Last-minute complaints threaten $2T Senate coronavirus emergency aid

[RandySF]

A round of eleventh-hour objections is throwing a curveball into the Senate's consideration of a mammoth stimulus package.

Senate leadership announced the deal on the $2 trillion bill shortly after 1 a.m., and want to pass it Wednesday as they face intense pressure to take steps to reassure an American public and an economy rattled by the coronavirus.

But a brewing fight over a deal on unemployment provisions is threatening to open the door to a push for broader changes to the bill, which was negotiated by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, warned that unless a group of GOP senators back down from their demand for changes to the unemployment insurance benefits, he would slow walk the bill until stronger guardrails were put on hundreds of billions in funding for corporations.

"In my view, it would be an outrage to prevent working-class Americans to receive the emergency unemployment assistance included in this legislation," Sanders said in a statement.

"Unless these Republican senators drop their objection, I am prepared to put a hold on this bill until stronger conditions are imposed on the $500 billion corporate welfare fund to make sure that any corporation receiving financial assistance under this legislation does not lay off workers, cut wages or benefits, ship jobs overseas or pay workers poverty wages," Sanders continued.

Putting a "hold" on a bill would force McConnell to go through days of procedural loopholes that could delay the bill into the weekend or even early next week.

Sanders's decision comes after Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) raised concerns that the deal on unemployment benefits would "incentivize" individuals not to return to working.

The unemployment provision includes four months of bolstered unemployment benefits, including increasing the maximum unemployment benefit by $600.

But the GOP senators say that the agreement, which they are calling a "drafting error," could prompt individuals who would make less working to leave their jobs, or not actively return to working.

"Unless this bill is fixed, there is a strong incentive for employees to be laid off instead of going to work. ... We must sadly oppose the fast-tracking of this bill until this text is addressed, or the Department of Labor issues regulatory guidance that no American would earn more by not working than by working," Graham, Sasse and Scott, of South Carolina, said in a joint statement.





https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/489525-last-minute-complaints-threaten-2t-senate-coronavirus-emergency-aid

[empedocles]

1. The loudest complaints are not coming from the best Senators

[getagrip_already]

2. The loud senators are the irrelevant ones with no power to do anything.....

Schumer and his staff are running this. Nothing will move if he says stop. It doesn't matter what some remote part timer yells at a microphone.

[Buns_of_Fire]

3. Perhaps it's time for the rest of the Senate to invite

Senators Graham, Sasse, Scott (1), and Scott (2) into the privacy of the cloakroom to encourage an attitude adjustment.

[redstatebluegirl]

4. Bernie shaking his fingers and waving his arms thinking this will save his Presidential run.

[customerserviceguy]

5. Pass the bill now, as is

and do a technical correction bill next week, that's the easy solution. They can make the correction retroactive if necessary.

[Phoenix61]

6. I knew Scott was an asshole just didn't realize

how big of an asshole.

[MichMan]

7. So if my wages at $15 per hour gives me $320 per week in unemployment, I would be now getting $920 ?

That would be 50% more than I make working.

Please , please lay me off now and take your time calling me back. I think I might be sick cough, cough