Two Can Play the Bailout Blacklist Game

For a week Congressional Democrats have been playing the inclusion game, refusing to back the COVID19 stimulus bill unless it includes a laundry list of pork, special preferences, mandates or policy changes unrelated to the immediate crisis but which promote their partisan ends. Suddenly, this morning, we see them shifting to the exclusion game, in which the power to dispense aid will be used to punish or penalize companies or industries not in the party's good graces.

And perched atop the left's COVID bailout backlist, to no one's surprise, are any ventures or businesses connected to President Trump.   

So, virtually everybody else in the country might qualify for help -- a bailout, if you will -- but any COVID19-impacted businesses connected to President Trump can go bankrupt and go to hell: Is that the vindictive game these plunderers and pirates are now playing?

Okay, so let's play the bailout blacklist game. And let's play it by bipartisan rules.  

Let's also go through the vast investment portfolios of Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and other members of the Congressional Millionaires Caucus; let's go through their campaign donor lists; let's look at the major employers in their states or districts. Then we'll prohibit federal assistance from going to any companies or industries in which they have in investment stake, or which have a history of supporting them politically. That should bring this nasty little game of stick-it-to-Trump to a halt.

Senator Schumer Wednesday morning denied this was designed to target Trump, claiming, in his usual unctuously phony fashion, that it would apply broadly, to any companies in which members of the executive or legislative branches have "majority control." But since most Congressional lifers don't own or directly control businesses, and wouldn't know the first thing about starting or running a business -- their forte is destroying businesses -- this prohibition in fact would apply to a very, very small group of political leaders.

You can further shrink that group by looking at the businesses or industries they're in. The hotel and hospitality industry obviously is poised to take a major hit. It likely will be high on the list of industries needing aid. And how many people in the legislative or executive branch have "majority control" over hospitality companies?  Hmm. Let me think. I'll come up with somebody.

Political journalists obviously knew who Democrats were gunning for. So who does Schumer think he's fooling?           

We have to be thoughtful, selective and hard-nosed about where we target assistance. Not every company or industry in the country can get a bailout. There's just not enough money in the world for that. But when making those decisions, it strikes me as wrong to arbitrarily discriminate against a Trump-connected enterprise that otherwise qualifies for assistance. If the aid criteria are intelligently crafted -- that's a huge if -- and if the process is applied fairly and equitably -- that's another huge if --  shouldn't Trump-related businesses that meet the standard also be covered? 

Or are the people who work in or for this subset of businesses -- it's those people we're supposedly trying to help, right? -- unworthy of the same help other American workers will get, just because they happen to wait tables or clean rooms at the restaurant or hotel connected to the Trump business empire? Democrats obviously want to destroy Trump, not just politically but personally; that's been their Ahab-like obsession since he unceremoniously tossed them out of power. But who they're really punishing with such vindictiveness are thousands of rank-and-file workers who just happened to fill out a job application at the Trump-owned business, but now find themselves in one party's crosshairs through guilt by association.   

This Trump rage is so unhinged and irrational that it ought to qualify as a new mental disorder.While we're on a crash program to develop new vaccines, why not a vaccine that addresses this psychological problem? Seriously. We'll badly need one -- and the medical lab that brings a cure to market will make millions -- if Trump wins reelection this fall.

Land of the Freeloader, Home of the Knave

A nation of supplicants. We've become a nation of supplicants.

I'm sure every newspaper in the country carries a story like this one today -- "The Stimulus Bill: What's in it for Us?" -- as Americans line up, hands outstretched and palms up, waiting to see what Washington-sent goodies -- what manna from Heaven -- fall into their hands.

Depression averted, perhaps. But I find the fact that we've become a nation of supplicants bone deep depressing. It reminds me of those old black and white photos from the 1930s, of men in hats stoically waiting in line for something -- a job perhaps? -- only it's in Technicolor now and we're all wearing designer clothes.

There is more dignity in what I see in those old photos. Americans today have the look of hustlers, looking for a way to angle in on the action.

We've been walking Hayek's "road to serfdom" for decades, despite a few detours which gave one hope that the ultimate destination might be avoided. But we've arrived, courtesy of Barack Obama's presidency and a "stimulus bill" that has every community in the country lining up, hat in hand, waiting for Uncle Sam to drop a little something into it (which he picks from our pockets with the other hand).

Land of the free? Home of the brave? Once perhaps. Today we're the land of the freeloader and the home of the knave.

I'm reminded of a letter I received at The Gazette a few years ago. "America's over," the writer concluded. "They just haven't sent out the memo yet."