What will it take for Congress to pass on more COVID relief?

Jim Newell: On Friday, talks between Democratic negotiators and Republican negotiators over an important coronavirus bill crashed after two weeks of essentially no progress. Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, wanted to spend $ 3 trillion north on a wide range of programs and Republicans were only willing to spend $ 1 trillion on a narrower range. On one of the biggest sticking points alone – support for state and local governments – the sides were hundreds of billions of dollars apart. Democrats offered to meet Republicans in the middle, but Republicans decided instead to move forward with some minor executive actions by the president, which he will release on Saturday.

That, Jordan. What, uh, now? Is this the end of it?

Jordan Weissmann: I mean, I think we’re a very pale place right now. Donald Trump has released these executive orders, which he said members of his country club would take care of ‘this whole situation’. ‘Of course that’s not true. No one who even tunes in to the frequency of the earth thinks that these things will do much good for the economy, like families trying to figure out how to rent hair. Even if it’s legal, and states can actually fix it, the early unemployment expansion he co-sponsored with MacGyvered alone only has enough to last about five weeks. But Trump thinks he is resolving the recession. And as someone I was talking to on the Hill pointed out, that means we probably won’t get an actual bill until someone in the administration breaks it to Trump that, in fact, those orders he signed Jack squat and we face a need.

Which, given the White House staff’s reputation for cold, sober analysis and telling the truth to the president, in turn could mean we’ll be fucked until the market crashes.

Jim: Yes, the executive actions look less with each red. On the UI extension there are the impossible logistics to run it – we are still waiting for guidance from the feds on how this will work itself – and then there is the question of whether states will accept it , because it corresponds to a 25 percent from states that are all completely broken. The evictionist is very awkward about further studying the idea. And what company would stop withholding tax if they did not have much certainty that Congress would eventually deviate from what is due at the end of the year? I think the EO of Trump got Republicans out of a tricky negotiating position and, temporarily, is politics for them. But if (when) these actions prove that they do not work, some conversation will have to be resumed. I do not know how long that process will take to play out.

Jordan: Right. And in the meantime, there are actually now zero negotiations.

Jim: Yes. The House is out until mid-September. The Senate is in session this week, but they have no votes and there are probably like four senators in the city.

Jordan: I mean, I think people in Washington are starting to take the possibility seriously that there really is no other account, which is an outcome so bad that I actually can not wrap my mind around it. (There’s a therapy term for that, right?)

Jim: I think next month we’ll get a sense of whether there’s another bill coming, because we’re seeing how the distribution of debt plays out in the public. Democrats are negotiating rather aggressively because they feel comfortable about politics – that Republicans, who are trying to protect both the presidency and a majority in the House of Representatives, should bow to them. Which leads me to another hot burning question in the Discourse: Have Democrats exaggerated their hand? Even if they were comfortable with the no-deal policy (and we’ll see how that turns out), they really need help for their states.

Jordan: Before I answer this question: I think that despite what happened, unless Pelosi got Republicans to cave in and accept a trillion-dollar deal of $ 3.4, people would be guessing their strategy second. Normally, the left hand on their case comes in too easy to surrender. But I literally learned about the announcement of Trump’s executive order from a left-wing Twitter journalist about how she was outfoxed. Which was silly, considering that everything Trump is really doing is letting some people procrastinate right now. BUT EVERYONE… no, I do not think Pelosi exaggerated her hand.

At the end of talks, she and Schumer offer to go down $ 1 trillion if the GOP went up $ 1 trillion. And Mnuchin and Meadows said no dice. And the reality is that a $ 1 billion billion, as what Republicans are asking for, is not enough at all, given what we are facing right now. It just would not be worth accepting.

So Democrats were for once firm and refused to be the “responsible.” I think that was the right decision. But I do not know. Yes?

Jim: I agree! I just asked to test if you have gone soft.

Jordan: LOL. No. This madman is radicalizing me.

Although I realize I’m saying this from an intense privilege place where I personally do not stand with expulsion, so I envy the Democrats who actually have to do this negotiation. Do you think Pelosi and Schumer had any idea that the GOP would take his ball and go home?

Jim: Pelosi and Schumer’s levy came from 1) Republicans were so divided, meaning McConnell and the White House would need most Democratic votes to move everything; and 2) Republicans who need a bill to protect the presidency and the majority of the Senate. I’m not sure she expected the White House to take an executive action path that would temper her levy in the latter category. But, if these executive actions do not meaningfully reduce public suffering, then Republicans will be back to having a bill.

Jordan: But what if … what if they just decide they do not need it? I do not know, maybe I’m just too deep in this point in conspiracy theories about the Postal Service.

But what if Mitch McConnell just decides that the election will be terrible, no matter what, and literally the only hope the party has is to get people to vote anyway?

In what case, preventing a deal, and making sure Democrats can do nothing about what happens to vote by mail, for which they want funding in the legislature, actually serve their purposes? I know I’m three steps from tinfoil hat territory here, but [gestures broadly at everything].

(Also, this I realize a little underscores my position that Democrats needed to take a firm negotiation. I’m now a storm of conflicting emotions.)

Jim: I think here’s an appropriately large image question: How crazy do Republicans think Trump is? I feel like I heard a much bolder statement against spending from people like Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Rick Scott when I went to the House last month, and I’ll get big 2024 vibes. They want to clean their hands for next year when Republicans are out of power and it’s time to talk about how the party has lost its way. But Trump has not given up his re-election, and McConnell has said he will put any agreement reached by the White House with Democrats on the floor.

I just think that if you see that Trump’s numbers have reached new lows in a month, because there has been no significant action, there will be action.

Jordan: That either Trump’s polls will drop, or stock prices will start to fall – assuming investors don’t have prices in the possibility of no deal. (Which I do not think they have. Because files continue to shoot like everything is dandy.)

Jim: Judging by today, does it seem that the markets are still pricing in a deal that is being reached? Is this correct? Not a “big deal” here.

Jordan: I’m not a big stinker either. But yes, it seems that Wall Street is still right in assuming that Washington will pull something together before everything falls so horribly that big companies actually feel the shocks.

I had this one grim back and forth with a Hill aide, where they were actually worried that stocks would only fall softly, like a few hundred points at a time in a month or two, because if the Dow does not lose like a gajillion points on a day that Congress does not notice it.

Jim: It is true, the one catalyzing economic metric in Congress is the Dow which has lost a 1,000-point loss, because it means that they have personally lost a noticeable amount of money that day.

Jordan: I mean, the one other saving grace here – though I do not hate to mention it – is that small businesses are fucked too. Large corporations received a permanent bailout through the Fed, but many small and medium-sized businesses have tapped into a new round of PPPs as a successor program. Without it, they are a lot of problems, and that can put a bit of pressure on the GOP to act.

But, again, Trump thinks he’s solved everything, and Mark Meadows will certainly not tell him otherwise.

Jim: That goes back to the issue of Republicans needing a bill through conventional political considerations … but may also decide that they do not need a bill.

I think this comes down to both sides crawling next month and going to the position of the other, producing a deal, like a muddy image and the usual talking points for debt game that carry us through the elections . Also the stones.

Jordan: Stones.