Congress Officially Stumbles Into Stimulus Deal Despite Best Efforts To Fail
It took all weekend, but US lawmakers did manage to agree on a new stimulus package worth some $900 billion, just "slightly" less than the $3.4 trillion Democrats wanted as part of the original HEROES Act, passed more than seven months ago by the House.
The text of the bill wasn't finished on Sunday. Congress had to pass another stopgap funding measure, buying everyone another 24 hours to wrap things up.
A House vote on the stimulus bill was expected Monday. Barring another last minute gambit
There’s a lot riding on the Georgia Senate run-off election. (understatement of massive proportions).
Indeed.
It really is all or nothing… we really are at the point of no return where doing nothing should simply not be an option in the face of the nation continuing to be a going concern.
The “Dark Winter” chart says all we need to know about our collective path the next four months. We’re lucky if we peak out by inauguration date for our 46th president. Then three months back to trough back to only 1,000 COVID deaths per day.
This is happening in America.
A key takeaway from all of this is that we really did live in a period of peace and prosperity in the post WWII system. So irritating it is then that America pissed away its moment of great hegemony, the greatest ever seen, a hegemon with the most potential of all empires to date, as though it never even existed. We pissed away our position and turned ourselves into an embarrassing failure.
In my hope of hopes, let’s please keep our fingers crossed that Trump and Mnuchin do not contrive to undermine the USD position as the reserve currency.
There is a park a 10-minute walk away from where I live. Bunch of tents. Feces, surely, abounds. Garbage. These are people who used to have a domicile not long ago. They had jobs. Across the street, there is a pastry shop. Often, the line is about eight to 12 deep, all separated by the six-feet COVID rule. People walk out of there with their delights, one at a time, directly facing the poverty and hunger, and despair, in the park face on.
When I drive by the park and pastry shop, I have to keep my eyes on the road to avoid driving into a pothole and cracking a control arm on my front suspension.
We have become a country that wholly fails half its citizens. In such a short period of time, we have accepted despair as normal. And this is the richest country ever?
What we have is so precious. It took about 2,000 centuries for us to get where we are. It’s all so fragile. All the more remarkable it will be if we don’t lose it, if we are not in proverbial chains, again, living under government, who, next time, will not be so careless as to let the rabble rule again. After all, tyranny and authoritarianism is historically the most common form of government. Let us have the sense to not go back there.
Well said runamok; “we have accepted despair as normal”. You can now drive most anywhere in this country and get that feeling of despair you describe. It’s all too easy to harden yourself to it, otherwise it overwhelms. A country that HAD so much and can now do so little. A realistic leader would aim for a soft landing and forget visions of renewed greatness. Our dear Senate majority leader could use a Scrooge visitation moment, but from what I’ve seen that only happens in fiction. American democracy is a smoldering ruin where the external shell remains intact while the interior has been gutted. I’m old enough that the country’s fall from grace won’t mean much, but woe be to my children and grandchildren.
“ and no consensus was found on aid for state and local governments.”
More than any Democratic politician, Mitch McConnell is taking action to Defund the Police.