The GOP won’t deal on a new stimulus because they already got their corporate bailout in March. They may be writing off 2020 as hopeless, and a nice Depression now, with massive starvation and unrest, may be just what’s needed to sabotage the coming Democratic administration, preparing the way for a resurgent GOP in 2022 and 2024. That’s the essential argument of this article in The American Prospect:

In the second round, Democrats want lots more: $3.5 trillion worth, if you see the Heroes Act as their opening bid. But Republicans already got their corporate bailout. That was the moment of highest possible leverage. Republicans, or at least McConnell, would like to give corporations total immunity from any negligence lawsuit over infecting workers and customers, but it’s more of a nice-to-have than a must-have. They already have the Supreme Court, after all.

So the deal isn’t coming together as easily this time because you have a serious imbalance between what each side actually wants. “But the election,” you might ask. Republicans know they’re cooked in the election. They can read a poll, they can see the death count, they know who Donald Trump is and that suppressing the virus is something he can’t BS his way through. There are two choices here: try to salvage the election in a probably fruitless attempt, or saddle the next president with a depression, and immediately shift to deficit fearmongering to constrain the response, and win in 2022 and 2024.

Read full article here: “Why a Relief Bill Is So Elusive This Time“