Monday on MSNBC’s “All In,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said if President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) did not start acting now on the coronavirus outbreak as a nation “we’re in real trouble.”
Warren said, “I start this with let’s learn what we should have learned from the 2008 crash. Part one is when we do a stimulus package, it needs to be big enough to meet the moment. If we fail to do that, we’re not going to get a second bite at it politically, and we’ll have a very long and sluggish recovery if we don’t get it big enough the number is $750 billion. Leader Schumer picked up that number later on today and said that looks like a good number as the starting number. That would be about 3.5% of GDP, which is between the estimates right now of 2% to 5% that this may cost us. Part two is we’ve got to make sure that the money is not going to be treetops, that the money is going to the grassroots. That the critical for strengthening this economy. My main parts here, we need to increase Social Security and Disability payments by $200 a month for the next year, make sure that money is coming in. We need to cancel a chunk of student loan debt would be, on average, $400 a month that would stay in the pockets of people who owe a lot of student loan debt. And we need to be putting money into housing. Use this opportunity to restore, repair housing that needs to be done, public housing, build new housing that gives us jobs in the short run, and it gives us housing we need over a longer ark. Those are the kinds of things we can do to help strengthen this economy from the grassroots up, help rebuild this economy and help stabilize it instead of having it crash further, and we need to start now.”
Hayes asked, “As you say, we need to start now. Mitch McConnell sent the Senate home for three days for recess and flew to Kentucky, where he was joined by Brett Kavanaugh for a ceremony for a former Kavanaugh clerk. Do you think that was a wise decision by the Senate Majority Leader?”
Warren said, “No, it was absolutely irresponsible of the Senate Leader to do that. He ultimately called everyone in for a vote tonight, a vote that did not occur because he worked out a deal. He had a problem in his own party — a deal that could have been worked out last week. And we have still not moved forward on the coronavirus bill. This makes no sense at all. It’s as if he has no sense of urgency about this problem and no sense of what to do.”
She added, “You started this by asking, do I feel better trump has at least admitted there is a problem? Sure. But it’s time to act. We should have been acting months ago, and if that message still has not arrived with the president or Mitch McConnell, then we’re in real trouble.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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