Ever-Growing Millions of Americans Face Eviction and Hunger. Will Congress Act?

 

Sasha Abramsky  November 21, 2020 Truthout As a result of Congressional inaction, in the last weeks of 2020 and with the pandemic raging worse than ever, millions of Americans are staring into an economic abyss. People stand in line at a food distribution event ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday on November 20, 2020, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City., ANGELA WEISS / AFP via Getty Images   Back in May, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed the HEROES Act. It was aimed at delivering trillions of dollars of additional federal funds to support health care systems, unemployment benefits, housing assistance, nutritional programs, as well as money to keep cities and states, public transit systems, schools, and other vital infrastructure functioning. Since then, the House has passed several updated versions of the Act. And yet, with Trump and the Senate GOP hostile to federal programs that they misleadingly claim will benefit only “blue states and cities,” the HEROES Act has languished. Through the late spring and summer, the GOP apparently hoped the pandemic would simply vanish, and the tens of millions of unemployed people would all be able to return to work. Opposing expanded unemployment systems, senators such as Lindsey Graham argued that support-oriented measures would sabotage the labor market by providing people with disincentives to re-enter the workforce. Once it became clear that the pandemic wouldn’t simply vanish of its own accord, the GOP pivoted, and, embracing much smaller financial stimulus packages, reframed its opposition to the HEROES Act as fiscal responsibility in the face of a Democratic legislative effort to use the pandemic as an excuse to fund all of the party’s favorite programs. Thus, legislative stalemate.