'It's a Mess'

By Yuval Rosenberg

‘It’s a Mess’: GOP Divided Over Its Own Coronavirus Bill

The coronavirus relief bill released by Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell (R-KY) yesterday received plenty of criticism
Tuesday — with much of it coming from fellow Republicans.

At a lunch with Trump administration officials, some GOP
senators
reportedly complained about the $1 trillion price
tag of the package, their lack of input in the bill’s writing
process and the puzzling inclusion of funds to build a new FBI
headquarters building across the street from the Trump
International Hotel in Washington.

Highlighting the lack of unity among Republicans, Sen. Lindsey
Graham (R-SC) said, "I think if Mitch can get half the conference
that’d be quite an accomplishment."

Saying he didn’t really know what was in the bill, John Kennedy
(R-LA) joked that Republicans "have unity in disagreement."

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said he was baffled by the proposal.
"It’s a mess," he said. "I can’t figure out what this bill is
about. I don’t know what we’re trying to accomplish with it."

Storming out of the meeting early, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)
criticized the bill’s cost. "It’s just very frustrating to me
because it’s people who go home and say we’re fiscally
conservative, [and] are now in a bidding contest with the Democrats
to see how much money they can spend," he said.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) seemed to share those concerns,
particularly the proposal to provide state and local governments
with more flexibility to spend federal funds. "I’m very concerned
about the amount of money we’re talking about," Scott said. "What I
don’t want to do is bail out the states. That’s wrong."

McConnell responds: The majority leader recognized the
party divisions Tuesday. "I have members who are all over the lot
on this," he said. "This is a complicated problem. We’ve done the
best we can to develop a consensus among the broadest number of
Republican senators — and that’s just the starting point, that’s
just where we begin in dealing with the other side and with the
administration."

McConnell added that he assumed the final bill would be more
focused. "When we get to the end of the process, I would hope all
of the non-Covid-related measures are out, no matter what bill they
were in at the start," he said.

The unrelated measures include the controversial funding request
for the FBI headquarters. On Tuesday, the Trump administration
admitted that the request had nothing to do with the pandemic.
"There are a number of things in the last bill that had nothing to
do with the coronavirus," said White House Chief of Staff Mark
Meadows. "I think everybody acknowledges that it’s a funding
mechanism."

Democrats no less critical: Democratic leaders said that
the Republican bill gave them little to work with. "The Senate GOP
proposal is a sad statement of their values, selling out struggling
families at the kitchen table to enrich the corporate interests at
the boardroom table," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate
Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) said in a statement.
Pelosi also said that she couldn’t understand why Republicans would
offer a bill that lacked support from within their own party.

Tough negotiations ahead: The discord in Washington
suggests that it could take a good deal of time and effort to reach
an agreement for the next coronavirus bill.

As bipartisan negotiations on the next coronavirus package get
underway, Politico’s Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer noted in their
Tuesday morning
Playbook that "the general consensus of aides in
both parties, on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, is that
Democrats have a healthy negotiating edge" given that a broad
portion of the Senate Republican caucus is going to oppose the
bill, making Democratic support all the more crucial.

Playbook laid out three scenarios for how the talks could go in
the near term:

1. A quick deal: "The two sides scramble to reach
agreement this week. That’s not going to be easy at all. One side
would have to cave."

2. A short-term patch: House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi has made clear she has no interest in a narrower, short-term
deal that would push off a more sweeping package. "A short-term
deal would require acrobatics," Sherman and Palmer write, "and that
kind of maneuvering may be hard to come by."

3. Enhanced unemployment benefits expire and the pressure
builds: "Frankly, it seems likelier than not that
Congress will be unable to do anything by Friday. If so, enhanced
unemployment benefits will run out, which will scramble all sorts
of considerations."

The House is scheduled to leave town at the end of this
week for an extended summer break. House Majority Leader Steny
Hoyer (D-MD) said lawmakers would be on call to return for a vote —
but that would require a bill being ready for them to vote
on.

Fight the Coronavirus With F-35s?

In addition to the roughly $1.8 billion the Republican proposal
seeks for a new FBI headquarters building, the bill includes more
than $7 billion for various weapons systems.

A partial list of military items in the bill, which, as Roll
Call
notes, appears to benefit the country’s two
largest defense contractors, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, the
most:

  • $1 billion for Boeing P-8 Poseidon maritime surveillance
    aircraft.
  • $283 million for Boeing Apache helicopters.
  • $650 million for A-10 Warthog attack jet refurbishment, a
    program run by Boeing.
  • $200 million for Boeing’s Ground-Based Midcourse Defense
    anti-missile system.
  • $686 million for Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth
    jets.
  • $720 million for Lockheed Martin C-130 Hercules transport
    planes.
  • $1.5 billion for four medical ships.
  • $375 million for upgrading Stryker infantry vehicles, a
    program run by General Dynamics.

A spokesperson for Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), chair of the
Appropriations Committee, defended the inclusion of weapons in the
bill. "The Defense Industrial Base (DIB) is essential to our
economy and to the defense of our nation," the spokesperson said.
"This bill takes steps to ensure that the DIB, along with the
millions of jobs it provides, are supported."

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), vice chair of the
Appropriations Committee, criticized the overall bill as
inadequate, adding that, "If all of this were not bad enough, the
bill contains billions of dollars for programs unrelated to the
coronavirus, including over $8 billion for what appears to be a
wish-list from the Department of Defense for manufacturing of
planes, ships, and other weapons systems."

Editorial of the Day: ‘This Is No Way to Design Coronavirus
Fiscal Policy’

The editorial board at Bloomberg takes Republicans to task for
their handling of the coronavirus relief package:

"Details of the next phase of coronavirus relief should’ve
been resolved long before now — because the main ideas shouldn’t be
controversial and time will be needed to implement them. Delay has
compounded the problem. Temporary fixes, meaning further argument
and holdup, will probably be needed to bridge the gap between the
current measures and whatever comes next.
"The blame for this object lesson in Washington dysfunction
lies squarely with the administration and its Republican allies.
They are only now presenting their
response to the Democratic plan that was passed by
the House in May. The Democrats’ plan is certainly capable of
improvement, but that’s no reason to leave so many households
unsure of where they stand or to burden the economy with further
needless uncertainty."

The editorial calls for federal unemployment insurance benefits
that would replace 80% to 90% of a worker’s prior earnings, higher
than the 70% the GOP proposed, and $400 weekly payments until
states can figure out how to implement the wage-replacement
program, in between the current $600 and the $200 Republicans have
suggested.

On the size of the overall package, Bloomberg's editors advocate
for a compromise between the GOP’s $1 trillion and Democrats’ more
than $3 trillion, with the spending tied to the state of the
pandemic and economy. "A balance has to be struck between the
extraordinary demands of the coronavirus emergency and the need, in
due course, to restore fiscal discipline," it says.


Read the full editorial here.

Fiscal Flashes

Yale study challenges GOP claims that jobless benefits
discourage work: A new Yale University study finds no evidence
that the $600 in enhanced unemployment insurance benefits
discourages people from working. "We find that the workers who
experienced larger increases in UI generosity did not experience
larger declines in employment when the benefits expansion went into
effect," the
study says. "Additionally, we find that workers
facing larger expansions in UI benefits have returned to their
previous jobs over time at similar rates as others. We find no
evidence that more generous benefits disincentivized work either at
the onset of the expansion or as firms looked to return to business
over time." (Bloomberg
Businessweek)

Coronavirus recession leads to Medicaid enrollment
increase: Enrollment in Medicaid and the Children’s Health
Insurance Program rose to 72.3 million in April, up from 71.5
million the month before and 71 million in February, the Centers
for Medicare & Medicaid Services said last week. That rise reverse
a three-year decline, with the increase in March the first since
March 2017. "Yet, the growth in participation in the state-federal
health insurance program for low-income people was less than many
analysts predicted," Phil Galewitz writes. "One possible factor
tempering enrollment: People with concerns about catching the
coronavirus avoided seeking care and figured they didn’t need the
coverage." Experts expect enrollment to continue climbing this
summer, with Robin Rudowitz of the Kaiser Family Foundation noting
that there is typically a lag of weeks or months before people who
have lost their health coverage look to enroll in Medicaid.
(Kaiser
Health News)

Democrats reject Medicare for All amendment to platform:
Democratic delegates on Monday overwhelmingly opposed an amendment
to the party’s
platform supporting Medicare for All, fending off
efforts by allies of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to have the party
endorse a single-payer system. The platform committee also rejected
other attempts to move the official Democratic position closer to
single-payer, such as an expansion of Medicare to children and
people over age 55. The committee-approved platform to be voted on
by delegates instead supports a public insurance option. Unlike in
2016, though, it also says the party welcomes those who want
Medicare for All. More than 600 of the party’s nearly 4,000
delegates have signed onto a
pledge to vote against the platform if it doesn’t
support Medicare for All. (Wall
Street Journal)

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