Democrats Push Far-Left Agenda, Hurting The Country

Bernie Sanders may have lost the Democratic nomination for president, but his socialist ideology rules his party. Witness congressional Democrats’ brazen attempt to cram massive regulations on businesses and push pet schemes for unionization, alternative energy sources and the like into the rescue bill. The penalties if companies don’t carry out these Democratic decrees with sufficient gusto are like something right out of The Godfather: That’s a nice company you have; too bad if it went broke.

The White House and Senate Republicans should resist and push for a straight-forward, short-term package. 

The one the GOP is pushing in the Senate has some real flaws, but it at least gets cash into the pipeline for loans to businesses and relief checks to individuals. But if the Democrats seriously burden businesses with new decrees and costly mandates, they will severely hurt future growth and innovation.

The Federal Reserve, after two useless—indeed, counterproductive—interest rates cuts, has made sensible moves to prevent panic in the commercial paper market, money market funds and municipal bonds. The central bank’s announcement this morning contained three big, desperately needed moves.

• A new facility will issue loans for up to four years to investment-grade companies. The loans will keep these companies alive as their revenues are vanishing.

• Another new entity will buy existing corporate bonds. Its purpose is to prevent the bond market from freezing up, which could cause panic as investors realize their supposedly high-quality securities are illiquid when they are scrounging for cash.

• A third new entity, dubbed the Main Street Lending Program, is being prepared. Its goal will be to provide loans to small- and mid-size businesses.

The challenge for all too many businesses is that they’re running of out of cash. They need it now.

To coin a phrase, Congress fiddles as the economy burns.