Bipratisan Senate Group Unveils $908 Billion COVID Relief Plan

While neither Republican nor Democratic leadership has signed on to the plan, a $908 billion bipartisan proposal from moderates has been unveiled this morning.

Under the proposed compromise being pitched, Bloomberg reports, small businesses would get a roughly $300 billion infusion for a version of the Paycheck Protection Program of forgivable loans and other aid, and state and local governments would get about $240 billion, including money for schools, according to three people familiar with the proposal.

Another $180 billion would go to an extension of pandemic unemployment benefits, providing an additional $300-a-week for four months.

Transportation including airlines, airports, transit and Amtrak would get $45 billion in funding, a person familiar with the plan said. Vaccines, testing and tracing would get $16 billion and health care providers $35 billion.

Source: @SarahDWire

The package would include a short-term moratorium on liability lawsuits related to Covid-19.

Backers of the new plan include Republican Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney and Bill Cassidy along with Democratic Senators Joe Manchin, Mark Warner, Jeanne Shaheen and independent Angus King.

Bear in mind that members of the bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus, which put forward a compromise during the fall that was rejected by Pelosi, also plan to endorse the new attempt.

The market's reaction perhaps says it all as it rallied on hope that Mnuchin and Pelosi were set to meet at 1pm, and then tumbled back as the "only" $908 billion package details were leaked...

It appears the market is demanding a lot more than around $1 trillion!

No. Your income is property. What government has done, among many other violations of inalienable rights, has deprived people of their property. When government does that in the USA, it’s a “taking” and must be justly compensated by law. Eminent domain applies to all forms of property:

If they don’t want to compensate they shouldn’t have taken away property. These lockdowns are unconstitutional for a few reasons but let’s not forget the 5th amendment, and yes, it does apply here as property was taken, supposedly for “public good.”

Yes. It is.

But income you didn’t earn yet when something happened to prevent it or will not earn because of circumstances beyond your control is not actually your property because of the implied “yet” in the equation. No one is in arrears to you or anyone else because earnings fall short of expectations.

And here is something else to consider: when the federal prints up money the value for it comes from the wealth people already hold ... if you balk (and rightfully so) at the federal acting lawlessly to shut down the economy why give them a pass when they rob savers for their “gifts”. It’s like with social security: just because someone was defrauded of their means to provide others with unlawful benefits beforehand does that give them the right to demand others be similarly defrauded so that they too may later receive their illegitimate benefits?

Moreover, there is no delegated power in the Constitution to spend money on individual welfare just because they are here (which is distinct from something because of current or previous service) or their lot was somehow affected by government actions no matter how desperate that person’s straights may be. Same with the welfare of communities or even whole states (why I oppose federal disaster welfare ... er, “relief”).

Sadly Mr No Repeal Eisenhower, who could have saved us from the looming ruin we now face, didn’t but rubber stamped FDR’s high handed lawlessness instead.

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