Thread by @ashtonpittman

"Congress" isn't holding up aid.

The Senate GOP, led by Mitch McConnell, is:

a) Blocking stimulus checks > $600

b) Demanding limits on the Fed's ability to boost the economy under a Biden admin—a political ploy to help the GOP in 2022/2024 at the expense of jobs/livelihoods.

The media needs to be honest and specific about who is doing it. House Democrats passed a much stronger second stimulus bill in May that the GOP Senate refused to consider.

If the GOP keeps the Senate after Georgia runoffs, these tactics will consume the next 2-4 years.

Now! Some Americans may understand this and prefer this kind of partisan outcome where economic relief is stifled in order to help one party's electoral chances. Fine.

But the media ought to be clear about what the stakes are and who is doing what.

Because contrary to what many Georgians are hearing, the danger is not 2 years of a radical socialist president passing radical Marxist laws with comrades Warnock and Ossoff.

A 50-50 Dem Senate would mean 2 years of moderate governance, irritating lots of right & left wingers.

But if Mitch McConnell maintains control of the Senate, he will, as he did in the Obama years, weaponize the Senate to block economic relief and prolong suffering for millions, counting on Americans to blame Biden for it and elect more GOP senators in 2022 + a GOP prez in 2024.

Because politics under McConnell isn't about doing the best job for people with policies you favor ideologically. It's, first and foremost, about power. That's the sorry state of affairs in America right now.

In better times, the Senate would do its best to make life better for people (even if they disagreed about how) even if the majority party in the Senate was in a different party than the president.

But McConnell spent Obama's terms blocking economic recovery to hurt Obama.

McConnell blocked economic aid under Obama under the guise of concern for "the debt"—a concern that was not present during the Trump admin, as McConnell gleefully passed trillions in tax cuts (raising the debt) for temporary, artificial economic/stock market boost.

And of course, McConnell had absolutely no problem with Trump leveraging the Fed, even in absurd ways, and threatening the Fed chief into pumping up the economy using tactics designed for recession—not expansion—to artificially inflate it the economy/stock market. But now...? :)

Recall: House Democrats passed a third $3 trillion COVID-19 relief bill in October that included another round of $1,200 stimulus checks.

They came after they passed a second $3 trillion COVID-19 relief bill in May, also with $1,200 checks.

McConnell blocked both in the Senate.

Now, the Senate could have passed their own alternative bills during this time and then sought to reconcile the bills with the House. But the Senate has, instead, blocked the House bills and not even bothered to try passing their own.

What's more, after passing a $2 trillion COVID-19 relief bill in April (when Trump was freaking out over a falling stock market ahead of his re-election), the GOP is now demanding that any COVID-19 relief bill be kept under $1 trillion for the incoming Biden administration.

It's the same playbook as in 2009, when the GOP opposed the newly elected Obama's push for a large stimulus to combat the Great Recession, and then refused to even support his $787 billion stimulus package.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_…

Obama's stimulus passed with 0 GOP votes in the House and only three GOP votes in the Senate. The GOP blocked all stimulus and jobs efforts afterward, leading to a slow, middling recovery. It took all eight years for the economy to get back to a healthy place. Trump took credit.