Coronavirus spreads. But don't panic! (topical thread)

[Alan V]

This is an interesting Paul Krugman opinion piece, which I can recommend reading in full:

The New York Times

If you want a quick summary of the state of play over fiscal stimulus legislation, here it is: Republicans insist that we should fight a plague with trickle-down economics and crony capitalism. Democrats, for some reason, don’t agree, and think we should focus on directly helping Americans in need.

And if legislation is stalled, as it appears to be as I write this (although things change fast when we’re on Covid time), it’s because Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, is holding needy Americans hostage in an attempt to blackmail Democrats into giving Donald Trump a $500 billion slush fund.

The Democratic offer has 150 billion dollar corporate slush fund.  Yeah, it's less than the 500 billion, but BOTH sides are tying corporate welfare to their bills, and then accusing the other side of holding the regular workers hostage. A number of Republican lawmakers are actually pushing higher direct payments to American workers.  

Both sides are failing us, massively, because both sides are beholden to their corporate masters.  Yes, Mitch McConnal is the very worst of the worst, but the idea that the Democrat leadership only think we should focus on helping Americans in need is absolutely false.

This black/white, good/evil narrative is so very harmful, and allows them to keep up this BS facade while not helping working Americans.

This information was linked to the article:

ABC News Politics on Twitter

NEW: Speaker Nancy Pelosi introduces Democratic coronavirus relief bill as negotiations stall in Senate: “We require that any corporation that takes taxpayer dollars must protect their workers’ wages and benefits — not CEO pay, stock buybacks or layoffs.”

Yes, circumstances are always more complicated than any black-and-white narrative would have it, including your own.