"Let Them Eat Cake"

Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi’s first draft from late last night was off-base. It does not focus immediate relief on affected Americans. It proposes new bureaucracy that would only delay assistance. It wanders into policy areas that are not related to the pressing issues at hand.

— Leader McConnell (@senatemajldr) March 12, 2020

At my local grocery store, there was plenty of toilet paper and paper towels and everything else (except hand sanitizer, that's been gone for two weeks and doesn't look like it will ever come back) on Monday morning.

Last night there wasn't a paper product to be found.  Dried beans were gone, too.  All of them.  Frozen vegetables?  Fuggedaboutit!  Flour?  Apparently everyone in the area is now a home baker.

I haven't seen grocery store shelves so cleaned off, ever. I've seen panic buying for impending hurricanes, but never anything like this. You'd have thought the store wasn't ready to open, except for the huge lines at every checkout counter.  Never seen that, either; not at Thanksgiving, not at Christmas.  There is a mad rush on to stock up and hunker down.  This morning local news showed a lie shot of people lined up to get into another grocery store before 7 in the morning.  The line extended for more than a city block, and it looked like they were being allowed in by rationing.  I expect that store to be stripped like locusts strip a field, by noon.  Some of the people in my neighborhood have the money to eat out, if they want to.  Some of the people in my neighborhood work in those restaurants, and won't have any money if customers stay home.  They already don't make enough to dine in the restaurants they work in.  What happens when they can't get food?  Except the shelves will be restocked.  We lost grocery stories after Hurricane Ike, because we lost power for three weeks.  We lost access to stores during and after Harvey.  People are more scared now than I've ever seen.  And I hope the people who really need the food, got some, until the stores can recover.

Meanwhile, in the GOP Senate:

The House bill is, in fact, a wide-ranging and fairly comprehensive response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It would guarantee free coronavirus testing by requiring insurers to pay for it and having Medicaid foot the full bill for the uninsured. It would add funding for unemployment benefits (since we’re probably going to see a lot of layoffs soon). It provides more food aid for families (a lot of kids are going to be without lunch when schools close). It would temporarily increase the federal government’s share of funding for Medicaid, to give state budgets a little relief as caseloads likely swell.

And importantly, it provides paid sick leave in two different ways. First, there’s an emergency benefit for workers affected by the coronavirus: The federal government will pay up to two-thirds of their usual earnings for as many as three months. Second, it would permanently require businesses to give workers seven days of paid sick leave, and an extra 14 during public health emergencies, with Washington covering the cost for small businesses.

These are all imminently sensible responses to the crisis at hand, which has shown that paid sick leave is an absolutely essential public health precaution. You want people to be able to get tested for this virus. You do not want them going to work and spreading an infection because they need to support themselves. You want people to be able to eat. You do not want consumer spending to crater.

The Houston Rodeo has shut down for the first time in nearly 80 years.  School districts will be closing in Houston soon.  Universities are deciding to send all classes on-line and close offices.  How many hourly workers with no sick leave will be laid off or furloughed until further notice?  How many small restaurants will cut back staff because there is no lunch rush anymore, no dinner business?  Who is going to help those people?

7/ The official spokesman said Texas’ laboratory capacity is a finite resource and that labs “still need to target that testing at the people who have [COVID-19].”

State & local labs can currently test roughly “200 or 250” people per day, he estimated. https://t.co/T2KKGhL395

— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) March 13, 2020

Think about the circular logic there.  Testing needs to be limited to those infected.  But those infected can only be diagnosed with a test.  Kafka would laugh his head off.  And the response of the national GOP?

Let them eat cake.

Which is apparently all going to turn into political posturing.  Politico reports the House is close to passing a package that the Senate, which has cancelled its recess, will approve and send to Trump.

Even the GOP is not so stupid as to slit its own national throat.  But it is a national political party still headed by the stupidest, most incompetent man in America.  Shit's about to get real in Texas:

Texas' oil and gas prices have cratered. Major events have been called off, and tourism has dipped. It is too soon to tell the statewide economic impact from #covid19, but some Texans are already feeling the financial pinch. https://t.co/Bl2EFLTxfp

— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) March 13, 2020

The GOP was already on the downward slope of history in this state.  Covid-19 may push them into the trash bin.