After an unacceptable amount of delay by Democrats, Congress has finally hammered out a deal to pour more money into the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

The PPP ran out of funds last week, and Republicans immediately proposed a “clean” bill to simply shove more money into the program in order to keep small businesses afloat. Democrats started demanding that more things be included, and Nancy Pelosi was content to drag her heels and eat gourmet ice cream because what did it matter to her if the relief funds got held up? She’s got plenty of ice cream in that high-end deep freezer of hers!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7DKYML2MRs
Pelosi so had that right hook against her Botoxed chin coming. The tone deaf snottiness of the elites in this moment isn’t a surprise, but it is shocking that they can’t seem to hide their contempt for the lower classes at all.

Democrats wanted to load more goodies into the bill, and there was palpable disappointment that the caucus was giving up “leverage” in order to rush the money to the people who were, you know, BROKE.

On the interim coronavirus bill being negotiated now:
Rep. @PramilaJayapal says she has "real concerns about giving away leverage now without getting some of the priorities that we need."

Rep. @AOC: "If it matches up with what has been reported, I will not support this bill"

— Natalie Andrews (@nataliewsj) April 20, 2020

Seeing as AOC is constantly crowing about how we need all her “Green New Deal” crap because oil has bottomed out, God only knows what she and her Squaddies wanted to try to load into this PPP relief fund bill.

However, the bill looks to be relatively pork-free (no extra money for the Kennedy Center or Harvard in there), even though some extra non-PPP related things were tacked in so that there could be “bipartisan” agreement. Since nothing is ever bipartisan anymore, I will leave it to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to drop the mic on the Democrats.

I am encouraged that Democrats have finally agreed to reopen the Paycheck Protection Program and abandon a number of their unrelated demands. My full statement on Congress’s new bipartisan agreement to provide additional small-business support, more funding for testing, and more: pic.twitter.com/nDnhxbs9KB

— Leader McConnell (@senatemajldr) April 21, 2020

The last paragraph in McConnell’s letter really does sum up what kinds of partisan shenanigans have been at play.

“I welcome this bipartisan agreement and hope the Senate will quickly pass it once members have reviewed the final text. I am just sorry that it took my colleagues in Democratic leadership 12 days to accept the inevitable, and that they shut down emergency support for Main Street in a search for partisan ‘leverage’ that never materialized. The American people are counting on Congress to put aside reflexive partisanship and work across the aisle to help our nation through this pandemic.”

Raise your hand if you know someone with a small business who has gotten some kind of relief from the PPP in order to keep their workers employed. (I have my hand up.) And raise your hand if you know someone with a small business who is still waiting for that same relief because the PPP funding ran out. (My hand is still up.) This should not be a game where one side is seeking “leverage” for their future agenda to remake the American experiment, but it is being treated as such by too many politicians and powerful elites who don’t see the pain of the American working public from behind their gated mansions. President Trump has said that as soon as the PPP funding bill is passed, he will sign it, and then he is willing to talk about more relief funding. Why do I get the feeling that Democrats just want to pass unlimited amounts of pork-barrel spending so that they can stop going to work? If it is just too difficult for Democrats to agree to single-issue spending bills, one at a time, to make sure that the money gets where it needs to be immediately, perhaps they all need different jobs come November.

Featured image via Pixabay, cropped, Pixabay license