The Democrats are trying to include things like vote-by-mail, since this crisis is already affecting elections and will likely have an impact on the ability to conduct a fair election in November. They want better unemployment and healthcare to make us resilient against this exact situation. These are all good things, and the Democrats would be fools to waste an opportunity to do the right thing for the country.
This is not about the current state of politics. People are dying. Immediate measures to fix this need to be taken to save their lives. This is not the time for politicians to push their agenda, even they believe it makes the world a better place.
It makes sense to talk about all the things that you mentioned you liked after this emergency is over, so that we can be better prepared for next time. But right now, the bills should be hyper-focused on what to do now, to deal with the emergency that is happening now, so that we can resolve it now, so people don't die tomorrow.
(FWIW I agree with most of what was included. It's just not the time to discuss it)
not if they keep getting steamrolled by the opposite party when they insert their partisan clauses into an emergency bill
> if you have leverage, you use it
Again, people are dying. This is not the time to use leverage.
How have they gotten steamrolled? The Senate Dems won a ton of concessions, and the House Dems will win a bunch more. Getting steamrolled would be giving the Republicans everything they want just to get table scraps, which is what has happened in the past.
> Again, people are dying. This is not the time to use leverage.
People die every day. These "partisan clauses" will save more lives in the long run. Its silly to pass a bad bill to bail out the Cruise lines just to say we did something when we have the opportunity to help people. It's definitely not on the Democrats to reduce their demands on behalf of working people. The onus is on the Republicans to do right by the people of this country, fund the emergency measures we need in the short term, and pass the "partisan clauses" that will make sure people can survive and operate quasi-normally in the long term in case this isn't a quick fix.
If I worked at a company whose SRE leadership responds to crisis and failure the same way that our Congress does, I'd quit and find a company that is far more rational and disciplined.
> the Democrats would be fools to waste an opportunity
This is the problem with politics and something no one should endorse. Both parties are operating as if a crisis is an opportunity instead of a problem to be solved. Abusing a crisis to ramrod long-term policies changes is corruption in my book. Again, this is exactly how we ended up with the Patriot Act.
- 35MM for the JFK center in DC
- 300MM for migration and refugee assistance
- no voter id
- early voting
- emissions stuff regarding airline industry.
Any bill that is a response to a crisis should short and specific to the crisis at hand with no permanent changes to how business is conducted long term. Politicians taking advantage of a crisis is how we get disastrous policy like the Patriot Act, no-fly lists and FISA courts.
Any long term policy changes should be debated and decided upon months and years after the crisis has been averted.