US Congress

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Covid vaccines and $600 payments: key provisions in the US stimulus bill

      by

      Donald Trump signed the new Covid-19 stimulus package into law on Sunday night, suddenly giving into pressure from Congress after calling the legislation a “disgrace” days earlier.The $900bn emergency relief bill includes funds to help small businesses, health providers and schools, as well as individuals facing unemployment, eviction and food insecurity.Here is a look at a few of the key provisions in the more than 5,000-page package:Individual aidMost Americans can expect a $600 stimulus check from the government, half the amount distributed to individuals in the spring. The stimulus checks will be made available to adults with annual incomes up to $75,000, with smaller payments available to those who make more. There will also be $600 available per child. This round, families with mixed-immigration status will also qualify for the funds, after US citizens in such families were excluded from collecting the checks in the spring.Trump said he wanted to give Americans $2,000 stimulus checks, a move favored by Democrats. But Republican lawmakers are not expected to support it.Unemployment benefits will also include an extra $300 per week for at least 10 weeks. That is half the amount the government provided from March to August.Covid-19 vaccine and testingThere is $69bn included in the bill to aid Covid-19 vaccine distribution, contact tracing and testing. This includes $9bn to healthcare providers and $4.5bn to mental health services. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said last week that more than a million people in the US had received the first dose of the vaccine – 10 days after Covid-19 vaccine administration began in the country.Small business aidThe package extends the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which provided roughly $525bn in aid to more than five million businesses after it was enacted in the spring. Loans of up to $2m will be available to small, hard-hit businesses and $15bn of the funding is dedicated to live venues such as movie theaters and museums.PPP, which ended in August, was criticized for its complexity and loopholes and the $284bn extension attempts to address those issues. Congress members said they attempted to better target the funds after Black-owned businesses reported difficulties accessing the loans. Businesses have until 31 March to apply for the loans, but it is not clear when the application process will open.School fundingEducational institutions will get $82bn, with $54bn for public schools, which provide free education to children in kindergarten through high school. This is roughly four times more than what Congress provided to public schools in its spring economic relief package.State governments are facing budget deficits because of falling personal income tax and sales tax revenue, leaving public schools vulnerable. The promised funding still falls short of requests by public school groups, but president-elect Joe Biden has promised to direct more help to schools.The rest of the money will be directed to colleges and universities ($23bn), an education emergency relief fund ($4bn) and Native American schools ($1bn).Rental assistanceState and local governments will be able to distribute funds to people who may be facing eviction under a $25bn first-of-its-kind rental assistance program. The assistance can be used for rent, back rent, utilities and other related expenses.The bill also extends the federal eviction moratorium by a month. The moratorium is limited and has allowed evictions to continue in certain circumstances.Broadband infrastructureAt a time when millions of Americans are working from home, attending school and seeing their doctors online, Congress is providing $7bn to expand high-speed internet access. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) estimated that 21 million Americans lack high-speed internet access but other studies have estimated the number at close to 42 million.About half of the money will be used for a $50 per month broadband benefit to help cover internet bills for low-income families. Funds will also be used to help with broadband issues for communities near historically Black colleges and universities, the federal government’s telehealth program and rural broadband. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Millions lose benefits as Trump refuses to sign Covid relief package

      by

      Millions of Americans battling the financial hardships of the coronavirus pandemic lost their unemployment benefits on Sunday as Donald Trump continued to refuse to sign a relief package agreed in Congress and headed instead to the golf course.The president’s belligerence over the bipartisan Covid relief and spending bill, that would have extended the benefits and given direct cash payments to most American families, drew the ire of senior Republicans, who accused Trump of inflicting more misery on citizens.“He should have weighed in eight months ago,” Larry Hogan, the governor of Maryland, said on CNN’s State of the Union in response to Trump’s claim that he would only sign if the relief package included $2,000 in direct payments instead of the $600 agreed.“The paycheck protection plan ran out in July. Tomorrow, unemployment benefits run out. So sign the bill, get it done. And then, if the president wants to push for more, let’s get that done too.”In a later appearance on ABC’s This Week, Hogan asserted: “Millions of Americans are going to suffer.”Trump, who is spending the Christmas and New Year holiday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, raised objections to the $900bn relief bill only after it was passed by Congress last week, having been negotiated by his own treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin.The bill has lain unsigned on his desk since Christmas Day as the president, who was mostly silent through weeks of intense negotiations, spent the weekend at the Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach.In a tweet criticizing the bill, Trump claimed, without clarification, that it was stuffed with “billions of dollars in pork”.Meanwhile Joe Biden, who won November’s presidential election and who will be sworn in as Trump’s successor on 20 January, accused him of an “abdication of responsibility” in a statement on Saturday.Democrats in the House of Representatives will try again on Monday to break the impasse by voting to increase the amount of the direct payments, a move thwarted once already by House Republicans on Christmas Eve.“On Monday we will hold a recorded vote on our stand-alone bill to increase economic impact payments to $2,000,” Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House speaker, said in a statement after the first attempt failed.“To vote against this bill is to deny the financial hardship that families face and to deny them the relief they need.”As well as denying help to long suffering Americans, Trump’s refusal to sign the package also holds up a connected $1.4tn funding bill, which could result in a US government shutdown as early as Tuesday, in the midst of a deadly pandemic that has killed more than 332,000 in the US.Financial experts say the burden on American families will worsen. Lauren Bauer, a fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, has calculated that 11 million people will lose aid immediately from the expiration of two unemployment programs, and millions more will exhaust other unemployment benefits within weeks.Andrew Stettner, an unemployment insurance expert and senior fellow at the Century Foundation think tank, said the number may be closer to 14 million because joblessness has spiked since late November.“All these folks and their families will suffer if Trump doesn’t sign the damn bill,” Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, said in a tweet.About 9.5 million people have been relying on the pandemic unemployment assistance program that expired Sunday. That program made unemployment insurance available to freelancers, gig workers and others who were normally not eligible.Even if Trump relents, the expiration of the programs will cause delays in processing retrospective payments, adding to the financial burden for many.Hogan, on ABC’s This Week, predicted that more Republicans were willing to stand up to Trump over the relief bill, aware that the end of his administration and Biden’s inauguration was only 24 days away.“I think more and more are, and will,” he said. “It’s going to be a lot different after 20 January when he’s not in the position to exert such influence as he does now.”The relief bill wrangles come as the coronavirus pandemic continues to worsen in the US, with medical experts joining Biden in predicting that the darkest days lay ahead.“We very well might see a post-seasonal, in the sense of Christmas, New Year, surge,” Dr Anthony Fauci, the US head of infectious diseases, told CNN on Sunday.“When you’re dealing with a baseline of 200,000 new cases a day and about 2,000 deaths per day, with the hospitalizations over 120,000, we’re really at a very critical point. You see people at airports crowded in lines, trying to stay physically separated, but it’s so difficult to do that.“And that generally is followed, when people get to the destination they want to be, that you’re going to have mixing of household people at a dinner or at a social function. As much as we advise against it, nonetheless it happens.”Associated Press contributed to this report More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Donald Trump plays golf as Congress scrambles to salvage Covid relief bill

      by

      [embedded content]
      After tossing a grenade that threatens to blow up a massive Covid relief and government funding bill and force a government shutdown in the midst of a pandemic, Donald Trump was golfing on Christmas for a second straight day.
      Failure to agree on the bill could deny checks to millions of Americans on the brink.
      Trump had no events on his public schedule on the first day of his winter vacation on Thursday, but traveled to his Palm Beach golf club, where he was spotted by CNN cameras on the links.
      Reporters were given no details of his schedule for the day, but told that, “As the Holiday season approaches, President Trump will continue to work tirelessly for the American People. His schedule includes many meetings and calls.”
      Trump’s departure came as Washington was still reeling over his surprise, 11th-hour demand that an end-of-year spending bill that congressional leaders spent months negotiating give most Americans $2,000 Covid relief checks – far more than the $600 members of his own party had agreed to. The idea was swiftly rejected by House Republicans during a rare Christmas Eve session, leaving the proposal in limbo.
      The bipartisan compromise had been considered a done deal and had won sweeping approval in the House and Senate this week after the White House assured GOP leaders that Trump supported it. If Trump refuses to sign the deal, which is attached to a $1.4tn government funding bill, it will force a federal government shutdown, in addition to delaying aid checks and halting unemployment benefits and eviction protections in the midst of the most dire stretch of the pandemic.
      It was an apparent act of antagonism toward congressional Republicans from a president who has been raging over his 3 November loss to President-elect Joe Biden and trying to come up with new, increasingly outrageous schemes to try to overturn the results of a Democratic election. He has been egged on by allies like his lawyer, the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who accompanied the president to Florida onboard Air Force One.
      Trump’s ire has been focused, in part, on Republicans in Congress whom he believes have been insufficiently supportive of his quest to delegitimize Biden’s win by lobbing unfounded claims of mass voter fraud before Congress meets to tally the electoral college votes on 6 January.
      Meanwhile, the nation continues to reel as the coronavirus spreads, with record infections and hospitalizations and more than 327,000 now dead. And millions are facing the prospect of spending the holidays alone or struggling to make ends meet without adequate income, food or shelter thanks to the pandemic’s economic toll.
      Meanwhile, the Democratic House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, have been trying to salvage the year-end legislation to try to prevent a shutdown. Democrats will recall House lawmakers to Washington for a vote on Monday on Trump’s $2,000 proposal, though it would probably die in the GOP-controlled Senate. They are also considering a Monday vote on a stopgap measure to at least avert a federal shutdown and keep the government running until Biden is inaugurated on 20 January.
      In addition to the relief checks, the Covid bill that passed would establish a temporary $300-a-week supplemental jobless benefit, provide a new round of subsidies for hard-hit businesses, restaurants and theaters and money for schools, and provide money for healthcare providers and to help with Covid vaccine distribution. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump claims to be 'working tirelessly' but leaves Covid relief in disarray

      by

      Donald Trump went to his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida on Thursday, after claiming to be “working tirelessly for the American people” with a schedule that included “many meetings and calls”. Back in Washington, a Democratic proposal to increase direct payments to Americans under the Covid relief bill, from $600 to $2,000, was blocked.The increase was Trump’s own demand in a surprise video address on Tuesday night but it was shot down by Republicans who opposed greater spending throughout stimulus talks.Should the relief bill fail, millions of Americans will be without desperately needed relief at least until President-elect Joe Biden takes office in January. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats would try again on Monday. “To vote against this bill is to deny the financial hardship that families face,” she said, “and to deny them the relief they need.”The White House did not immediately confirm if Trump was playing golf. Either way, official guidance to reporters about his “tireless” schedule contrasted with recent examples notably light on commitments, which have left Trump free to make baseless claims of electoral fraud and meet with conspiracy theorists and cronies about attempts to subvert the constitution and stay in power.From Florida, on Wednesday night, the president issued the latest batch of pardons and acts of clemency for political allies.Before Trump intervened, the Covid relief bill was agreed at $900bn and tied to huge spending legislation to keep the government open until September next year. The relief package was set to be the second-biggest in US history, after the $2.3tn Cares Act at the beginning of the pandemic.“Just when you think you have seen it all,” Pelosi wrote to colleagues about Trump’s gambit. “The entire country knows that it is urgent for the president to sign this bill, both to provide the coronavirus relief and to keep government open.”Pelosi offered the president’s proposal for increased payments on Thursday under a procedure that allowed just one lawmaker to object and in a so-called pro forma session, with few lawmakers in attendance. It duly failed.Trump has not expressly threatened to veto the Covid package but on Wednesday he did veto the annual National Defense Authorization Act, worth $740bn, over objections to renaming military bases honouring Confederate leaders, to telecoms provisions and more.Congress has not failed to pass the defence bill in 60 years. The House will return on Monday and the Senate on Tuesday, to override Trump’s veto.The president’s extraordinary behaviour has presented his party with a painful political test, not least for Georgia senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, fighting to retain their seats in 5 January runoffs that will decide control of the Senate.Senior Republicans were mostly silent after Trump’s intervention on Covid relief, neither Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell nor Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, speaking publicly. On a conference call, House Republicans complained that Trump had thrown them under the bus, one told the Associated Press. Most had voted for the package and urged leaders to use the TV to explain its benefits, the person said.McCarthy sent a letter to colleagues suggesting Republicans would offer their own proposal, picking up on Trump’s complaints about foreign aid to “re-examine how our tax dollars are spent overseas”. Democrats took advantage of Republican disarray. Jon Ossoff, Perdue’s opponent, tweeted simply: “$2,000 checks now.”The relief package represents a hard-fought compromise, a 5,000-page bill that includes $1.4tn to fund government through September 2021. The relief bill would establish a temporary $300 per week supplemental jobless benefit, along with new subsidies for businesses, schools, healthcare providers and renters facing eviction.Even though treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin represented the White House in talks, Trump railed against provisions in the broader funding package, including foreign aid included each year, and called the bill a “disgrace”. He did not specifically vow to use his veto power, and there may be enough support in Congress to override him if he does. The Senate cleared the relief package by 92-6, the House by 359-53.The bill is expected to be sent for Trump’s signature on Thursday or Friday, a congressional aide told the AP. Trump could also allow it to expire with a “pocket veto” at the end of the year.The consequences of failure would be severe. It would mean no aid to struggling Americans and small businesses, and no additional resources to help with vaccine distribution in a pandemic in which nearly 19 million have been infected and almost 326,000 have died.Furthermore, because lawmakers linked pandemic relief to funding, the government would shut down on 29 December. A resolution could therefore be forced on Monday, when a stopgap funding bill expires. Democrats are reportedly considering another stopgap to keep government running until Biden is sworn in.Biden insisted to newspaper columnists on Wednesday that “there are enough Republicans prepared to meet him in the middle that he can get things done in an evenly divided Congress”. He applauded lawmakers and said the relief package “provides vital relief at a critical time”. He also said more would be needed.Arriving at Mar-a-Lago, Trump was greeted by hundreds of supporters. Few wore masks or socially distanced to mitigate Covid transmission as they waved flags and signs and chanted “Four more years!”One small boy had a sign that said “We’re going to miss you”. But there were a few Trump opponents too. One held a sign that said: “Go Away.” More

    • 163 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Environmental groups hail Covid relief bill – but more needs to be done

      by

      Joe Biden’s pledge to make the climate emergency a top priority of his administration from day one has received a major boost from the $900bn Covid-19 relief bill that cleared Congress this week and now awaits Donald Trump’s signature.
      The president has demanded changes but nonetheless the package has been hailed by environmental groups as an important move towards re-engaging the US with international efforts to tackle the climate crisis and move towards a clean energy future.
      “The bill contains some truly historic provisions that represent the most significant climate legislation passed by Congress in over a decade,” said Sam Ricketts, co-founder of Evergreen Action.
      The Sierra Club, an environmental group which operates in all 50 states, expressed a sigh of relief that Republican intransigence, led by the president and Mitch McConnell in the Senate, had finally been overcome. Kirin Kennedy, the group’s deputy legislative director, expressed confidence that the bill would contribute towards “addressing major sources of pollution, growing clean energy, and making progress across government agencies to advance climate action”.
      But she added that the Biden administration had a lot of work still to do to, in the president-elect’s phrase, “build back better”. Kennedy said that meant “investing in clean, renewable energy that can power communities, not saddling them with false solutions or pollution for decades to come”.
      Set against the time-critical nature of the climate crisis and the need for immediate action to curb pollution and switch to renewable energies, the relief bill falls short both in the scale and ambition of its commitments.
      “Is this enough to meet the urgency of the moment? The short answer is plainly no – the package is smaller than we’ve called for and certainly smaller than the science demands,” Ricketts said.
      But contained in the bill are a number of provisions that represent a clear advance in the US stance on the climate crisis, at the end of four years of Trump administration attacks on environmental protections.
      By the far the most significant of those advances is the commitment to phase out hydrofluorocarbons, HFCs, which are widely used as coolants in air conditioners, fridges and cars.
      Under the terms of the relief bill, most HFC use would end by 2035. The overall global impact of such a firm gesture by the US could lead to 0.5C of avoided warming this century.
      Ricketts said that the move was not only important in its own right in the climate fight, but it also made a statement that the US was prepared to work with world partners. That was all the more poignant coming just a month after Trump took the US formally out of the Paris climate agreement.
      “This is a timely way of showing that we can still play on the international stage and meet our commitments,” he said.
      Among other measures in the bill that have received praise from environmental groups are extensions to tax credits for renewable energy technologies. Offshore wind could enjoy a particular boost with the incentives lasting five years.
      “This is an industry that is just starting to drive down the runway for take-off in the US,” Ricketts said. “There’s an enormous potential, especially in the north east, and the five-year tax incentive is critical.”
      A further area of significant reform is the pot of $35bn provided for research and development in a range of innovations designed to confront the climate crisis. They include the creation of more efficient batteries, carbon capture, and advanced nuclear reactor technology.
      Katherine Egland, environment and climate justice chair for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People national board of directors, said that for African American and other low-income communities the relief bill would impact lives. She lives in Gulfport, Mississippi, on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, and this year has experienced firsthand the confluence of the coronavirus pandemic, the climate crisis and racial injustice.
      “We have been confronted by a syndemic in 2020,” she told the Guardian. “We have had to cope with the disproportionate impacts of Covid and climate, during an unprecedented storm season and a year rife with racial unrest.”
      Egland said congressional action was welcome “after four years of climate denial. It is a positive step in the right direction”.
      But she said that the country would need to do much more to meet the scale of the crisis: “There is no vaccine to inoculate us against climate change.” More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      New museums and Smokey Bear: what's in the $900bn US stimulus package?

      by

      Late on Monday night, Congress approved a $900bn stimulus package which will deliver financial aid to millions of families and businesses facing economic distress from coronavirus pandemic. Though far smaller than a bill lawmakers passed at the outset of the pandemic, earlier this year, the measure is one the largest pieces of legislation in US history.The product of frenzied negotiations, the package was paired with a $1.4tn spending bill to fund the federal government through the end of the fiscal year, 30 September 2021. In response to a deepening economic and public health crisis, the rescue bill authorizes direct payments of $600 to those who earn less than $75,000 and extends supplemental unemployment benefits to $300 for 11 weeks.Tucked into the hulking 5,593-page bill, however, are a range of initiatives and obscure provisions that appear to have little to do with fortifying a fragile economy or keeping the government open.New Smithsonian museumsThe legislation authorizes the establishment of two new museums in Washington: the American Women’s History Museum and the National Museum of the American Latino. Such approval, however, is only the first step in a years-long process to build the museums on the National Mall.Despite broad support for the museums, earlier this month Mike Lee, a Republican senator from Utah, blocked legislation that would have approved their establishment, arguing that the US doesn’t need “segregated, separate-but-equal museums for hyphenated identity groups”.According to the bill, the Latino museum will see visitors “learn about Latino contributions to life, art, history and culture in the United States” while serving “as a gateway for visitors to view other Latino exhibitions, collections, and programming” at institutions across the country. The women’s museum will “recognize diverse perspectives on women’s history and contributions”.Support for the Dalai LamaIn a shot across the bow at China, the bill reaffirms the right of the Tibetan people to reincarnate the Dalai Lama. China regards the exiled spiritual leader, who continues to advocate for a degree of Tibetan self-rule, as a threat to its sovereignty.The text of the legislation warns: “Interference by the Government of the People’s Republic of China or any other government in the process of recognizing a successor or reincarnation of the 14th Dalai Lama and any future Dalai Lamas would represent a clear abuse of the right to religious freedom of Tibetan Buddhists and the Tibetan people.” The legislation also directs the secretary of state to establish a US consulate in Tibet’s main city, Lhasa.According to Reuters, the political head of Tibetans in exile welcomed the news as a “victory for the Tibetan freedom struggle”. China accused the US of meddling.An end to ‘surprise medical billing’Lawmakers also included an end to this costly practice, which sees patients unexpectedly receive care from providers not covered by their insurers, thereby facing bills far higher than they would typically pay. As many as one in six emergency room visits or in-hospital stays resulted in at least one out-of-network bill in 2017, according to analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation.Consumers will be relieved to see the practice effectively banned under legislation which limits what patients can be billed for out-of-network services. Now, doctors and hospitals will have to work with insurers to settle on costs.Although members of both parties have long denounced the practice, efforts to ban it had been thwarted by lobbying from insurers and healthcare providers.The right to reproduce Smokey BearThe bill repeals a provision of federal law criminalizing unauthorized use of Smokey Bear and Woodsy Owl, famous mascots of a US Forest Service public safety campaign concerning wildfires and pollution. Previously, illegally reproducing images of Smokey Bear was punishable by up to six months in prison.Heath benefits for Marshall IslandersThe bill corrects a 25-year-old drafting error that denied thousands of islanders access to federal health benefits they were promised after resettling in the US.Lawmakers agreed to allow Marshall Islanders and other islanders covered by the Compact of Free Association to sign up for Medicaid, after a 1996 welfare reform changed the categories qualifying for federal aid and effectively barred them.Democrats led by members from Hawaii have fought for nearly two decades to restore Medicaid eligibility for islanders, without Republican support. They argued that the US broke its commitment to provide medical coverage to islanders who moved to the US after the military used their homeland to test nuclear bombs.“This is a ‘shining moment’ at a time of darkness for our country,” Hawaii senator Mazie Hirono said after the bill passed. “Let’s savor it.”Any other business?There were plenty of other surprises, including $2bn for the new US space force and a tax break for corporate meal expenses, panned as the “three-martini lunch” but a priority for Donald Trump. Senator Bernie Sanders, who pushed for bigger direct payments, called the inclusion of the provisions “pathetic”.Racehorse owners also received a tax break, while $35m was allotted for groups which “implement education in sexual risk avoidance”, which the legislation defines as “voluntarily refraining from non-marital sexual activity”.“This is why Congress needs time to actually read this package before voting on it,” New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter, responding to a report that the bill makes illegal streaming a felony.“Members of Congress have not read this bill. It’s over 5,000 pages, arrived at 2pm today, and we are told to expect a vote on it in two hours. This isn’t governance. It’s hostage-taking.” More

    • 200 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      'Congress is not going to be the Grinch': Covid relief bill set to pass on Sunday

      by

      “Congress is not going to be the Grinch,” a senior Democratic senator said on Sunday, as lawmakers stood poised to vote on a $900bn coronavirus aid package made possible by a late-night compromise on one of the final hurdles, a dispute over Federal Reserve pandemic lending authorities.The package will be tied to a funding bill to avert a government shutdown.Speaking to reporters the day after reaching the compromise with Senate Republicans, Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said: “Barring a major mishap, the Senate and House will be able to vote on final legislation as early as tonight.”Republican senator Mitt Romney told CNN’s State of the Union: “I believe there is going to be a deal. There are always sticking points, but the big one was resolved last night … They’re working out some additional points but I think it’s going to get done. It’ll get done before Christmas.”Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, referred to a popular Dr Seuss character who “stole” Christmas when he told ABC’s This Week: “The great news is, Congress is not going to be the Grinch. We’re going to get this package done.”The coronavirus aid deal includes $600 direct payments to individuals and a $300 per week unemployment compensation supplement. The second-largest economic stimulus in US history, following the $2.3tn Cares Act passed in March, it will be tied to a $1.4tn spending bill that funds government programs through September 2021.The House was due to meet at noon on Sunday in order to take up the bill.“I do have optimism that it’ll pass,” House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy told Fox Business. “I am very hopeful that we get this done today.”Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the chamber’s top Democrat, told reporters she wanted to give members some time to review the package before calling a vote.“I think we’re close, we’re very close,” Pelosi said. “But we want to have members have enough time to review it all.”Donald Trump, whose administration has largely left negotiations to congressional leaders, used Twitter to complain.“Why isn’t Congress giving our people a Stimulus Bill? [The pandemic] wasn’t their fault, it was the fault of China,” Trump wrote. “GET IT DONE, and give them more money in direct payments.”Senator Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, had insisted on language that would guarantee that the Fed could not revive emergency lending programs for small businesses and state and local governments after 31 December, when they expire under Cares Act relief legislation passed in March.Republicans said the programs represented unnecessary government interference and politicized the Fed. They accused Democrats of seeking to extend them as a way to provide unchecked funds for state and local governments controlled by their party. Democrats accused the Republicans of trying to limit President-elect Joe Biden’s options for boosting the economy after he takes office on 20 January.Toomey spokesman Steve Kelly said the senator’s agreement with Schumer “rescinds more than $429bn in unused Cares Act funds; definitively ends the Cares Act lending facilities by 31 December 2020; stops these facilities from being restarted; and forbids them from being duplicated without congressional approval.”A senior Democratic aide said Toomey had agreed to “drop the broad language in his proposal that would have prevented the Fed chair from establishing similar facilities in the future”.The Senate adjourned a rare Saturday session with a call from Republican leader Mitch McConnell to avoid last-minute disagreements.On Sunday, San Francisco Federal Reserve president Mary Daly told CBS’ Face the Nation the package would provide much-needed relief for the economy.“This support is unequivocally beneficial,” Daly said.In the 11 months since the first coronavirus cases were documented in the US, Covid-19 has killed around 316,000, by far the most in the world, and put millions out of work. Economists say growth will likely remain sluggish until vaccines are widely available in mid- or late 2021.On Sunday, Warner told ABC: “I was with Senator Schumer last night in his office until about 11pm. I was glad to see that Senator Toomey accepted Senator Schumer’s offer on a compromise … We did not think tying the hands of a future Fed or treasury made any sense.“…I’m very proud that in many ways this package only came about because a bipartisan group of senators spent a month working hard, showing the American people that we can actually do things when we have such an amazing need.“So folks who are going to run out of unemployment the day after Christmas, or potentially get kicked out of their apartment, or those long lines at the food banks: help is on the way.” More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Trump attempt to overturn election is 'nutty and loopy', Romney says

      by

      Donald Trump’s flirtation with declaring martial law in battleground states and appointing a conspiracy theorist as special counsel to help his attempt to overturn defeat by Joe Biden are “really sad” and “nutty and loopy”, Mitt Romney said on Sunday.“He’s leaving Washington with a whole series of conspiracy theories and things that are so nutty and loopy that people are shaking their head wondering what in the world has gotten into this man,” the Utah Republican senator said.Joe Biden won the 3 November election by 306-232 in the electoral college and by more than 7m ballots in the popular vote. Nonetheless, Trump is entertaining outlandish schemes to remain in office, egged on by allies like former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who Trump pardoned for lying to the FBI, and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney.During a Friday meeting at the White House first reported by the New York Times, Trump discussed security clearance for Sidney Powell, a conspiracy-spouting attorney who was cut from Trump’s campaign legal team.It is unclear if Trump will actually attempt to install Powell as a special counsel, a position which the US attorney general, not the president, appoints. Numerous Republicans, from outgoing attorney general William Barr to governors and state officials, have said repeatedly there is no evidence of the mass voter fraud Trump baselessly alleges.“It’s not going to happen,” Romney told CNN. “That’s going nowhere. And I understand the president is casting about trying to find some way to have a different result than the one that was delivered by the American people, but it’s really sad in a lot of respects and embarrassing.“Because the president could right now be writing the last chapter of this administration, with a victory lap with regards to the [Covid-19] vaccine. After all he pushed aggressively to get the vaccine developed and distributed, that’s happening on a quick timeframe. He could be going out and championing this extraordinary success.“Instead … this last chapter suggests what he is going to be known for.”Trump’s campaign and allies have filed around 50 lawsuits alleging voting fraud – almost all have been dismissed. Trump has lost before judges of both parties, including some he appointed, and some of the strongest rebukes have come from conservative Republicans. The supreme court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority and three Trump appointees, has refused to take up cases.Trump has been fuming and peppering allies for options. During the Friday meeting, Giuliani pushed Trump to seize voting machines. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) made clear that it had no authority to do so. It is unclear what such a move could accomplish.Barr told the Associated Press this month the Department of Justice and DHS had looked into claims voting machines “were programmed essentially to skew the election results … and so far, we haven’t seen anything to substantiate that”. Paper ballots have been used to verify results, including in Georgia, which performed two audits of its vote tally, confirming Biden’s victory.Flynn went yet further, suggesting Trump could impose martial law and use the military to re-run the election. Chief of staff Mark Meadows and White House counsel Pat Cipollone voiced objections, people familiar with the meeting told news outlets. Trump, who spent much of Saturday tweeting and retweeting electoral fraud claims, responded on Twitter.“Martial law = Fake News,” he wrote. “Just more knowingly bad reporting!”Trump’s grip on the Republican party remains secure, suggesting members in Congress will dutifully raise objections to the electoral college results on 6 January. Such objections will be for political ends and will not in all likelihood succeed in overturning the election. Democrats hold the House and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has indicated he will knock down objections in the Senate.On NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Romney, who did better at the polls in his 2012 defeat by Barack Obama than Trump did in 2016 and 2020, was asked if his party could ever escape Trump’s grip.“I believe the Republican party has changed pretty dramatically,” he said. “And by that, I mean that the people who consider themselves Republican and voted for President Trump I think is a different cohort than the cohort that voted for me.“…You look at those that are thinking about running in 2024, [they are] trying to see who can be the most like President Trump. And that suggests that the party doesn’t want to take a different direction.”Josh Hawley of Missouri, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Ted Cruz of Texas are among senators thought likely to run to succeed Trump in the White House, and therefore likely to object to the electoral college results.“I don’t think anyone who’s looking at running in 2024 has the kind of style and shtick that President Trump has,” Romney said. “He has a unique and capable politician … But I think the direction you’re seeing is one that he set out.“I’d like to see a different version of the Republican party. But my side is very small these days … I think we recognise that character actually does count.” More