No state delegation in America has been less receptive to a federal coronavirus relief package than the WISGOP delegation to Washington. Allison Stevens reports Congress clears 2nd major coronavirus package; 3rd in the works:
A second major coronavirus package cleared the U.S. Senate Wednesday and is now headed to President Donald Trump for his signature.
The bill passed 90-8, with overwhelming bipartisan support. The multi-billion dollar measure aims to slow the spread of a new coronavirus and stimulate the economy as a major recession looms.
The package would provide free access to tests for the virus, including for those without health insurance. It would also give workers affected by the virus temporary paid sick leave, boost unemployment benefits, strengthen government food programs for children, older people and those with low incomes and help states meet expenses for Medicaid, the government insurance program for the poor.
“It is aimed at making it easier for people to socially distance themselves,” Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) said in an interview.
However, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) was one of just eight senators to vote against the bill. And all of Wisconsin’s Republican House members also voted against the bill, reportedly at Johnson’s urging.
It’s nearly impossible for a reasonable person to understand how anyone would follow Ron Johnson’s lead: he shows outward signs of either intellectual, educational, or emotional deficiencies (or perhaps all of these). See Public Policy Responses to the Coronavirus: ‘You have to address the health side.’
Johnson has become the subject of national ridicule for observing that “[r]ight now all people are hearing about are the deaths. I’m sure the deaths are horrific, but the flip side of this is the vast majority of people who get coronavirus do survive.” Johnson later doubled down, declaring that “getting coronavirus is not a death sentence except for maybe no more than 3.4 percent of our population (and) I think probably far less.”
Even an obtuse person should understand that a fatality rate applied to 3.4% of the population, or in Johnson’s uncredentialed estimation perhaps “far less” than that would represent a profound human tragedy.
(Note well: I’m not offering a fatality projection, and needless to say never will – I’m considering Johnson’s use of a figure that shows he’s both indifferent to human life and ignorant of the rippling consequences of a pandemic.)
His previous conspiratorial musings about Ukraine, etc., however objectionable, are less objectionable than his present (and repeated) expressions of indifference to life.
Johnson is unworthy of serving our beautiful state, and in a more responsible time he would be – figuratively – pulled by the collar and dragged from public office.