The Real Reasons We Haven’t Gotten a Second Stimulus Package

(Andrew Jackson before Judge Hall, New Orleans is a painting by Christian Schussele)

Cases rising, weekly unemployment claims soaring, small businesses struggling to hold on— for the love of god, where’s our second stimulus package?

There must be some underlying reason as to why Congress and the White House haven’t come to an agreement on a stimulus package after nearly 4 months of negotiations, right?

Of course there is. And what’s worse, they’ve led us on this entire time thinking more economic stimulus was so close to passing that you could almost taste it.

You know what they say, hindsight is 2020 (literally and figuratively speaking) — looking back, the past few months we have been in a toxic relationship with our government, hanging on their every word, hoping they will finally do right by us, day after day.

This is by far the most toxic relationship I have ever been in (and that’s a big shoe to fill).

So, why does our government hate us so much?

Well, honestly, I don’t think they hate us, but rather their indifference towards us (their constituents) is the real problem.

Adding insult to injury, we have somehow found ourselves in the perfect storm. The equation goes something like this:

• An unrepresentative Congress that is too comfortable in their ivory towers
• A Republican Senate that prioritized jamming through a Supreme Court Justice in the wake of Justice Ginsburg
• A polarizing president that wrote the book on The Art of the Deal, but has yet to negotiate any deal that would help millions of Americans during a crisis
• The Federal Reserve has propped up the stock market just enough for it to be a non-issue
• Most importantly, it’s an election year (a contentious one at that)

With all of these factors compounded, the American people have essentially been left for dead until Election Day. All the while, other countries (Canada) have been getting $2,000 a month throughout the pandemic.

Unfortunately, in the U.S. we tend to politicize issues that shouldn’t be political (Miss Rona, I’m talking about you).

Providing fiscal relief to Americans during a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic should have never become a partisan issue or political talking points — it’s a humanitarian issue.

And the truth of the matter is: neither party wants to pass an economic relief bill prior to the election out of fear that it may benefit the other party prior to Election Day.

They haven’t been “negotiating” for months. They’ve been doing nothing but pandering for votes and buying time until the election — at our expense, mind you.

All I can say is: vote all of them out.

We deserve so much better than this.