Leverage

I'm trying to figure out whether Majority Whip Clyburn (D.-S.C.) really told participants in a conference call: "This is a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.” It's widely reported on right-ish sites, but attributed only to an anonymous participant in the call. The fact-checking sites and CNN have never heard of it at all, not mentioning it in any way, even to dispute it. This makes my antenna creep up: wouldn't Snopes normally have issued either a flat denial, or at least a weak attempt to "put it in context"? Why doesn't Clyburn deny it? Are the press afraid even to ask him about it? There continue to be sporadic reports that the senators are "close to a deal." Pelosi is pounding the airwaves with the idea that Republicans are poisoning the stimulus package with pills. The rest of the country is howling about holding up relief checks for collective bargaining concessions, airline carbon emission limits, wind and solar subsidies, and corporate board gender quotas. The Pelosi poison-pill argument, when it's explained at all, has to do with insufficient "oversight" of bailouts to employers. That's an argument that could get some traction, unless "oversight" means things like corporate board gender quotas. President Trump strongly signaled that he'd like to see restrictions on using helicopter money to do stock buy-backs. Okay. I'm in about the position I was in when we were rushing through the 2008 "stimulus." I hoped at the time it would help and not hurt too much. To this day I don't really know. If Pelosi kills this one, I guess we'll see what it's like not to print money for a change, but there's going to have to be some serious relief for people holed up at home needing groceries and lacking paychecks or savings. Maybe not for a few weeks, but certainly if this goes on for months.