President Donald Trump said on Monday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and her allies in Congress are standing in the way of a GOP coronavirus relief bill in order to secure money to bail out Democrat-run cities and states, according to Breitbart.
“What the Democrats want, they’re slow-rolling it and all they’re really interested in is bailout money to bail out radical left governors and radical left mayors,” Trump said. “We’re really not interested in that.”
Trump and other Republicans are opposed to sending money to cities in which local authorities have stood by and allowed rioters to damage and destroy businesses and buildings, and they also don’t want federal funds used to pay off existing debts incurred as the result of decades of Democrat mismanagement.
“They’re not interested”
“They’re not interested in the people. They’re not interested in unemployment. They’re not interested in evictions,” Trump said of the Democrats’ refusal to work out a deal and get something passed, Breitbart reported.
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows pointed out that Democrats have put “zero offers” on the table and are basically refusing to work with Republicans to send additional help to Americans still dealing with the effects of the coronavirus and related shutdowns.
A federal expansion of unemployment compensation that helped bridge the gap between state benefits and total lost wages expired last week, and while Republicans are opposed to paying people more to remain unemployed than they would receive by returning to the workforce, they have expressed a willingness to reach a bargain that won’t disincentivize work but will still provide temporary assistance to those in need, as The Hill noted.
A number of competing plans are currently circulating in the Senate, as The Hill reported separately, but without support in the Democrat-controlled House, they have no chance of passage.
Executive actions possible
In the absence of movement on the part of Democrats, President Trump is has said he considering executive action to help those whocontinue to struggle from the economic effects of the pandemic, according to The Hill.
The orders reportedly under consideration include an extention of a moratorium on evictions and a suspension on payroll tax collection, The Hill also noted.
While the prospect has been discussed at different points during the pandemic, the president’s authority to halt the collection of payroll taxes has continued to be the subject of considerable debate.
Conservative economists Stephen Moore and Phil Kerpen have argued that Trump would be well within his power to declare an economic emergency, defer collection of the taxes, and ultimately sign legislation forgiving repayment of the postponed amounts.
While it appears that Democrats have no problem holding the economic well-being of American families hostage to their narrow, partisan agenda, President Trump is clearly unwilling to let that happen.
No comments: