The Room Where Nothing Happens (Again)

· 5 million infected with COVID-19

· 34 states with high positivity rates, demonstrating the virus continues to spread

· 150,000 COVID-19 deaths

· 16 million unemployed

Yet, once again, Congress and the President are more focused on partisan political battles than on solving the public health and economic crises we face.

And, who pays the price? Not them. Us.

We’re tired of their meetings in rooms where nothing happens. We the People want them to focus on our suffering, not their partisan objectives.

We’ve had enough.

We’re tired of each side blaming the other and falsely claiming they’re working for us. They’re not.

If we were in the room, something would happen. And, it’s time it did.

The meeting would start with our common objectives:

1. Defeat the virus and

2. Restore the economy,

not either side’s political objectives.

From that starting point — the correct starting point — the resolution of each issue would become apparent.

For example, take additional unemployment compensation: Let’s start with two principles: We the People want to be employed, and if our jobs are no longer there because of the current economic crisis, we need financial help, especially those who are paid the lowest wages. Democrats want to continue $600/week of additional unemployment even if it results in people being paid more than they made before they were unemployed. Republicans want to limit the amount to avoid people making more than they did when they were working, reducing the total benefit to a percentage of what the unemployed made previously. Then, the answer becomes simple: give the unemployed $600/week, capped at what we made when they were working. This is consistent with both principles, and it can be implemented easily since every unemployed worker in every state has to provide the amount they made prior to when they were unemployed. The information is there and would require only minimal programming changes (basically one line of code) that could be accomplished easily.

So why don’t the Republicans and Democrats solve this and other issues? The answer is as apparent as it is unfortunate: they’re not focused on us or our common objectives or principles. They’re focused on their political battles, which We the People, could care less about, especially now. Two examples:

1. Unemployment compensation: the Democrats are using the extra $600/week (which works out to $15/hour) to support their long-standing position for a national minimum wage of $15/hour or to support a guaranteed universal income level. Those may (or may not be) worthy public policies, but please stop using the current crises as leverage to achieve those political objectives. Rather than using us as pawns in that fight when we need help so desperately now, raise the issue directly after the elections. Who knows? You might even have a majority in the both Houses of Congress then.

2. Funding for COVID-19 testing: the White House clearly doesn’t want this because the President believes that more testing means more cases and more cases don’t help his election chances. But you don’t even have to be a scientist to know this is illogical. More testing doesn’t mean more cases. The cases are out there even if you don’t discover them through testing. Don’t we want to discover all the cases so we can act to prevent the increasing spread of the virus? And, Mr. President, if we had more testing, and it was true that you are controlling the virus as you state, that additional testing would drive down the positivity rate and the cases by election day. It’s actually in your political interest to fund testing and tracing of cases, so just do it — if not for us, for you.

Maybe if you brought one of us, your constituents — the people you work for — into the room, we could get something done, since we won’t tolerate partisan squabbles. If nothing else, it might cause both sides to remember who and what they need to focus on: us, not them.

And, on a side note, the executive orders the President issued on Saturday — putting aside whether they are consistitutional — don’t do much — if anything — to help us. For example, the $400/week unemployment supplement, isn’t that at all: it requires states to fund $100 of this from moneys they don’t have and to agree to things Trump wants them to, but likely won’t. The payroll tax relief isn’t any relief at all: it doesn’t eliminate, but only defers, the obligation to pay it.

Let’s turn the room(s) where nothing happens to the room where things happen — actions and funding to defeat the virus and restore our economy.

H. Edward Wynn is the author of the Amazon Best-Seller, We the People: Restoring Civility, Sanity and Unifying Solutions to U.S. Politics.