Over the weekend, the Senate thought it had a deal in place, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) threw a wrench into the system.
Now, several days later, Senator Schumer is trying to save face by promoting himself as the savior of the legislation.
Saving Face
Without Pelosi and Schumer, this legislation could have been on Trump’s desk on Monday or Tuesday.
For days, bipartisan groups had been sitting down to negotiate a deal that both parties could live with.
The Senate thought it had something in place, but Pelosi flew in at the last second with the support of Schumer to throw a wrench into the entire piece of legislation.
Rather than a simple and dry piece of legislation, it was suddenly packed with ridiculous partisan clauses that would only serve the Democrat agenda.
Ironically, while media stories were blowing up all over the Internet that Dems wanted to pack the legislation with poison pills, Pelosi was the one that held a press conference to accuse Republicans of doing that very thing.
Democrats insisted the “slush fund” in the legislation to help major corporations had no strings attached, but that was not the case.
Now, with a new deal reportedly in place, Schumer is the one jumping in front of the cameras first to try to grab all the glory for something he was instrumental in delaying in the first place!
The New Deal
If early reports are true, when all is said and done, the stimulus package will have about $2 trillion in benefits for American workers and small businesses as well as an additional $4 trillion in federal reserve funding for loans for larger businesses.
Those loans will prohibit buybacks, pay raises, bonuses, and the like during a specified period.
The small business money is expected to help cover small business payroll and regular expenses and as long as the money is used for these specific purposes, that “loan” will be turned into a grant.
There are also supposed to be provisions for extended unemployment benefits and stimulus checks for tax-paying residents.
The language itself is not formalized, so it may still take a day or so before we can see the actual legislation.
In essence, the deal is everything that was in place before, with the only exception reportedly being an extra month added to the benefit time limit.
That, however, did not stop Schumer from trying to grab some headlines.
After Schumer spoke about the legislation finally meeting Democrat approval and calling it unemployment “on steroids,” Republicans responded harshly.
One Republican told Fox News, “Reading Chuck Schumer’s list, I half expected that the next thing I read would be the Minority Leader taking credit for inventing fire.
“The reality is that almost every significant ‘win’ he’s taking credit for, is actually a Senate Republican idea.”
While the legislation is expected to fly through the Senate, the House could still be a problem.
Rep. Justin Amash (I-MI), the disgruntled former Republican, may block the effort to block unanimous consent in the House (only one member is needed to make this happen).
If Amash votes no, the entire House may have to be called back to D.C. to vote on the legislation.