, Columnist
How to Avoid Another Failure on Covid Relief
The difficulty of passing a new round of stimulus was foreseeable but not inevitable.
They’ll be back again next year.
Photographer: Drew Angerer/Getty Images North AmericaThis article is for subscribers only.
Despite some last-minute negotiations, Congress seems unlikely to pass a new round of Covid stimulus this year. The contrast between the speed with which Democrats and Republicans came together to pass the first relief package last March, and the embarrassing failure to pass a second, couldn’t be starker.
It didn’t have to be this way — and Congress doesn’t need to repeat this mistake. The steadily rising difficulty of passing a second round of stimulus was foreseeable, but it wasn’t inevitable. There are two major lessons to take away from this train wreck.