Pelosi and Schumer delay Paycheck Protection expansion into next week, demanding unrelated spending
The program is out of money, SBA not accepting new applications. Even former Obama SBA chief is fed up: “What I’m saying is: Number one, get the money replenished.”
The Payroll Protection Program is out of money. The SBA has stopped taking applications. Hundreds of thousands of applications that already have been submitted cannot be funded.
Tens of millions of people are out of work without the backstop of businesses getting help retaining staff. And it’s all because Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have taken the nation hostage in order to extort $250 billion in unrelated additional spending.
We covered the history in our post yesterday, Paycheck Protection Program out of money as Nancy Pelosi still demands additional unrelated spending:
A week ago, when it was clear that the $350 billion Payroll Protection Program to help business retain workers would not be sufficient given the demand, Republicans propose a clean unanimous consent authorization to add another $250 billion to the program.
That proposal, however, required unanimous consent, which Democrats in the Senate — working in coordination with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — refused unless Republicans agreed to an additional $250 billion (bringing the total to $500 billion) of spending unrelated to the Payroll Protection Program. This was the same type of hostage taking Democrats did to delay the original $2 trillion rescue package.
Nance Pelosi thanked Senate Democrats for blocking the Senate funding vote.
Yesterday, Tuesday night, April 14, when it was clear the PPP would run out of money on Wednesday, Pelosi repeated that Democrats would not agree to clean funding unless they got some or all of the additional unrelated spending. Pelosi then went on the Late Late Show to show off her very expensive kitchen and massive refrigerator/freezers packed with expensive ice cream.
The carnage from the government-required shutdown of the private sector is real. A Bloomberg reporter summed up what she’s hearing.
“I’m having a tough night. Hearing from small business owners who didn’t get PPP and who aren’t going to make it, it’s just brutal.”
https://twitter.com/meganmurp/status/1250896115093966853
There will be no expansion of funding until next week, as Democrats continue to try to squeeze additional spending as a precondition to expanding the PPP:
The Senate adjourned on Thursday without a deal, meaning the impasse will last until at least Monday, when the chamber is next expected to convene for another pro forma session.
The breakdown comes as Democrats are pushing for the replenishment of the PPP to include additional funding for state and local hospitals and measures that ensure loans make it to women- and minority-owned businesses.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) told MSNBC on Friday morning that party leaders had “constructive talks” with the Trump administration and would continue to negotiate through the weekend. Vice President Pence had a call with Senate Democrats scheduled for Friday afternoon.
“I don’t see a reason that we can’t come to an agreement soon,” Schumer said.
There have been some Democrat Senators who have broken ranks.
The PPP program is going to run out of funding soon – the Senate should approve add’l funding by unanimous consent ASAP. Small businesses need our help to survive during this emergency. https://t.co/kYTbjGHCXM
— Kyrsten Sinema (@kyrstensinema) April 16, 2020
Even Obama’s SBA chief is calling for clean funding:
Karen G. Mills, who led the Small Business Administration during President Barack Obama’s first term, has a message for top Capitol Hill Democrats: Refill the so-called Paycheck Protection Program’s coffers now and ask questions later….
“Congress has to act as soon as possible,” Mills told CQ Roll Call in an interview Thursday, adding that she’s spoken recently with Democratic senators and Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office. “What I’m saying is: Number one, get the money replenished.” …
“Complexity is not our friend here,” she said. “Things that have to be implemented quickly can’t have a lot of bells and whistles, or else there will be too many unintended consequences — one of which is delay. And we don’t have time to delay.”
Pelosi can barely explain why she is doing this to small businesses for which a delay of a week could be the difference between surviving and closing forever.
Nancy Pelosi struggles, near speechless when asked to “explain to those small businesses” why she is blocking more funding for the #PaycheckProtectionProgramhttps://t.co/J74yjVtp1G pic.twitter.com/BBUsm6q2m7
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 16, 2020
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The application we submitted for my firm is in limbo. Thank you Nancy and Chuck!
Nancy Pelosi Asked To Explain To Small Business Owners Why Dems Are Blocking Emergency Funding
This is the moment she loses the House.
Steve Guest
✔
@SteveGuest
Nancy Pelosi struggles, near speechless when asked to “explain to those small businesses” why she is blocking more funding for the #PaycheckProtectionProgram
https://www.weaselzippers.us/447242-nancy-pelosi-asked-to-explain-to-small-business-owners-why-dems-are-blocking-emergency-funding/
So good you should listen to it twice, or more.
That’s how we learn………
The people have no bread.
Marie-Antoinette: Let them eat cake.
The people have no jobs.
Nancy Pelosi: Let them eat ice cream.
Lucky, if I may make a small edit:
The people have no bread.
Marie-Antoinette: Let them eat cake.
The people have no jobs.
Nancy Pelosi: Let ME eat ice cream.
…..in front of $100,000 of Made in China product?????????
Some tweeted she was in front of 3 frigs and $30,000 cost. It was not clear if all 3 cost $30,000 or if each one cost $30,000.
With the Million$ she’s taken I can easily believe it is $30,000 FOR each one.
Nah, its three refrigerators at $10,000 per unit for a total cost of $30,000. Disgusting amount of money to spend on refrigerators but I suspect that Pelosi has more money than brains and really doesn’t know how much she’s spent on them.
Democrats being Democrats. They value the working person only on Election Day.
If I were Nancy and Chuck, I’d be worried. NY and California are the states most likely to begin “The Terror.”
Actually, it’s fascinating to watch these two greedy careerists coming out in the open and proving that they don’t give a damn about the suffering of the American People. Moreover, they are clearly showing that they are willing to sacrifice peoples lives to further their careers and agendas. Not sure what has led to this suicidal outbreak of candor but it will enlighten many.
The political leaders at the local level won’t let them get challenged in the primaries. Their seats are safe and they know it and can and will do whatever they want and do so with zero consequences.
Just look at how many said they were going to challenge Nancy for speaker yet nearly everyone of them backed out, looking directly at the Tim Ryan’s of the world.
They think Trump is so unpopular that any action (or inaction) in opposition to him is a winning strategy. They may be right.
ONLY WITH THEIR INSANE REMENT LEFT.
And that is a tiny tiny tiny bit…………
They hate Trump, Americans, and America. They are determined to crush the peasants’ revolt at any cost.
Under such circumstances, “constructive dialogue” must proceed differently than it would between people with shared goals.
It remains to be seen if President Trump is up to the task, and if he’s up to it, if he has the power to do it.
It’s in God’s hands!
November cannot come soon enough. Punish the dems.
This is the hill Pelosi/Schumer & Co. must die on. The answer is NO! Now die.
No reason other than extortion and greed to withhold funding of a clean, bi-partisan bill.
I don’t see how the media can cover for this and maintain any modicum or sham of honesty.
They have no honesty or integrity. At all.
They do these things because they know they can get away with them. No one is ever going to hold them to account.
Clean bill or no deal.
The only real workaround which they can’t sabotage is to drop this mandatory quarrantine stuff more or less immediately. Even that won’t end the problem, as many consumers will stay home anyway for a while.
The Don don’t forget
https://www.chicksonright.com/blog/2020/04/17/trump-deliciously-snubs-romney-lone-gop-senator-not-invited-to-join-new-task-force-2/
I’ll say it, a-holes.
That is all you can expect from asses!
American Gothic to Un-American A-holes.
Government welfare is government welfare and we should oppose welfare in most forms. The best solution would be to re-open the economy now, there are no good reasons why we do not. I do love the fight though, this is making Dems look awful.
Also, I don’t quite get the point of this program. This pays businesses money so they can pay staff to sit around and do nothing? Businesses still functioning has no need for this. This makes no sense to me.
There’s a ‘shelf’ to re-opening a company. You have to contact employees, cover for the ones who will not be returning, contact customers to get your product flowing again, deal with brand new issues, back taxes, a thousand things and each one of them will require money. Much like starting a new business, on a smaller scale, with much the same fear of failure.
And this one government program will help with all of that? Interesting.
I have a feeling that restarting this economy won’t be anywhere near as easy as it was to shut it down. It isn’t like flipping some switch to ‘turn it on’. Our economy is vast and complex and is entirely inter-dependent and sensitive to any small disruption.
Many businesses are NOT open. Restaurants, movie theatres, you name it.
My business is open, but a significant portion of my clients are frightened this virus will kill them, because they are older and have underlying medical conditions, so they no longer want to meet. Gov. Kemp of Georgia issued an exec. order that we could do “virtual” signatures for wills and such, but I believe that will be too easy to challenge, so I won’t do that.
The idea is, if your customers are buying, this keeps you afloat, with money for staff, rent, other overhead, so you and your staff can eat and pay the electric bill, until your customers can return.
Believe me, it makes a lot of sense. I don’t agree with the quarantine of healthy younger people, but if you’re going to put people in a bind, this makes sense.
*If your customers aren’t buying
“Many businesses are NOT open.” That’s a ‘non-functioning business’.
A “non-functioning business” is one that will be evaluated as a startup when it is allowed to re-open again. Very many will not re-open. With roughly half the workers in the country employed by such businesses, I think the long term effects of Covid will be huge. If only a small 10% of small business workers permanently lose their jobs, that is 5% (50% x 10%) added to the previous 3.5% floor unemployment rate = 8.5% new floor. I really think we will not see under 10% unemployment until a successful therapy or vaccine is widely available.
Lol don’t look for a ‘vaccine’, this thing mutates too fast. We have yet to come up with a vaccine for a cold, let alone AIDS.
The ‘therapy’ is that hydroxychloroquine. Doesn’t bother me at all that Democrats think HCL is some crazy Trump conspiracy, let them keep thinking that. Never-Trumpers will age and die out from the Kung Flu, the new AIDS of our time.
All the while, I’ll be sipping my Gin and Tonics, and popping zinc supplements, and grinning the entire time.
Washington always plays the blame game….It’s never my fault for anything…..
All members of Congress should forgo their salaries for 2020…Heck if they did with just the House it would raise 75M, that’s a lot of small business there. Not sure what senators make
Let me make sure I understand this. Nancy Pelosi holds up financial assistance to American small businesses that would help them pay their employees in order to demand unrelated spending for her pet projects, right?
Isn’t that essentially what they (falsely) accused POTUS of doing with Ukraine and impeached him for?
“You give me what I want and I’ll make sure you get the assistance you want.”
Quid Pro Quo?
Bingo. She impeached Trump for what she’s doing.
Projection, thy name is New School Democrat.
Even with the complicit “reporting” of the MSM, it’s hard to see how the Democrats aren’t going to be hurt by this stance. Also, I foresee at least one ad by the RNC featuring Pelosi’s ice cream and refrigerators and some (former) small business owners come October.
I agree, because people who run businesses that need this money, and those that work for them, are paying very close attention to this.
We know for certain the business person won’t be the owner of Jeni’s. Pelosi will keep that business open all by herself, with maybe some help from her visiting grandkids.
The whole reason they do these things is that they know they can get away with them. No one is ever going to hold them to account.
‘Tens of millions of people are out of work without the backstop of businesses getting help retaining staff.’
Where will the staff go? If an industry is shut down, it’s shut down everywhere.
We’re gonna have to explore areas of economics that havn’t been explored in the history of the world… unless we re-open everything, right now, which minimizes the damages, though it may already be too late.
We’re well past a recession and very, very deeply into a Second Great Depression now. Do you know how to raise a crop and preserve it over the winter?
I predict that Pelosi and Schumer will get everything they want.
…….until they don’t…….
I hope not, what they should get is an old fashioned tar and feathering, with hot tar. maybe both should also get a mouth full.
It is incredible how many people they are harming, and their crass disregard for that.
Where do people think the money from these bailouts come from? It comes out of the economy, either now or in the future. The simplest solution for the problems faced by businesses and their employees is to open the economy back up, without restrictions.
Second easiest solution is to give everyone a tax holiday.
Except, no income, no tax.
Governors should’ve thought of that before they shut our economy down. That was the original mistake. Now, they’re desperate for that tax revenue, so the race to ‘re-open’ everything.
They thought about that. Why do you think that liquor stores and weed shops remained open? Besides the fact that their products number the user and can make his more tractable, they produce a tremendous amount of tax revenue.
Now, a tax holiday simply will not work, if you are spending public money. As I said, public money comes from the populace. If you are giving public money to the populace, because they have no money, then there is no way to replenish the supply of that money, except from the populace, which has no money. And, no matter what segment of the population you tax, everyone ends up paying it one way or another.
Neither of them has worked a day in their life, let alone run a business or provided employment and valuable services or products to anyone.
They have idea what it’s like to have a 10,000 per month rent obligation, HEALTH insurance for employees, $40,000 per month in payroll and pre-shutdown monthly revenue of $140 – $160K, now cut down to $5K in business.
The only thing Pelosi produces is contempt, debt and government oppression. Am 80 year old relic and grotesque manifestation of why the federal government has become the enemy of America and Americans.
Goddamn the both of them, if not the lot.
Hell, instead of playing Pelosi and Schumer’s little game McConnell should simply inform them that when they are willing to produce a clean bill to fund the PPP then they should do so and then contact him. And not a minute sooner. And then get on with other Senate business. Like confirming judicial nominations and other business of the Senate. And then make it perfectly clear to the United States citizens that it’s the intransigence of the democrats causing the problems.
I’m still in business producing income but revenue is off 50 percent. I will not have enough revenue to meet my fixed cost thus I will be in the red.This is oral for first quarter but usually by April I start working in the black. My application was placed within hours of my bank allowing me to apply. Who received all this money and how is a mystery. I reached out to my bank days before the funds were first made available.