President-elect Joe Biden released a $1.9 trillion COVID relief plan on Thursday that meets the moment and then some.
Aptly dubbed the American Rescue Plan, Biden is asking Congress to fulfill the promise of $2,000 direct payments, raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, expand paid leave, increase to $400 the enhancement to the weekly unemployment benefit, extend the moratorium on evictions to the end of September, and cut child poverty in half. The Biden-Harris plan has been widely praised across the ideological spectrum, with accolades coming from Speaker Pelosi and Leader Schumer as well as the US Chamber of Commerce.
Even Sen. Bernie Sanders, who will chair the Senate Budget Committee once Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are sworn in and who is usually not pleased by Democratic spending measures, lauded Biden's plan.
President-Elect Biden's COVID rescue plan will begin to provide our people with much-needed support, such as $2,000 direct payments and a $15 minimum wage.
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) January 15, 2021
I look forward to working with him and my colleagues in Congress to urgently provide bold relief to working families. pic.twitter.com/i8wS5180bB
But the goalpost-moving, cosplay socialist, peacock progressive caucus is not happy. As soon as news about the American Rescue Plan caught wind in the press, several members of the performative "Squad" in the House as well as their companions on the left media landscape begun to lament what they said were its dramatic flaws. Their primary line of grievance formed around manufactured outrage over Biden supposedly having retreated from his promise to deliver $2,000 direct payments, even though he clearly... had... not.
So what's their problem? Biden would add a $1,400 direct payment to the $600 in direct payment Congress already enacted in December, bringing the total to $2,000. The showboating caucus is upset that Biden's proposal includes $2,000 in total, rather than additional, direct payments.
"$2,000 ≠ $1,400," new Squad member Rep. Cori Bush tweeted. "$2,000 does not mean $1,400,″ Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez told the Washington Post. They were enthusiastically joined by a cadre of totally serious online brocialists.
It's not like they don't understand the math of 600 + 1,400 = 2,000. In fact, in December, AOC had no problem whatsoever with both (a) voting for a bill that did exactly what Biden is proposing and (b) proposing a similar bill of her own. What's more, she proudly tweeted about it, saying she wanted Congress to "bring the $600 checks to $2k."
AOC tweeted about it because that was always how it was supposed to work.
Progressives wanted $2,000 checks in December, but because of Mitch McConnell's control of the Senate, Congress enacted only $600. After passage, however, Donald Trump nearly derailed the carefully enacted compromise and demanded $2,000 in direct payments. Speaker Pelosi and Democrats immediately took him up on the offer, and the House quickly passed a measure bringing the total to $2,000, with a Yes vote from Ocasio-Cortez, as previously mentioned.
The Senate, under McConnell, never took up that measure. But now that the two brand new Democratic Senators from Georgia will split the Senate 50-50, giving control to Democrats with soon-to-be Vice President Kamala Harris's tie-breaking vote, a measure for an additional payment to bring the total to $2,000 can be put to a vote.
Cosplay socialists and peacock progressives are cravenly moving the goalposts because they don't have or care about a serious policy agenda. All they care about, now that Joe Biden is about to be sworn in and Democrats are about to have marginal control of both houses of Congress, is exacting revenge against Joe Biden for defeating their messiah in the Democratic primary. And if that takes some lying and potshots in bad faith, then so be it.