The Problems with the Democrats’ New Proposal

I have some reservations about some of the proposals put forward by Senate Republicans. But at the very least, most of the proposals are meant to address the current crisis. The Democrats, on the other hand, seem intent on using this opportunity to push everything they ever wanted into a 1,119-page bill. To make it work, they added the words “to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus” here and there, hoping no one would notice.

The Committee for a Responsible Budget has a list of three items from the Senate-proposed bill that have little bearing on the current crisis, in addition to this House proposed list of unrelated items:

A House-proposed draft circulated today includes the following measures that would do little to address or mitigate the crisis:

• Reduce student loan debt by $10,000 per borrower
• Permanently expand Affordable Care Act (ACA) premium subsidies
• Forgive all the U.S. Postal Service’s debt
• Make the Child Tax Credit (CTC) fully refundable for the next 6 years
• Increase the size of the CTC by $1,600 for children under age 6
• Bail out multi employer pension plans that were failing prior to the crisis
• Temporarily expand dependent care tax breaks

Then there is all the stuff that is related to the crisis but is being used as an excuse to deliver on the Democrats’ various agendas:

• Require Conditions of Financial Assistance to Large Corporations. This provision would require corporations that receive any federal assistance to: 1) restrict executive bonuses and compensation; 2) ban golden parachutes; 3) ban stock buybacks; 4) ban payment of dividends; 5) pay a minimum wage of $15 per hour; 6) maintain same workforce levels and benefits; 7) ban alterations of collective bargaining.
• Provide grants, disbursed by the FAA, for the development of sustainable aviation fuels and provide more funding to the FAA for research and development of sustainable aviation fuels.
• Create a “cash for clunkers” program whereby the DOT is authorized to purchase inefficient airplanes that the airlines are retiring in exchange for airlines’ commitment to purchasing newer fuel-efficient airplanes.
• Continue investing in climate-change mitigation during this crisis by expanding FAA’s Voluntary Airport Low Emissions (VALE) program — which airports use to purchase low emission vehicles, refueling and recharging stations, and other airport air quality improvements — to all commercial airports during this national emergency, and not just airports in environmentally sensitive areas.
• Direct airlines receiving aid to offset their carbon emissions and reduce their overall emissions by 50 percent by 2050.

Even if you support the fight against climate change, this hardly seems the time to prioritize it.

Also, notice that, contrary to their claim, Democrats have no objections to bailing out companies, and they seem perfectly happy to approve what many Democrats have repeatedly called the “Mnuchin‘s slush fund,” as long as companies receiving help from the government do what they want them to do. If they didn’t, they could have rejected a bailout of industries and proposed a worker-protection package or subsidies to workers instead, UK-style or Ed Glaeser-style. But they didn’t. Instead, we got the House bill: a gigantic bill laden with unrelated items, Democrats’ favorite pet ideas, and many bad policies.