WASHINGTON (AP) — An arcane battle over emergency Federal Reserve powers foiled efforts on Saturday to lock down an agreement on an almost $1 trillion COVID-19 economic relief package. Saturday’s deadlock was just the latest stumble in a partisan, months-long fight over pandemic relief and the lack of progress is backing lawmakers once again up against a government shutdown deadline Sunday night.
The entire purpose of the Fed is independence from politics. And compared to our current crop of political leaders, Jerome Powell is a beacon of sanity.
Well of course Powell and Flynn are feeding Trump crap and more crap. It must have been the most craptastic meeting ever in Trump’s term.
Somehow naming Powel as a special counsel to over see voting fraud while being named in a defamation suit from a company that manufactures voting machines just sounds so…trumpy.
Understand this: even so-called moderate Republicans do not bargain in good faith. This is an attempt to sabotage Biden’s administration but it is also an attempt to paint Democrats into a tight corner so they will have no choice but to accept Republican policies damaging Biden’s administration; i.e., the Fed will not be able to offset Republican fiscal Mal-legislation.
ETA: Paul Krugman summarizes why Toomey’s provision is flatly bad economics as well as fiscal sabotage at x.com
Sen Toomey is my rep. So sad to see him up to his usual antics. In every election in which he’s run I’ve been ‘suggesting’ (by voting) that he find a new line of work. It’s going to be a long two years until he exit. Truly sad.
The relief package is too small anyway. Dems. should not fall into the trap of voting for this now, thinking that they can guilt the Rebublicons into passing more later. Remember how they kneecapped Obama’s stimulus package. They will do the same to Biden. Dems. should stick to their guns and demand what the country needs, not what the 'cons will vote for. If Dems. lead, the voters will follow.
Attorney Sidney Katherine Powell should be disbarred for life. Michael Flynn, after his insane proposal for Trump to declare Marshal Law and reverse the election should be tried for sedition. He is a traitor. In fact, it seems that this whole bunch, including Trump, are absolutely treasonous.
Mitch McConnell is trying to kill the compromise bill that he has been forced to bring to the table because his two GA Senators are getting pounded for inaction on this matter by Ossoff and Warnock.
What Mitch is trying to do is kill the bill and blame the Dems for it and let Perdue/Loeffler blame Schumer, Pelosi and AOC to close that campaign. He needed a poison pill strong enough to ward Dems off the bill. That’s what this measure kneecapping Biden’s ability to work with the Fed is all about.
Mitch’s problem is that he doesn’t have 50 votes from within his caucus to support a relief bill because they’re all a bunch of heartless ghouls who want people to starve and die. Therefore, any bill aligns more to Dem priorities because he needs Dem votes. He can’t look like the GOP Senate Majority Leader who is GOP Lite giving in to Dem demands. He doesn’t want to hand Biden a high spending baseline to work with. At the same time, he has to find a way to show that his party is engaged on the matter and then blame the Dems for failure in order to protect Perdue/Loeffler. He’s tied himself into a pretzel like knot.
Dems are calling his bluff and I think this bill will likely fail for the moment. That is what I would prefer because I don’t want Dems to vote for a crappy bill and let Perdue/Loeffler claim a victory lap. I want Ossoff/Warnock to be able to stick with their messaging and put it in the hands of the voters of GA. If we lose those races, the same crap sandwich will be available. If we win those races, we can pass a bill that meets the demand and can get a number of things done so long as we can keep the caucus together and bring Kamala in to close.
