Oh, what a relief it is

To consider it from a different angle, suppose this package was passed with only one thing in mind: relief for American families who have suffered financially as a result of COVID-19. Keep the $900 billion figure in place and simply divide it by the number of American households earning less than $150,000 per year, similar to how the bill was written. Only about 20% of all U.S. households would be excluded and a check for $8.74 million would arrive in the mail boxes of almost every family in the United States. By the numbers, we’d all be rich.

Another matter to consider is how long it took for this second COVID relief package, as bad as it is, to reach full gestation in Nancy Pelosi’s House of Representatives. When it finally did emerge, it was given to Mitch McConnell for his gang in the Senate to consider. Then the two chambers hashed out their differences and sent the pork filled baby to President Trump for his blessing.

Well let’s see, the first COVID relief from Uncle Sam came in March,

2020. That means it took over eight months to write and pass COVID relief 2.0. By the numbers, I would say there was more concern for political gamesmanship by Speaker Pelosi, Sen. Schumer and the Democrat party than there was for suffering Americans. It is obvious with the bill not arriving to President Trump’s desk until after the election, they did not want him to get credit for checks showing up in the mail.

Since it took Congress so long to produce this bill, of course it had to be many, many pages. Perhaps they were thinking like a college freshman who writes a paper for English class and figures, if it’s really, really long, automatically it’ll get a good grade. In all, this falsely titled bill is just shy of 5,600 pages.

Did you know a standard package of copy paper from an office supply store is 500 pages and about 2 inches thick? Therefore, if you were to stack the COVID Relief Bill on a legislator’s desk, it would measure a little less than 2 feet thick. By the numbers, I would venture to guess no one in the House of Representatives, or anyone in the Senate, even read the bill. They certainly did not read it all. Nevertheless, off to the president’s desk it went.

When it arrived, President Trump’s reaction was classic Trump. He stated: “Despite all of this wasteful spending and much more, the $900 billion package provides hard-working taxpayers with only $600 each in relief payments and not enough money is given to small businesses and in particular restaurants, whose owners have suffered so grievously. Congress found plenty of money for foreign countries, lobbyists, and special interests while sending the bare minimum to the American people who need it.”

Given the Congress’ performance on COVID relief, is it any wonder that a study of public opinion versus public policy got the results it did? University professors Martin Gilens of Princeton and Benjamin I. Page of Northwestern studied data from a 20 year time frame to analyze whether the government represents the people. Collating results from nearly 2,000 public opinion surveys, they lined those up against policies that actually became law. Their conclusion was that the opinions of 90% of us has zero effect on what the government actually does. By those numbers, is calling them our “representatives” even appropriate?

To me, it’s sad that the one guy who represents a majority of Americans may lose his leadership role to election fraud while two who deserve to lose theirs may keep them. House Speaker Pelosi may keep her post despite her party losing 12 seats to the Republicans. It is the narrowest majority for her party since 1942. And over in the Senate, Mitch McConnell’s role will depend on what happens in Georgia.

A former member of the San Carlos City Council and mayor, Matt Grocott has been involved in political policy on the Peninsula for 17 years. He can be reached by email at mattgrocott@comcast.net.