“A JACKASS CAN KICK DOWN A BARN, BUT IT TAKES A CARPENTER TO BUILD ONE”. — Sam Rayburn

Ok. We had the US Congress and the US Senate work bipartisan 16 hours days to produce a pandemic rescue bill.

1. First thing Trump (who had not been involved, not one lick of work) did was to, of course, attack it calling it a “disgrace” because it only hands out $600 to each adult citizen (the amount the Republicans wanted) and says it should be a $2,000 check to each person (the Democratic ask). So let this soak in: Trump wants to hand out more money to be a “hero” to the people totally in line with the party group that he says are of satan and total against the conservatives who are the good guys (so long as they do what Trump says). Just let it sit in and think about it.
2. AOC and Ted Cruz come out in agreement attacking it (contrary to media reports, these two are often in agreement in the negative blocking just supposedly for different reasons) because there was not enough time to read it. It is long — 5,000 pages — AND, ask yourself “I wonder why AOC and Ted not in on the drafting process so they could be reading? Could it be the pragmatists wanted to get something through?
3. It is taking criticism because the billions loaned to business to keep people on payroll isn’t taxable nor are the sales associated with the loans taxable. Although I admit this makes rich owners better off the accounting makes sense if the loans were to keep businesses afloat if taxed the loans would just have to be bigger to have same effect.
4. There are tax reductions on some alcohol sales. Think about it, in a pandemic people are buying more booze for home because bars are closed. If the alcohol was going through bars people would be paying more per drink plus sales tax. Alcohol has lost their bars outlet and may have less sales than usual. This may not be as crazy as it sounds, the Baptist’s are attacking it and no one has shown the data.
5. Over a billion in relief for NASCAR, Formula 1, horse racing tracks. Again, this may or may not make sense. It would take seeing a lot of data — racing probably has been hit harder they may have more fixed costs and less TV revenue.

To quote Sam Rayburn: “A jackass can kick a barn down, but it takes a carpenter to build one”. I don’t know what “horse trading” went on but if we want anything other than gridlock we have accept some dealing and we have to tell the critics who are so opinionated they weren’t even in the hard work of the game to shut the %$#@ up.