Trump Holds America Hostage With Stalled Covid Relief

This is what the collapse of a federal effort to aid workers, states, cities and businesses battered by the Covid-19 pandemic sounds like, via a series of presidential tweets:

“Nancy Pelosi is asking for $2.4 Trillion Dollars to bailout poorly run, high crime, Democrat States, money that is in no way related to COVID-19. We made a very generous offer of $1.6 Trillion Dollars and, as usual, she is not negotiating in good faith. I am rejecting their request, and looking to the future of our Country. I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election when, immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business,” President Donald Trump allowed on Tuesday afternoon. “I have asked @senatemajldr Mitch McConnell not to delay, but to instead focus full time on approving my outstanding nominee to the United States Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett.”

Trump revisited his thesis later in the evening: “Crazy Nancy Pelosi and the Radical Left Democrats were just playing ‘games’ with the desperately needed Workers Stimulus Payments. They just wanted to take care of Democrat failed, high crime, Cities and States. They were never in it to help the workers, and they never will be!”

Ransom notes, while better written, sound an awful lot like that as well. And that’s a shame, because America’s economy and workers need a very big helping hand, right now — and shouldn’t be held hostage to political gridlock or personal whims. That much should be clear after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell all but pleaded with Congress earlier on Tuesday to promptly pass a robust relief package during a conference call with economists.

“Too little support would lead to a weak recovery, creating unnecessary hardship for households and businesses,” he said. “By contrast, the risks of overdoing it seem, for now, to be smaller. Even if policy actions ultimately prove to be greater than needed, they will not go to waste.”

Racial and wealth disparities in the U.S. economy will only continue to grow without a relief package, Powell said, an outcome he described as “tragic.”

Negotiations for a federal relief package shouldn’t have wound up in a dead end, especially in light of the struggles that average and low-income Americans are suffering through. The unemployment rate now stands at 7.9%, well below the historic highs of April, but still the highest it’s been in eight years. About 25 million people are still relying on jobless benefits to get by.

Perhaps most troubling, the job market is losing steam at a precipitous rate. After adding close to 5 million workers in June, the number of new, non-farm jobs has declined sharply ever since. The U.S. added just 661,000 new jobs last month, roughly 200,000 short of economists’ consensus estimate. That’s a problem not only for workers but for the broader U.S. economy because consumer spending accounts for about 70% of output. Obviously, workers can’t spend what they don’t make.

After much haggling, Democrats and Republicans have narrowed their differences over a relief bill, though they remain sizeable – particularly around how much federal aid should be delivered to workers, states and local governments.