GOP impedes relief

Dear editor:

Please remember, in negotiations the Democrats offered to lower their request from $3 trillion to $2 trillion. The reply from Republicans was to lower their offer from $1 trillion to $600 billion. That’s what Republicans call negotiating in good faith.

Republicans also blame the holdup of any additional relief on the Democrats, saying all Democrats have to do is abandon vital relief programs, abandon a stimulus payment for the American public, abandon financial relief for cities and towns that are in trouble due to COVID and sign off on blanket immunity for business against lawsuits related to COVID to get relief passed. Seems to me, it’s the Republicans who are stopping progress cold in negotiations.

Also, realize the Republicans oppose help to financially hit cities and towns because they prefer those municipalities go the bankruptcy route. Thus cutting pensions for retirees and payments to vendors and giving billions of dollars to lawyers to do the bankruptcy paperwork is what they prefer. Meanwhile, many workers’ unemployment has run out, Trump’s stop-gap $300 a week won’t last more than a few weeks if it actually gets distributed and people are losing homes, being evicted and many have no money to buy groceries.

It appears that our elected Republican politicians give not a rip about people who are in deep trouble but do care about big business. I humbly request the American voter remembers all this when going to the polls in November. Please send the world a message by sweeping out many Republicans now in office, that Americans do not tolerate cruelty, neglect and heartlessness when it comes to our fellow Americans in their time of need. Please also remember that we got where we are because of a president who neglected his duty and a Republican Party that is fine with him doing so. The 190,000 dead Americans and 30 million unemployed Americans may appreciate your remembering at the polls.

Steven Snellback Lonsdale