$2 Trillion Coronavirus Relief Bill Presents A Reckoning For Libertarians | NPR - Ron Elving
May 22, 2018 - "Let us all have a moment of sympathy – and perhaps even understanding — for Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky. Massie was the guy who caught hell from all sides Friday when he tried to force a roll call vote on the coronavirus relief bill in the House of Representatives. He said he wanted every individual member to record his or her vote on the gargantuan $2 trillion package, which he called the biggest relief bill in the history of mankind. For Massie and many like him, the bill that aims to forestall economic disaster in the face of a pandemic is, in itself, a fiscal calamity and a radical turn in governing philosophy. Letting this go without a recorded vote was capitulation on a profound scale....
"'If this bill is so great for America, why not allow a vote on it?' he fumed on Twitter.... 'I’ve been told that they don’t even have 1 minute available for me to speak against this bill during the 4 hour debate. The fix is in. If this bill is so great for America, why not allow a vote on it? Why not have a real debate? #SWAMP'....
"Massie had a point.... Explicitly, the CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security) Act spends money faster than any legislation in history, shoveling it out with an air of near-desperation.... Implicitly, the act says that when the chips are down, we as a nation turn to our national parent — the federal government....
"Speaking about federal outlays decades ago, Republican Senate leader Everett Dirksen once joked: 'A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you're talking about real money.' Have we now translated that to the language of trillions?
"If one were writing a 30-second TV spot attacking a free-spending Congress ... one might have written something like this: 'This is an unprecedented gusher of taxpayer money — with no offsetting revenues or spending cuts — that not only balloons the federal budget but triples this year's anticipated deficit of a trillion dollars (already among the highest in history). With this single vote, Congress has added as much to the national debt as was accumulated in the first 200 years of the Constitution's existence'....
Yet the power of this current crisis and the force behind this bill in this hour was such that even the leading fiscal conservatives who would normally be front and center were conspicuous by their absence. President Trump wanted the bill on his desk now. The Senate had voted 96-0. So even members of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus stood back as a big bipartisan majority of the House played the matador and let the bull roar past.
"That's what Massie decided he could not brook without a protest.... But the derision arrived without delay.... President Trump demanded Massie be ousted from the Republican Party.... Back on Capitol Hill, the floor leaders of both parties scrambled to stymie Massie. Within a few hours, they had established the rule of debate on the bill so that the Senate's version of CARES could be approved without a roll call vote....
"[W]hile his lonely crusade was joined by none of the leaders of his own party, Massie was at least speaking for others across the country who could scarcely believe what they saw unfolding on C-SPAN — and the lack of any meaningful opposition in Washington.
"Matt Welch, an editor-at-large for Reason, a libertarian magazine, called the CARES Act 'a massive course of experimental economics' and compared the American public to 'laboratory rats.' Even the trillion-dollar stimulus package of President Barack Obama, opposed by Republicans in 2009, had not been so robust. 'There is no more politics of fiscal prudence in America,' Welch added."
May 22, 2018 - "Let us all have a moment of sympathy – and perhaps even understanding — for Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky. Massie was the guy who caught hell from all sides Friday when he tried to force a roll call vote on the coronavirus relief bill in the House of Representatives. He said he wanted every individual member to record his or her vote on the gargantuan $2 trillion package, which he called the biggest relief bill in the history of mankind. For Massie and many like him, the bill that aims to forestall economic disaster in the face of a pandemic is, in itself, a fiscal calamity and a radical turn in governing philosophy. Letting this go without a recorded vote was capitulation on a profound scale....
"'If this bill is so great for America, why not allow a vote on it?' he fumed on Twitter.... 'I’ve been told that they don’t even have 1 minute available for me to speak against this bill during the 4 hour debate. The fix is in. If this bill is so great for America, why not allow a vote on it? Why not have a real debate? #SWAMP'....
"Massie had a point.... Explicitly, the CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security) Act spends money faster than any legislation in history, shoveling it out with an air of near-desperation.... Implicitly, the act says that when the chips are down, we as a nation turn to our national parent — the federal government....
"Speaking about federal outlays decades ago, Republican Senate leader Everett Dirksen once joked: 'A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you're talking about real money.' Have we now translated that to the language of trillions?
"If one were writing a 30-second TV spot attacking a free-spending Congress ... one might have written something like this: 'This is an unprecedented gusher of taxpayer money — with no offsetting revenues or spending cuts — that not only balloons the federal budget but triples this year's anticipated deficit of a trillion dollars (already among the highest in history). With this single vote, Congress has added as much to the national debt as was accumulated in the first 200 years of the Constitution's existence'....
Yet the power of this current crisis and the force behind this bill in this hour was such that even the leading fiscal conservatives who would normally be front and center were conspicuous by their absence. President Trump wanted the bill on his desk now. The Senate had voted 96-0. So even members of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus stood back as a big bipartisan majority of the House played the matador and let the bull roar past.
"That's what Massie decided he could not brook without a protest.... But the derision arrived without delay.... President Trump demanded Massie be ousted from the Republican Party.... Back on Capitol Hill, the floor leaders of both parties scrambled to stymie Massie. Within a few hours, they had established the rule of debate on the bill so that the Senate's version of CARES could be approved without a roll call vote....
"[W]hile his lonely crusade was joined by none of the leaders of his own party, Massie was at least speaking for others across the country who could scarcely believe what they saw unfolding on C-SPAN — and the lack of any meaningful opposition in Washington.
"Matt Welch, an editor-at-large for Reason, a libertarian magazine, called the CARES Act 'a massive course of experimental economics' and compared the American public to 'laboratory rats.' Even the trillion-dollar stimulus package of President Barack Obama, opposed by Republicans in 2009, had not been so robust. 'There is no more politics of fiscal prudence in America,' Welch added."
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