The contentious debate has, mercifully, ended.
The United States has a second coronavirus pandemic relief package from the federal government.
And the airlines, which will receive $15 billion, and other travel-related businesses better use that money wisely. Because even though President-Elect Joe Biden is already stressing the need for a third relief deal with the same breath he used to thank the bipartisan group that finally delivered the much-needed second stimulus bill, he'll face a struggle to get that done.
Biden, as many others already know, likely realizes that even with two vaccines for COVID-19 now being distributed, it will take well beyond the spring to inoculate enough people to mitigate the spread of the virus. Health experts say that for that to happen, 70-75 percent of the country needs to be vaccinated. With both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines needing two separate doses three weeks apart, simple logistics say it's unlikely we will reach that amount of people with shots. And we haven't even discussed the growing number of anti-vaccine people who won't take the medicine. The current death rate that averages more than 2,300 Americans per day is likely to stay that way through the first 100 days of the new President's term.
"If everything goes well, we may see a circumstance whereby late spring, people who are in lower risk categories can get this vaccine," Biden's nominee for Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "But that would really require everything to go exactly on schedule. I think it's more realistic to assume that it may be closer to mid-summer, early fall when this vaccine makes its way to the general population."
Part of the struggle also exists in Congress, specifically in the Senate, the final arbiter of passing bills. There are two key runoff races in the same state next month that will determine both U.S. Senators from the state of Georgia. If the Democrats win both seats, it tips the balance of power to their side. If the Republicans win even one of the races, they hold serve by having a majority in the Senate.
And even the village idiot can see that the American government has become a back-stabbing cesspool of partisan politics.
On both sides.
"Despite some claims that the latest round of COVID relief is a 'down payment' on another, possibly larger package, this is probably it for a while," Brian Gardner, chief Washington policy strategist at Stifel, wrote in an investor's note on Monday, as reported by MarketWatch.
Gardner also told the investor publication that even if Democrats win both races and take back the Senate, they'd still fall well short of the 60 votes needed to pass legislation in the chamber on their own. That means Biden's party would need Republican support to pass another COVID package.
"That appears to be a long shot at this point," Gardner said.
And then there is the general public, whose voice is often heard but rarely regarded. Right now, it is the people who need help the most, and the people who got the shaft in this latest stimulus deal. The public is receiving just $600 per person in aid, half of what it received back in March with the passage of the original CARES Act, and not even close to what the average citizen needs to survive.
It's good that Joe Biden cares enough to think the country needs a third relief deal to help the American people because, unless a miracle happens and the virus disappears and all businesses from restaurants to bowling alleys start operating again at full capacity, we absolutely will need it.
But caring about it and getting it passed through Congress are two completely different things.
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