Published on
Monday, December 21, 2020
byCommon Dreams
'Slap in the Face for People Suffering Across the Country': Critics Slam
Watered-Down Covid Relief Deal
"Congress must pass this bill to address the immediate need, but let's be
clear: this should be considered a down payment at best."
byKenny Stancil, staff writer
People wait in line to receive donations from the food pantry at the Holy
Apostles Soup Kitchen on December 15, 2020 in New York City. (Photo: Robert
Nickelsberg/Getty Images)
People wait in line to receive donations from the food pantry at the Holy
Apostles Soup Kitchen on December 15, 2020 in New York City. (Photo: Robert
Nickelsberg/Getty Images)
In the wake of Sunday night's agreement on a roughly $900 billion Covid-19
relief package that is far smaller than economists say is necessary,
progressives argued that the "slap-in-the-face" bill must be passed to help
stem the suffering of working-class Americans but that much more will be
needed to address the crisis that has claimed more than 300,000 lives and 20
million jobs in the United States so far.
"To say this relief package is a day late and a dollar short is an
understatement to say the least," said People's Action director George Goehl
in a statement released Sunday night.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his fellow congressional
Republicans "prioritized the profits of the 1% over the well-being of
everyone else since this pandemic began," Goehl said. "The result is a
diluted bill that's barely a Band-Aid, but definitely a slap in the face for
people suffering across the country."
"When the history books are written about this pandemic," Goehl added,
McConnell and the GOP "will be remembered as heartless souls who played
politics with people's lives by blocking life-saving relief for months."
The legislation includes $600 direct cash payments to Americans who earned
$75,000 or less in 2019, though that hard-fought-for sum is meager compared
to what other OECD countries have allocated to workers, including several
nations that subsidized wages by 75% to 100% and didn't have gaps of more
than 260 days between relief packages.
In addition, the bill extends paid sick leave benefits and augments jobless
benefits by $300 per week for 11 weeks, averting a catastrophic
post-Christmas Day scenario in which 12 million people would lose
unemployment insurance. It also provides much-needed funding-$10 billion for
childcare, $13 billion for nutrition aid, $25 billion in rental assistance,
and $82 billion for schools, as Common Dreams reported Sunday.
Progressives defeated the corporate immunity provision McConnell has spent
months pushing for, but urgently needed fiscal aid for state and local
governments was also cut from the bill.
Although specific details of the agreement are still emerging, the package
will reportedly leave out hazard pay for frontline workers while the
Washington Post reported Sunday that Republicans extracted tax deductions
for "three-martini lunch" expenses "in exchange for... tax credits for
low-income families." And, according to Matt Bruenig of the People's Policy
Project, the legislation excludes 13.5 million adult dependents.
The bill is "not nothing, but it's obviously inadequate...during an economic
meltdown that has been punctuated by mass starvation and intensifying
poverty," the Daily Poster's David Sirota wrote Sunday night. "For
comparison, only three years ago, Republicans passed a $1.5 trillion tax cut
that enriched the wealthiest 1% of households."
AFSCME president Lee Saunders in a statement released Sunday night called
the new Covid-19 relief package "a slap in the face to frontline public
services workers-including nurses, first responders, sanitation workers,
corrections officers, and others-who have risked their lives and livelihoods
during this pandemic."
While the pandemic-driven economic slowdown has led to sharp declines in tax
revenue, states and localities do not share the federal government's ability
to run deficits. Citing the devastating impact of the crisis on municipal
budgets across the country, Saunders pointed out that "already, 1.3 million
frontline public service workers have been thanked for their heroism with
pink slips, with more than a million more on the chopping block."
"Congress has turned its back on out frontline heroes and the communities
they serve," Saunders said, adding that neighborhoods across the country
will "pay the price with further job losses and cutbacks in essential
services."
The legislation could have been even worse, Goehl pointed out, had it not
been for the advocacy of progressive elected officials like Sen. Bernie
Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), and the Congressional
Progressive Caucus as well as "grassroots organizations turning up the
heat."
"We fought tooth and nail to get people direct cash payments, even though we
know a one-time, $600-per-person check isn't nearly enough to survive,"
Goehl noted. "We also pushed hard to make sure both extended and enhanced
unemployment insurance and direct cash assistance were included instead of
pitted against each other. By standing up for workers, we kept corporations
accountable by rejecting the corporate liability shield."
Goehl said that "Congress must pass this bill to address the immediate need,
but let's be clear: this should be considered a down payment at best."
While the bill extends the CDC eviction moratorium through January 31 and
provides $25 billion in emergency rental assistance, "Congress should have
done much more to address the housing crisis faced by tens of millions of
people," he said. "We need a complete moratorium on evictions, rent and
mortgage cancellation, and erasure of pandemic-related housing debts. Rental
assistance just means the landlord gets paid with no strings attached, not
even a commitment not to evict the tenant next month if they take the
money."
In addition, the People's Action director emphasized the need for "funding
for state and local governments to prevent deep cuts to essential local
programs, services, and the workforce."
Alluding to the significance of the January 5 runoff contests in Georgia
that will determine which party controls the Senate, Goehl said progressives
should be "ready to fight for robust relief and economic recovery under
President-elect Biden."
Sirota cautioned that "if Democrats don't win the Georgia Senate races and
gain control of the upper chamber... it will almost certainly become far
harder to pass emergency relief bills through Congress."
With Biden in the White House, Sirota said, the GOP will have "an even
bigger incentive to try to starve the country for their own political gain."
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