Democrats Need to Break the Covid-Funding Stalemate. Now.
Approving enough spending for vaccines, tests and treatments is essential for the country and the party. Voters will accept no excuses for failure.
Keep it open.
Photographer: Vanessa Leroy/BloombergDemocrats should be pushing hard this week — not next week! — to break the logjam preventing full funding for pandemic prevention and treatment. There’s no excuse not to get it done.
Some policy decisions are difficult. Economists disagreed on the best size of last spring’s relief bill. I don’t think anyone has a good idea of what President Joe Biden could have done to prevent the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In some cases, it’s hard to know what electoral effects a policy might have; there are often tradeoffs that are difficult to calculate. Sometimes, elected officials have to balance what they think are popular ideas with their impact on the nation. And then there are times when elected officials are stuck between intense demands of party actors who are lined up against public opinion among the bulk of voters.