ignorance that is hard to even really analyze outside of saying “this is bad.”
But I will highlight the provenance of many of the people working on the Kushner project: his buddies in the private equity industry. Was the whole idea to, I don’t know, knuckle under suppliers and take out management fees and rip off hospitals and states? Then why would PE guys be involved? They “were expected to apply their deal-making experience to quickly weed out good leads from the mountain of bad ones,” according to administration officials. That’s not what PE, especially the inexperienced PE volunteers assigned to this project, do. There are no distressed assets among medical suppliers in high demand. There’s nobody to screw over when the goal is to get masks and gowns quickly to doctors and nurses. And PE paper-pushers probably don’t understand the particular challenges of this task, namely supply chain management.
This Pro Publica story about one fly-by-night contractors private jet trip to find N95 masks is typical of the dysfunction involved here. And here’s a supply company set up by Republican operatives that’s now under criminal investigation. And here are more allegations that the administration prioritized friends of Kushner for contracts. This entire thing was an enormous grift at the expense of national preparedness.
This COVID-19 welfare for Lobbyists will be used to make sure the elected officials that voted for that corporate welfare will keeping feeding them more money in the form of COVID-19 corporate welfare.
It works like this:
The lobbyists get COVID-19 corporate welfare that ends up flowing into reelection campaigns to get the same elected officials that voted for the corporate COVID-19 corporate welfare elected again so the cycle repeats … repeatedly.
The national debt grows by trillions as the wealth of the 1% continues to grow, too.
And while this robbery is going on, millions that have lost their jobs will lose their homes and end up homeless and struggling just to eat.
You know the old proverb: Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the rest of us . . . .
First I’ve heard that old proverb. It is too true.
Lather, rinse and repeat. Same crap day in and day out and the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. Tax dollars are supposed to be for “we the people”….when do “we” get our say in how that money is used? Citizens United needs to get blown up and taken out to the dumpster.
Round and Around the corruption goes, and we the people wind up with not much support from those we’ve elected.
Very good reporting. The American Prospect has been doing excellent reporting lately. Robert Kuttner did a very good critique of a NYT pro-charter education story and after being challenged by them because of a minor fact, promised a longer look at charters. I hope that Kuttner keeps his promise to do a deep dive into the false propaganda that charters offer up to a hungry (and lazy) media that eats up every word without doing the hard work of determining whether there is any real truth to the claims.
This is a very good story that is rightly and harshly critical of some Democrats without pushing the false narrative that there is no difference between the two parties and thus it doesn’t matter if Republicans have all the power.
Why NOT bailouts for lobbyists?
They are people too, and just like the rest of us, they need to maintain their mansions, yachts, summer homes and Learjets.
Have a heart and don’t judge! For God’s sake. What makes any of us so perfect?! Who are we to judge? I have never seen so much prejudice and bias. For shame!
The grotesquely wealthy wipe their tushes, pick their noses, and floss her teeth just like the rest of us.
. . . floss THEIR teeth . . . .
Wouldn’t it be kinder and more compassionate to hug a tax-evading, oppressive billionaire than send them to the guillotine?
Don’t we all want to do the right thing?
NO!
It is sad that Democrats go along with the fleecing. .
Loved it…posted a link tothe article at OPED. Thanks for always offering such insight!
“all 501(c)(6) organizations with 300 employees or less would be eligible”
Hey how about mainstream PPP, the supposed “small-biz” bailout… for any biz w/ 500 employees or less? 500 employees is a small biz? %#?!€@!! Meanwhile the self-employed/ Mom&Pop et al ACTUAL small-biz which represents a huge sector of the American public can just go pound sand. The self-employed & gig wkrs are being told to just go to fed-expanded unempl ins, where– if they are among the small %age who can get thro & apply, are getting told to “submit more info” [as if they hadn’t been submitting in-depth details to IRS on every return], & the teeny Mom&Pops can’t even find banks who will look at their applications.
I really don’t know why Congress didn’t just move to send appropriate-size checks directly to actual on-the-books self-employed et al small biz up to 50 employees. The need is now for a few months– not later– after a few months– when bank/ state bureaucracies manage to get thro all the ppwk designed for normal times, not emergency crisis.
If anyone should go pound sand, it’s lobbyists.
Pitchforks and torches . . . .
Pelosi has a new 1,800 page proposal for a new stimulus. [Canada can give money to businesses if they won’t fire their employees but the US still can’t find that option.]
Teachers in Indiana are the lowest paid in all of the central states BUT the Repubs keep gloating about their budget. Indiana teachers do not ever get an increase in their pensions once they retire.
Here is what one Indiana congressional person has to say about Pelosi’s newest offer.
………………………………………………………
Rep. Banks rejects plan for state ‘bailouts’
Rep. Jim Banks, R-3rd, said Tuesday he opposes additional federal coronavirus relief for state and local governments for any purpose unrelated to the pandemic.
“Hoosier taxpayers should never be on the hook to bail out many years of mismanagement and poor leadership in states like Illinois,” Banks said in a statement. “They’ve made promises to workers with pensions and other benefits that they can’t keep. States like Indiana that are fiscally responsible shouldn’t be punished.”
As chairman of the Republican Study Committee’s budget task force, Banks led a letter to congressional leaders and the White House objecting to state “bailouts” proposed by the Democratic majority in the House.
“Many of the states calling for such a bailout have some of the highest tax rates and most underfunded pension and rainy day funds,” the letter stated. It named New York, Illinois and New Jersey – states with Democratic governors and legislative majorities as well as the highest numbers of coronavirus cases in the nation.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told CNN on Tuesday that a proposal to send $900 billion more to state and local governments aims to “defray the cost of the outlays they’ve made for coronavirus and the revenue loss because of the coronavirus.”
Ms. Pelosi’s plan also showers those health insurance company donors with cash via funding COBRA premiums for those folks losing their health insurance. Her plan does nothing to address HOW those unemployed COBRA recipients will pay the enormous deductibles and co-pays that come with their COBRA plans.
Pelosi has a progressive challenger; perhaps its time to fund him and send her home.
“HOUSE SPEAKER Nancy Pelosi will face a spirited challenge from activist and attorney Shahid Buttar in the November general election.
Buttar represents a unique, if unlikely challenge to Pelosi, the most powerful elected Democrat in the country and 33-year incumbent for San Francisco’s congressional seat. On Tuesday, Pelosi took 72.5 percent of the vote in California’s 12th Congressional District. Under the state’s unique primary system — where the top-two vote-getters in the primary make it to the general election, even if they belong to the same party — Buttar’s 12.7 percent was enough to get him on the November ballot.
“Buttar is a constitutional lawyer who has dedicated his career on reining in American militarism and advancing causes relating to social justice. As a part-time DJ, Buttar may appear at face value as just another reflexive left-wing activist, but he is well-credentialed with a track record in advocacy and community organizing. A graduate of Stanford Law School, Buttar worked on court cases litigating marriage equality and defending the civil liberties of Muslims facing FBI surveillance, and has challenged the constitutionality of the USA PATRIOT Act.”
https://theintercept.com/2020/03/04/super-tuesday-primaries-california-pelosi-shahid-buttar/
Maybe it is time for Pelosi to retire. We need better leadership.
Bill Gates has gone on record saying life will not go back to normal until we have the ability to vaccinate the entire global population against COVID-19. To that end, he is pushing for disease surveillance and a vaccine tracking system that might involve embedding vaccination records on our bodies
According to Gates, societal and financial normalcy may never return to those who refuse vaccination, as the digital vaccination certificate Gates is pushing for might ultimately be required to go about your day-to-day life
The Rockefeller Foundation is also coordinating efforts in the direction of social control through the implementation of draconian COVID-19 tracking and tracing measures that are clearly meant to become permanent
April 21, 2020, The Rockefeller Foundation released a white paper, “National COVID-19 Testing Action Plan — Strategic Steps to Reopen Our Workplaces and Our Communities,” which calls for testing and tracing all Americans using a national database connected to other health records
The plan requires setting aside privacy concerns, and allowing infection status to be validated before entering schools, office buildings, places of work, airports, concerts and sport venues and much more
Check out this story on Mercola.com: https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/05/13/digital-vaccination-certificate.aspx?cid_medium=etaf&cid=share
……………………………..
How we must respond to the coronavirus pandemic | Bill Gates
TED
March 25, 2020
Here’s a little clue for you. As soon as you purchase and turn on your “smartphone”, your data is sold automatically and you are tracked. It bothers me! I am all for contact tracing as long as it is done person to person, but the ability to contact trace via cellphones is already happening whether we like it or not. How do you think they followed those kids on spring break in Florida dispersing throughout the US after the party was over? It’s already here….Bill is just trying to be “polite” by asking permission for something which we have already given permission for (in the very small print). Even our cars have the ability to track us with navigation systems installed. We have already ceded our privacy to the data lords…how much more are we willing tolerate?
LisaM: I have a cheap prepaid phone which I only use for emergencies and my old car has a portable GPS that is off most of the time. I never use it for normal driving.
So far, I hope I’m not being tracked but online my computer keeps having advertisements for the area in which I live.
I am VERY concerned about the proliferation of G5. The energy for that is 500 times stronger than current G4. This is real destruction for people even though advertisements or promotions proclaim it isn’t harmful.