The CARES Act — Crumbs for Working People
$500 Billion Giveaway to Big Business
Congress recently passed a $2.2 trillion COVID-19 relief Bill called the CARES Act. While there are some very modest relief provisions in the package for working people negatively impacted by the coronavirus, it is overwhelmingly a big-business giveaway.
There were bold ideas originally proposed by a number of good Members of Congress, but these proposals didn’t make it in the final language.
Instead, we got a compromised, pro-corporate package with only a few limited and underwhelming concessions for the people most affected by the current pandemic.
Praise from Trump and his commitment to immediately sign the Bill is a Tell. It is a signal that the details of The CARES Act favors Trump’s rich, corporate and ruling class donors.
President Trump praised Senate leader Schumer as being a good partner in negotiations. No doubt, the Democratic leadership will celebrate their “success” and “brilliant defense.” Speaker Pelosi will be labeled a brilliant negotiator and tactician. That message will be embedded in narrative talking points on CNN, MSNBC, PBS and throughout their social media echo chamber.
Among The CARES Act’s key provisions:
This is a $500 billion giveaway to big business. The giveaway was celebrated on Wall Street and led to the best performing market in one day since 1933. Playing defense, the Democrats won some limited accountability on these corporate gifts by including oversight initiatives. Among those, it creates a Treasury Department special inspector general for pandemic recovery (later overturned by Trump in his signing statement) and a Pandemic Response Accountability Committee to oversee loans to businesses.
The CARES Act does have crumbs for working people
- Financial assistance to Americans with checks to households in the middle class and lower-income levels. This would amount to $1,200 to most American adults, among other payments.
- An extended unemployment insurance program for laid-off workers that will allow for four months of “full pay.” It will also raise the maximum unemployment insurance benefit by $600 per week. It will apply to traditional workers for small and large businesses as well as those who are self-employed and workers in the gig economy.
- More than $150 billion for the health care system, including funding for hospitals, research, treatment and the Strategic National Stockpile to raise supplies of ventilators, masks and other equipment. Of that, $100 billion will go to hospitals and the health system and $1 billion to the Indian Health Service.
- $150 billion to state and local governments to address spending shortages related to the coronavirus pandemic.
- $350 billion in the form of loans for small businesses impacted by the pandemic; some of those loans could be forgiven.
The small concessions reluctantly offered to working people is progress over the 100 % Wall Street giveaway in the 2008 economic relief package. BUT — Even these underwhelming and modest concessions were only possible because of the mass pressure put on Congress by organized labor, many liberal and progressive groups, radicalized groups like Democratic Socialists of America, the Poor People’s Campaign, the Sander’s and Biden Presidential campaigns and movements of millions of people advocating for prioritizing People before Profits.
This relief act contains far too little for most people and far too much for big-business, corporate donors and Wall Street.
But there are some positive results. When working people ask for Medicare for All, Universal Basic Income (UBI), investments in a green economy, free college education and other social democratic reforms, the response from establishment Democrats and Republicans is far too often, “How are you going to pay for it”?
After this multi-trillion dollar giveaway, the curtain has been pulled back and people can see there is plenty of money. The problem was never lack of funds, it was always “how can we profit from it.”
The CARES Act was negotiated behind closed doors, Congress approved one of the largest corporate giveaways in history without adequate time to read and analyze the legislative language, no Amendments were allowed, and the crocodile tears of the Tea Party Republicans for increasing the debt are long gone. The package won approval by an unusual quorum vote, so no member had to vote for, or against, any of its questionable provisions.
Now the good news — This is a potential radicalization moment, a socialist moment, an anti-monopoly and all-people’s front moment. As a result of the raw exposure of the ruling class, the balance of forces could tilt, with organized effort and mass movements, toward even more substantial pro-people solutions.
Now is the time to organize, be bold, be creative and challenge our political friends and organizations to meet the challenge.
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