Pelosi holding small businesses hostage to her agenda

 The Lid:

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when a lot less was known about the virus and how to counter it, and while the nation was still ramping up production of testing and hospital resources, including ventilators needed, 25 million jobs were lost across the country, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Since labor markets bottomed in April, 13.8 million jobs have been recovered, as states have begun steadily reopening in the months since.

But it could have been much worse. Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning is crediting the foresight of the payroll protection plan from President Donald Trump and Congress, a bipartisan measure that was put in the original CARES Act, with leading the rapid recovery.

 “One of the biggest reasons was because the Trump administration and Congress worked together on the CARES Act, that provided $525 billion to 5.2 million small businesses, which may have saved as many as 50 million jobs,” Manning said.

In other words, if President Trump had not led on the issue of protecting small businesses during the pandemic, tens of millions more jobs would have most certainly been lost. Now the country is experiencing a rapid, V-shaped rebound in labor markets.

But that could be in jeopardy now. Unfortunately, the payroll protection program, administered by the Small Business Administration, ran out of money on Aug. 8, and with 11 million jobs still on the sidelines, to maintain the momentum of the economic recovery, Congress needs to act to renew the program. 

But for months, Pelosi has insisted on a House-proposed unworkable $3 trillion package — while the White House and the Senate have looked toward a $1 trillion extension of existing measures that were working with some tweaks — leaving her own constituents out in the dust.

Manning stated, “The only way the remainder of the jobs lost in the state-led pandemic lockdowns will be recovered is by providing support to safely reopen the economy and schools, something Nancy Pelosi will not allow to happen so long as she remains Speaker and those who elected her Speaker is directly responsible for this reckless course.”

Now a deal is said to be close to hand, but not before Manning and Americans for Limited Government focused on recently elected, vulnerable Democrats in targeted press statements across the country for not doing more to push Pelosi to make a deal sooner — especially in blue states where unemployment is much, much higher.

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Pelosi was holding this funding hostage to the Democrats' terrible agenda. She put her partisan agenda ahead of the people in need because of the measures Democrat governors had taken to lock down the economy.