On Thursday, The New York Times editorial board tore into Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for his inaction on a new round of coronavirus stimulus, which has ensured the $600 a week supplemental unemployment benefits will lapse on Friday and millions of Americans will teeter on the brink of financial ruin.
"Congress needs to extend the emergency aid programs that were created in March to help Americans endure a broad suspension of economic activity. Instead, even as the pandemic rages on, Congress is allowing those aid programs to expire," wrote the board. "[The] payments end this week, even as unemployment remains at a level last experienced during the Great Depression. The federal government also is ending a moratorium on evictions, as well as a program that provides aid to small businesses."
"The abject failure to act is not the fault of Congress in a collective sense," wrote the board. "House Democrats passed a serviceable aid bill more than two months ago. Responsibility for the current debacle rests specifically and squarely on the shoulders of the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, and the other 52 Senate Republicans."
"From the moment Congress passed the last big coronavirus aid bill, in March, it has been a matter of public record that the aid was going to end in August," continued the board. "For a time, there was reason to hope that the worst of the pandemic could be over by now, too. But it has been clear for weeks that the United States has failed to control the pandemic and that many Americans still would need economic aid beyond July. Yet Mr. McConnell and his caucus chose to spend the summer confirming federal judges rather than confronting the crisis."
And even now that the deadline is here, McConnell is holding his ground and demanding poison pills in the stimulus, like near-total lawsuit immunity for corporations that expose employees to coronavirus. Meanwhile, the board noted, "Mr. McConnell put forward a proposal on Monday that included billions of dollars for new F-35 jet fighters, but not a penny in aid for state and local governments."
"President Trump is not helping," concluded the board. "But Mr. Trump is not a member of the Senate. He does not have the power to prevent Senate Republicans from doing their jobs. That responsibility is theirs alone."
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