After All Leverage is Gone, Some Democrats Introduce Legislation for a Temporary Emergency UBI. While Others Fight to Bailout Corporate Lobbying Firms.
Since the start of the Coronavirus pandemic and the economic lockdowns that resulted from it, more than 33 million people have lost their jobs while the billionaire class has seen their wealth increase by more than $400 billion. This comes at a time when a staggering 78% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck according to an article in Forbes written in 2019.
Even though a majority of the American public is living paycheck to paycheck, politicians, who are supposed to be representatives of the people, have spent their time advocating for the interests of the corporations and wealthy individuals who fund their campaigns, rather than advocating for polices to help poor and working class Americans.
Instead of fighting for policies like Medicare for All, universal housing, universal basic income, or workplace protections for essential workers like hazard pay and paid sick-leave to help poor and working class Americans survive during a global pandemic, politicians on both sides of the isle fought for a $4 trillion bailout for Wall St, sending billions of dollars to prop up corporations that were already too big to fail. For example, the airline industry has received more than $50 billion in bailout money, and since just yesterday the eight richest people in the United States have seen their wealth increase by more than $6 billion.
In addition, Nancy Pelosi, along with 54 other House Democrats and 16 Republicans have recently introduced a bill to supposedly help local small businesses survive the coronavirus crisis, but if enacted the legislation would actually allow massive lobbying firms to gain access to government loans originally meant to support small business. This bipartisan group of lawmakers is calling for bailing out corporate lobbying firms rather than the American people in the middle of the greatest unemployment crisis in modern history. These lobbying firms that the bipartisan ruling class is attempting to bailout represent the same corporate interests who find their campaigns, and they are actively using their power to fight against progressive and leftist priorities like Medicare for All, universal housing, universal basic income, a Green New Deal, and workplace democracy.
Passing this legislation would allow the lobbying firm America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) to access billions in dollars of loans meant for small businesses in need of assistance. As their name probably leads you to believe, AHIP represents health insurance companies, according to their 2018 tax filings, they made $62 million and had just 158 employees, so they could technically qualify as a small business, thereby taking money away from actual local small business that need the money most. It would also allow DC’s top drug lobbying firm, the Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), to qualify for loans meant for small business. According to their 2018 tax flings, they made more than $450 million last year. There is no reason why multi-million dollar lobbying firms should be getting bailed out during the worst employment crisis in modern history while poor and working class American who need the assistance the most are left with temporary improvements to unemployment benefits, and a means-tested one-time-only $1,200 pittance check.
Our elected officials have passed several bills relating to fighting the coronavirus pandemic, but none of them have included anything beyond temporary improvements to unemployment benefits and the one-time $1,200 check, that many Americans still have yet to receive.
Progressive politicians like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could have used the crucial time at the start of this crisis to force the bipartisan establishment to concede with the demands of poor and working class Americans, but instead they chose to go along with the bipartisan consensus of bailing out corporations before bailing out the people. The original stimulus bill passed at the end of March was only opposed by one Republican representative, Thomas Massie.
By agreeing with the establishment on bailing out corporations before the people, progressive politicians like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez gave up their leverage before even attempting to fight for the policies that poor and working class Americans desperately needed. The ruling class was admit on corporate bailouts so its unlikely they could’ve been stopped, but progressives like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez should’ve at least fought to include progressive and leftist priorities like Medicare for All, universal basic income, workplace democracy, or even just basic protections for essential workers such as mandatory hazard pay and paid sick-leave in the original stimulus package. As soon as they passed the corporate bailout free from any bailout for the people, the leverage for a peoples bailout was lost.
It would seem as if Democrats have waited to advocate for policies to help poor and working class Americans until it was certain that their efforts would fail. On May 8th, over a month since the start of the pandemic Senators Bernie Sanders, Ed Markey and Kamala Harris introduced legislation that would provide monthly $2,000 payments to all Americans “…until three months after the Department of Health and Human Services declares the public health emergency to be over,”
According to Senator Bernie Sanders,
“The one-time $1,200 check that many Americans recently received is not nearly enough to pay the rent, put food on the table and make ends meet,”
He’s absolutely correct, he just should’ve been forcing the bipartisan establishment to comply with these demands when they were still itching to quickly push through the biggest corporate bailout in modern history.
This bill is late, and still doesn’t go far enough due to the fact that it does nothing to guarantee essential workers hazard pay or paid sick-leave, and it doesn’t do anything to protect people from being evicted from their homes in the middle of a global pandemic and greatest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression, but its a better solution than the White House’s alternative which is to just begin reopening the economy.
If the government is going to shut down large portions of the economy and demand that people self-quarantine in order to combat this pandemic, putting millions of Americans out of work in the process, then the government must guarantee that everyone receives the income and basic necessities like housing and healthcare they need to survive while they’re forced out of work. The government is failing to do this, and as a result anti-quarantine protests have begun to have an influence on re-opening the economy. Forbes has reported that 78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, so if the government wont act to makeup for their missed paychecks, what other option do poor and working class Americans have to survive?