Making Sausage

No one else was in the room where it happened
The room where it happened, the room where it happened
No one really knows how the game is played
The art of the trade, how the sausage gets made
We just assume that it happens, but no one else is in the room where it happens 

• The Room Where It Happens – Hamilton the Musical (of course)

At the Table

So Steve Mnuchin, Chuck Schumer, Mark Meadows and Nancy Pelosi walk into a bar.  If that sounds like a bad joke, you’re right, but that’s the “team” negotiating the most recent COVID recovery bill.  Of course, the joke’s on them:  we can’t recover from the COVID pandemic until we actually get control of it, something that doesn’t look likely to happen until a new administration takes the reins in January.  But anyway, those four are trying.

If it sounds like there’s a missing cog in the not so well oiled machine of Congressional compromise, you’re right.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell isn’t “in the room where it’s happening”.  And don’t assume that the Secretary of the Treasury and the White House Chief of Staff are speaking for him.  They are negotiating for the President.  McConnell has been neutered, cut off from a place at the table by his own divided Republican Senate membership.  Twenty of the GOP caucus have backed away from the Leader and the President, and demand that, “Too much money has been spent, and we need to stop”.

A Weakened President

What they are really saying is:  Trump’s in re-election trouble, and when he’s gone we will need to go back to our traditional conservative constituency and donors, and tell them something good.  So we are going to say that we stood against excessive spending and prevented the unemployed from getting more money for not working.  They need to get out and support the economy, so we tried to force them out.  

Of course unemployment is still somewhere north of eleven percent.  Over sixteen million Americans are collecting unemployment benefits.  And it’s not like there are a lot of jobs out there. The jobs folks used to have in restaurants, tourist industry, and lots of other industries aren’t available.  But for those twenty Senators, standing against “excessive” spending is more important than helping Americans through the COVID crisis.  And they no longer see helping President Trump as helping themselves.  

Can’t Lead

So Leader McConnell can’t lead the Senate Republicans in negotiations, when more than a third of his caucus is against everything on the table.  In fact, if the President, Schumer and Pelosi agree, McConnell may have to bring a bill to the floor for debate where the Democrats get the bill passed with minimal Republican help.  It will take all forty-seven Democrats and at least thirteen Republicans to get to the magic sixty-vote margin. 

And, if McConnell was completely candid, I think he would be more in line with the twenty holdouts then the President or the rest of the negotiators.  But he too is faced with a political crisis:  her name is Amy McGrath, the Democratic candidate for the Senate against McConnell back in Kentucky.  He currently holds a comfortable polling lead, 53% to 36% for McGrath, but for the first time in years, his campaign is being matched dollar for dollar.  And McConnell has absolutely hitched his wagon to Donald Trump.  His personal “favorability” rating is less than thirty percent.  Should the Trump Campaign continue to “go south” McConnell’s own fate will get shakier as well.

So McConnell cannot break with the President.  In fact, he will have to bring the Senate in line with the President’s view.  Traditionally Republican leaders won’t bring bills to the floor of the Senate without having a Republican majority to pass them.  It’s not the same as the discredited “Hastert Rule” in the House of Representatives, but it is a way to maintain control of the legislative process.  But with a rump caucus of twenty sitting in opposition, it will require the full cooperation of Minority Leader Schumer and the Democrats to get the President’s bidding done.

On the Table

So what’s on the table for negotiation?  For the unemployed, it’s additional benefits.  Most states pay fifty percent of previous earned wages as unemployment, since the first COVID bill, the Federal government has added $600/week to that amount.  But that ended last Friday.  Also, the government suspended mortgage foreclosures and rent evictions since April.  That too has ended, and millions of Americans are faced with a future “on the streets” as the thirty-day eviction processes begin.  

And there’s the “rebate” of tax money, similar to the $1200 checks sent out to Americans in May.  This time dependents over sixteen are included.  And the PPP, forgivable loans to businesses, would be extended.  There’s also a liability protection clause added to protect businesses from customers or employees that get COVID while working, shopping, or eating there.

Then there are the “extraneous” items that seem like they don’t really belong.  There’s a couple billion dollars for a new FBI building. And there’s additional funding for the F-35 multi-role fighter project.  

The House of Representatives have already put their cards on the table as well, with the Heroes Act.  While there is some agreement on many of the above items, the Democrats have also included mail-in balloting throughout the country, a non-starter for many in the Senate.

Making Sausage

It’s election time, and the United States is in the middle of a pandemic.  Almost five million Americans are diagnosed with COVID, and close to 160,000 have died.  Unemployment is high, schools are questioning whether they can open, and “normal” life is completely disrupted.  Trying to help the voters would seem to be a no-brainer for all members of the House, the Senate, and the President himself.

In a “normal” political world, the “sausage” would get made.  Both sides would get some of what they want, and lose some of the things the wished they had.  There would be a law, helping most people, and making both Republicans and Democrats look like they cared.  Most are running for re-election, you’d think that would be motivation enough.

Three Republican Senators are not running for re-election, Mike Enzi of Wyoming, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, and Pat Roberts of Kansas.  Eleven more Republicans are not up for re-election is 2020.  For the retiring Senators, they are looking forward to earning money by influencing others.  Alexander discussed this when he explained his impeachment vote.  He wanted to be able to “hang out” with his friends.  That lobbying requires that they be in “good stead” with the clients, most of whom are traditional conservatives.  And for the eleven looking at running again in 2022 or 2024, they are protecting their standing in the post-Trump era.

On Principle

So politically it might be more “astute” for them to stand on “principle” and try to block COVID aid.  Their future careers are more important than the current plight of the nation.  So there may not be a COVID aid bill passed in the next few weeks.  And if it doesn’t happen by September, it may well get lost in the political turmoil of the election campaigns.

Too bad for the unemployed, who won’t be able to stay in their apartments or their homes. And really too bad for America, bereft of real leadership in its moment of crisis.