The Need for Additional Relief
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
Although there is broad bipartisan agreement in Congress that additional coronavirus relief is needed, I regret that the status of delivering relief hasn’t changed a lot since May. It’s even more disappointing since lawmakers already agree on how to approach several aspects of needed relief.
As you might remember back in mid-May, the U.S. House of Representatives considered legislation deceptively packaged and promoted by Democrats as coronavirus relief. While there may have been a few worthy provisions, those items were greatly overshadowed by the unrelated-to-coronavirus policies stuffed into the more than $3 trillion package.
Sadly, the substance of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s so-called HEROES Act looked more like using a crisis to advance a liberal wish list than a serious desire to help struggling Americans. That was made even more obvious by the fact that the legislation was crafted behind closed doors and without any Republican input whatsoever. Not surprisingly, that bill was never taken up by the Republican-led Senate or signed into law by President Donald Trump.
Since then, there have been scattered conversations between Speaker Pelosi and Trump Administration leaders that, at times, seemed hopeful. Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi has thus far refused to budge on both the total cost of the next relief package as well as her belief that we have to agree on everything before we can agree on anything.

Tom Cole, a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, is serving
his eighth term in Congress as the elected representative of Oklahoma’s 4th
Congressional District. He is recognized as an advocate for taxpayers and small
business, a proponent for a strong national defense and a leader in promoting
biomedical research. He is considered the foremost expert in the House on issues
dealing with Native Americans and tribal governments. He and his wife, Ellen,
have one son, Mason, and reside in Moore, Oklahoma.
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