The emerging COVID deal negotiated by party leaders includes the extra $300 in unemployment agreed to by the "908 coalition" huffpost.com/entry/coronavi… w/ @taragolshan
That figure is far less than the extra $600 that had been added in the springtime, but still more than the federal government has ever added to benefits before 2020.
Not clear if other aspects of the previously negotiated deal will be included. It called for reauthorizing federal programs for another four months and providing an extra 16 weeks of eligibility.
According to a source familiar they reduced the unemployment extension from 4 months to 3 in order to pay for the checks.
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Ron Wyden, ranking Dem on Senate Finance Committee, is mad about cutting unemployment benefits to pay for checks.
“There’s no reason whatsoever to pay for relief checks by cutting the incomes of jobless workers."
Wyden: "We obviously wouldn’t set an arbitrary date to cut off access to the vaccine while COVID is still raging, so why does Mitch McConnell get to sabotage the economic recovery by cutting support for working people and setting arbitrary expirations?”
Totally true that this whole enterprise is operating under imaginary spending constraints that Republicans insist on only when they feel like it
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Senior Dem aide says the last big holdup right now is still Republicans wanting to restrict the Federal Reserve's emergency lending powers created by the CARES Act
Dem leaders haven’t signaled they’ll take the bipartisan COVID deal without state aid. Dunno what’s gonna happen.
McConnell has suggested he would, but not actually said so, because in his public remarks he pretends the bipartisan group isn’t happening & refers to his own bills
He also still says there’s gonna be an epidemic of lawsuits like he’s been promising since spring and there still isn’t one
McConnell’s liability proposal would require plaintiffs to prove the defendant willfully exposed them to illness and list all their contacts the 14 days before symptom onset before a trial could start m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5f…
Companies could sue people for sending letters interpreted as legal threats over coronavirus exposure and US attorneys could prosecute them
Public Citizen's @ragregg says it would squelch suits like the one against Tyson Foods.
“The procedural hurdles would make it nearly impossible to bring a lawsuit and the substantive changes to the law would create an almost insurmountable difficulties in proving their case."
The White House is reviewing a possible major change to the way Social Security evaluates whether someone is disabled reginfo.gov/public/do/eAge…
I got an outline of this proposal earlier this year. Even if your disabilities made it impossible to work 40 hours per week, you could be denied benefits if you could sit at a desk part time huffpost.com/entry/trump-di…
The proposed regulation is still early in the process and there is no way they could finalize it before Biden takes office