5 ms·

> Congress refusing to do anything. Senate. House has passed stimulus packages. IMO further delineation is deserved, but contentious, so I'll leave it at that.

nostromo 6y ago
Before the election the roles were reversed; it's not as black and white as you're letting on. https://www.newsweek.com/pelosi-says-she-backs-smaller-stimulus-because-biden-won-rejecting-higher-offer-was-not-mistake-1552451 https://www.newsweek.com/pelosi-says-she-backs-smaller-stimu...
- jacobolus 6y ago
  The House passed the HEROES Act in mid May. The GOP Senate sat on it (and did nothing else either) for the past 7 months. Oh, except for a hearing pushing hydroxychloroquine in November, months after multiple studies had shown it ineffective, and a hearing promoting an anti-vaxer just last week. And I guess a bunch of hearings a few months ago wherein various GOP senators heaped ignorant abuse on public health officials. If your favorite small business goes under, if your local hospital collapses, if your town goes bankrupt, etc., the institutional GOP and its donors are to blame. We can all keep our fingers crossed for Georgia Senate runoffs, and for some real leadership come January.
  - nostromo 6y ago
    This is false. The Senate introduced the similarly stupidly named HEALS act. It takes two to tango. It was politically driven: Democrats were afraid of giving Trump a win. Perhaps it was good politics, since it seems to have worked. From Newsweek: "Despite a refusal for roughly the past six months to advance a smaller aid package that she deemed 'half a loaf,' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now willing to support a bipartisan stimulus bill worth less than half her previous demand thanks to, in part, Joe Biden's victory.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > The Senate introduced the similarly stupidly named HEALS act. It takes two to tango. It didn't pass it, unlike the House and HEROES. The Senate could have acted on the passed House bill. The House had no bill from the Senate to take up, since the Senate bill died in (Republican-led) committee. The House is the only one on the dance floor. And Nancy Pelosi may have opposed the Republican position in negotiations, but Nancy Pelosi has no control on what the Senate passes.
      - nostromo 6y ago
        Passing a bill you know is dead on arrival is pointless. It's virtue signaling, which is what the house did. Suddenly, after the election, Pelosi is fine passing the same amount she opposed before the election as only half what was necessary. This isn't some right-wing talking point -- Bernie Sanders has sad as much. This was a political game. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fact-check-did-bernie-sanders-blame-democrats-for-stalling-covid-relief/ar-BB1bOL24 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fact-check-did-berni...
        jacobolus 6y ago
        If the GOP had been able to even get their own caucus to agree on a bill, they would have brought it to a vote. But they couldn’t. Putting even the milquetoast HEALS act up for a vote would have put some of their members in a conflicted spot trying to both appear to care about the crisis while still appeasing hard-liner donors/supporters. If the Senate had brought the HEROES Act as passed by the House to the floor, it might well have passed. But McConnell & friends didn’t want to see a relief bill passed, so they were satisfied to leave it off the agenda altogether.
        nostromo 6y ago
        If you think HEALS was milquetoast at $1.1T, you must be pretty upset that Pelosi has now agreed to pass a bill at $0.9T... after months of demanding no less than $3.0T. Gee, I wonder what happened in November for her to change her mind... I'll stop responding now; it's pretty clear a number of folks on HN think that only one party can play political games and this has gotten trite.

nostromo 6y ago

Before the election the roles were reversed; it's not as black and white as you're letting on. https://www.newsweek.com/pelosi-says-she-backs-smaller-stimulus-because-biden-won-rejecting-higher-offer-was-not-mistake-1552451 https://www.newsweek.com/pelosi-says-she-backs-smaller-stimu...

jacobolus 6y ago
The House passed the HEROES Act in mid May. The GOP Senate sat on it (and did nothing else either) for the past 7 months. Oh, except for a hearing pushing hydroxychloroquine in November, months after multiple studies had shown it ineffective, and a hearing promoting an anti-vaxer just last week. And I guess a bunch of hearings a few months ago wherein various GOP senators heaped ignorant abuse on public health officials. If your favorite small business goes under, if your local hospital collapses, if your town goes bankrupt, etc., the institutional GOP and its donors are to blame. We can all keep our fingers crossed for Georgia Senate runoffs, and for some real leadership come January.
- nostromo 6y ago
  This is false. The Senate introduced the similarly stupidly named HEALS act. It takes two to tango. It was politically driven: Democrats were afraid of giving Trump a win. Perhaps it was good politics, since it seems to have worked. From Newsweek: "Despite a refusal for roughly the past six months to advance a smaller aid package that she deemed 'half a loaf,' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now willing to support a bipartisan stimulus bill worth less than half her previous demand thanks to, in part, Joe Biden's victory.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > The Senate introduced the similarly stupidly named HEALS act. It takes two to tango. It didn't pass it, unlike the House and HEROES. The Senate could have acted on the passed House bill. The House had no bill from the Senate to take up, since the Senate bill died in (Republican-led) committee. The House is the only one on the dance floor. And Nancy Pelosi may have opposed the Republican position in negotiations, but Nancy Pelosi has no control on what the Senate passes.
    - nostromo 6y ago
      Passing a bill you know is dead on arrival is pointless. It's virtue signaling, which is what the house did. Suddenly, after the election, Pelosi is fine passing the same amount she opposed before the election as only half what was necessary. This isn't some right-wing talking point -- Bernie Sanders has sad as much. This was a political game. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fact-check-did-bernie-sanders-blame-democrats-for-stalling-covid-relief/ar-BB1bOL24 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fact-check-did-berni...
      - jacobolus 6y ago
        If the GOP had been able to even get their own caucus to agree on a bill, they would have brought it to a vote. But they couldn’t. Putting even the milquetoast HEALS act up for a vote would have put some of their members in a conflicted spot trying to both appear to care about the crisis while still appeasing hard-liner donors/supporters. If the Senate had brought the HEROES Act as passed by the House to the floor, it might well have passed. But McConnell & friends didn’t want to see a relief bill passed, so they were satisfied to leave it off the agenda altogether.
        nostromo 6y ago
        If you think HEALS was milquetoast at $1.1T, you must be pretty upset that Pelosi has now agreed to pass a bill at $0.9T... after months of demanding no less than $3.0T. Gee, I wonder what happened in November for her to change her mind... I'll stop responding now; it's pretty clear a number of folks on HN think that only one party can play political games and this has gotten trite.