I’m not sure how much more outflanking I can take

Comrades Cotton and Hawley are going to be furious when they find out about this, I’m sure.

Senate Republicans will propose cutting weekly emergency unemployment benefits from $600 to $200 until states can bring a more complicated program online, according to two people familiar with the plan granted anonymity to share details that had not yet been released.

The proposal will come as part of a broader $1 trillion relief bill aimed at dealing with the economic fallout caused by the novel coronavirus. Republicans plan to release the legislation later on Monday and start negotiations with Democrats. The $600 weekly jobless benefit expires in a few days, and House Democrats have proposed extending it until January because the unemployment rate remains very high.

Senate Republicans want to reduce the $600 payment to $200 until states can implement a new approach that would pay workers 70 percent of the income they collected before they lost their jobs. The states are supposed to phase in the new formula within two months under the new GOP plan, though it’s unclear how cumbersome that process could prove to be.

Cutting unemployment benefits 67% during a depression and pandemic until states (many of which struggle to make benefits available now, whether intentionally or otherwise) can administer a cumbersome new formula, I see no flaws in this plan. They should just go ahead and call this the Elect Theresa Greenfield and Cal Cunningham Act.

Trump, needless to say, has a similar political death wish because he is what he is:

People close to Trump, many speaking anonymously to share candid discussions and impressions, say the president’s inability to wholly address the crisis is due to his almost pathological unwillingness to admit error; a positive feedback loop of overly rosy assessments and data from advisers and Fox News; and a penchant for magical thinking that prevented him from fully engaging with the pandemic.

In recent weeks, with more than 146,000 Americans now dead from the virus, the White House has attempted to overhaul — or at least rejigger — its approach. The administration has revived news briefings led by Trump himself and presented the president with projections showing how the virus is now decimating Republican states full of Trump voters. Officials have also set up a separate, smaller coronavirus working group led by Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, along with Trump son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner.

For many, however, the question is why Trump did not adjust sooner, realizing that the path to nearly all of his goals — from an economic recovery to an electoral victory in November — runs directly through a healthy nation in control of the virus.

At least it was good for CBS!