Senate prepares big giveaway to big business

The trillion-dollar coronavirus bailout package drawn up by Senate Republicans is a giveaway to big business that does little to avert the coming economic depression.

The main features are:

• Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin gets to dole out $500 billion to corporations without revealing who got what for six months.
• Businesses are not required to keep workers on their payrolls.
• There are no meaningful oversight provisions to prevent waste, fraud and abuse.

Democrats won a minor concession—to extend unemployment benefits for four months instead of just three.  This is trivial.  So are the relief checks being mailed out—$3,000 checks for a family of four.

Now it’s true that essential businesses can’t be allowed to fail because of a crisis not of their own making.  I criticize Walmart’s business practices, but a lot of people depend on Walmart for the necessities of life.

 It’s not possible to shut down economic activity on a large scale and not risk another economic crash.

On the other hand, Walmart shouldn’t be allowed to use government handouts to crush and buy up individually-owned businesses that compete with us.

I admit I don’t have a complete idea of what to do.  One possibility is for the federal government to fund unemployment insurance and apply it to the self-employed and gig workers as well as workers already in the system.  Another would be to provide Medicare benefits to coronavirus patients—better still, Medicare for all.

If you’re an American, I recommend you follow the Naked Capitalism blog’s headline service to keep in touch with breaking developments.

Later.  The giveaway bill was stopped—for now.  Of course Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is accusing the Democrats of indifference to Americans’ economic plight.

LINKS

Stop the Coronavirus Corporate Coup by Matt Stoller for BIG.

Bailout Shenanigans: Making 2008 Look Good? by Yves Smith for Naked Capitalism.

Protect People, Not Financial Ledgers by Ian Welsh.

How Democrats Can Fix Their COVID Response by Brian Beutler for Crooked Media.

At Least Five U.S. Senators, Briefed on Coronavirus, Sold Stocks Before Market Crash by Democracy Now!

Sauce for the goose: the 41-vote rule

I strongly criticized the 41-vote rule in the Senate when the Republican minority used it to block legislation and appointments proposed by President Obama.

Now Democrats are using the same rule to prevent the Republican majority from disapproving the Iran nuclear inspection deal negotiated by President Obama and other world leaders with the Iranian government.

I am glad of the result, but I still think it is a bad rule.

The rule allows Senators to use a kind of virtual filibuster to block Senate action, which can be over-ridden only by a vote of 60 Senators.  It is not part of the Constitution.  It is not a law.  It is a rule of the Senate itself.

The United States already has more checks and balances than any other contemporary democracy.  Laws, appropriations and taxes require approval of a House of Representatives elected by popular vote, a Senate elected on the basis of state sovereignty and a President elected by a hybrid system through the Electoral College.

Even then, the Supreme Court, which is appointed not elected, can overrule decisions by the President and Congress.

I don’t think the United States needs more checks and balances than are provided for in the Constitution.

The political scene: November 3, 2014

It is better to vote for what you want and not get it,

than vote for what you don’t want and get it.

==Eugene V. Debs

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Nothing Left: The long, slow surrender of American liberals by Adolph Reed for Harper’s.

We are all right-wingers now: How Fox News, ineffective liberals, corporate Dems and GOP money captured everything, an interview of Adolph Reed by Thomas Frank for Salon.  Highly recommended.  (Hat tip to Steve Badrich)

Political scientist Adolph Reed expounded in his essay and in Thomas Frank’s interview on the learned helplessness of liberals, and their willingness to settle for the lesser evil.

Voting in itself will not change things, he said, and neither will protest demonstrations or blogging (ouch!).  Only a sustained political workers’ movement, not beholden to either political party, can bring about necessary social change.

Obama Is a Republican by Bruce Bartlett for The American Conservative.

Bruce Bartlett wrote that Barack Obama is guided by the philosophy of Richard M. Nixon, not Saul Alinsky.  In time, conservatives will come to appreciate that Obama was one of them, he said, just as they have come to appreciate Bill Clinton.

There’s One Thing at Stake in the Senate Race by Jonathan Chait for New York magazine.

If Republicans gain control of the U.S. Senate, they will block President Obama’s nominations of federal judges and government administrators.  With all of the faults of the Democrats cited by Adolph Reed, they at least allow the government to function.

Nothing in Moderation by Thomas B. Edsall for the New York Times.

A recent study indicates that voters are more extreme in their views than politicians.  The reason this doesn’t necessarily show up on public opinion surveys is that many individuals are at the extreme “left” of the imaginary political spectrum on some issues, and the extreme “right” on other issues.   It doesn’t mean they’re inconsistent.  It means the left|right and red|blue divisions are arbitrary.

Righteous rage, impotent fury: Thomas Frank returns to Kansas to hunt the last days of Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts for Slate.

Governor Sam Brownback and Senator Pat Roberts have failed to do anything to benefit ordinary Kansans.  Will waging the culture war be enough to keep them in office one more time?  We’ll see.

US midterm elections – The Guardian briefing.