This story was co-published with The Daily Poster
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The fate of the $ 2,000 survival checks for hungry people could be decided by a Wall Street tycoon and a corporate executive who ran a retail chain that trapped in low-income communities– and everything will unfold in a state facing rising unemployment, poverty and hunger.
But here we are, with Georgia and its Senate contests about to decide everything.
If you were writing a Hollywood script about the battle for direct aid to millions of Americans, you would almost certainly have the backdrop of the Peach State and its special election.
One of the Senate contests features Republican Kelly Loeffler, who was removed from the financial sector and nominated for the Senate. There, she quickly negotiated for lucrative stocks after a government pandemic briefing, and was also appointed to the panel that regulates the agency that police her husband’s business empire.
The other race for the Senate features Republican David Perdue, who also spent his time in Washington negotiating stocks to boost his personal wealth after running Dollar General, where he faced charges of theft of wages.
As if this cartoon corruption was not enough for a TV drama, the two Republican zillionaires are running against Reverend Raphael Warnock, the anti-poverty crusader who runs the church of Martin Luther King Jr .; and Jon Ossoff, a Pete Buttigieg-style Saturday Night Live caricature of an expressionless political candidate who rightly focused on the issue, calling the Republican Party’s proposal of just $ 600 “a joke”.
And all of this is happening in the midst of Georgia’s economic collapse.
Loeffler and Perdue are in a position to immediately end this battle now, if they choose to really use their power. Senator Mitch McConnell may want to own the libs and economically punish his own destitute state by blocking the $ 2,000 checks, but an even higher priority for him is to keep his job as the majority leader – but he can only do that if the holders of the Georgia win re-election.
This means that if Loeffler and Perdue publicly demanded the approval of the $ 2,000 check legislation – and if they explicitly addressed their criticism of McConnell for delaying things – it would almost certainly happen.
Until the last few days, Loeffler and Perdue have not made unambiguous statements fully supporting the project – in fact, Perdue has previously opposed direct aid. Only today did Loeffler humbly say he would vote for $ 2,000 checks, and Perdue tweeted a similarly silent statement of support.
Notably, however, the two senators are not saying that they will support Senator Bernie Sanders’ move to force a vote – they are just indicating that they would support the legislation if it somehow reached the Senate floor.
That’s the tip here – it signals that these two aristocrats are not yet serious and that these gestures are fraudulent compared to what they could do. The theatrical performance of Georgia’s Republican senators pretending to support the initiative without doing anything to force a vote almost makes you wonder if these two notorious wheeler dealers are quietly negotiating the future of poverty.
Georgia senators leave checks for $ 2,000 paralyzed while their state suffers
The situation in Georgia is very similar to the situation in McConnell itself – the difference between Loeffler and Perdue supporting checks for $ 600 and them writing checks for $ 2,000 is potentially a matter of life and death for hundreds of thousands of people.
Even before the pandemic began, 1.3 million Georgians lived on or below the federal poverty line. This includes almost one in five African Americans and one in five children.
Since the start of the pandemic, food shortages – defined as sometimes or often not having enough food to eat – have increased 32% in Georgia, according to census data reviewed by The Daily Poster.
Meanwhile, unemployment is rising in the state – the unemployment rate jumped more than 25% last month to 5.7%. And last month, nearly a quarter of Georgia’s renters were behind on their payments, the fourth highest rate in the country.
That’s where direct help can help make things a little less horrible. Nearly 60% of Georgia’s families earn $ 75,000 or less – meaning they would qualify fully for checks for $ 2,000.
These figures paint a very clear picture: Loeffler and Perdue’s refusal to use their power to force a vote on the proposal would deny additional emergency aid to at least 2 million families in their own state during an economic calamity and during a heavily elected election. contested that it will decide the fate of the US Senate.
The two leaders’ indifference to this nightmare is not anomalous – their behavior is emblematic of their party. Yesterday, most House Republicans voted to block checks on $ 2,000. Not a single Georgia Republican in the lower house voted in favor of the proposal, despite the emergency that was unfolding in his state.
Things on Capitol Hill seem fluid now that Sanders is using tough tactics to force a vote. Suddenly, a few more Republican senators are suggesting that they would support the $ 2,000 checks.
They clearly feel the heat – but keep an eye out for Georgia holders. They have far more power than anyone in America to force McConnell to pass the legislation.
If the project fails, it is because Georgia’s millionaire senators have consciously allowed their state to starve to death.