House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) gave the game away in remarks he made recently to fellow Democrats regarding how they should hijack Congress’s $1.8 trillion relief: “This is a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.”

Democrats twice derailed the Senate bill over the last two days. What makes that even more appalling is that it was a bipartisan effort hailed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as recently as Saturday night.

Then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi flew back from House recess, offered her own $2.5 trillion alternative, and it all went to heck.

Clyburn’s comments shed light on why. As millions of Americans are losing their jobs and income, getting pummeled in the stock market, and are generally worried about their future, the original aim for Congress was to send relief money as quickly as possible. That would go to individuals hurt by the crisis and to businesses to ensure that more jobs could be retained.

Yet here are just a few of the things Democrats have decided to demand (largely courtesy of the White House 1600 Daily email and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR)):

• Audits of election results

• Airline carbon emissions

• Corporate diversity requirements

• Collective bargaining for Federal workers

• Expansion of wind/solar credits

• Bailing out $11 billion in debt for U.S. Postal Service

• Giving another $20 billion in cash to U.S. Postal Service

• $10k bailout for everyone with student loans

• $15 minimum wage at companies receiving assistance

• Retirement plans for community newspaper employees

The White House concludes, “And the list goes on and on — for 1,119 pages in Speaker Pelosi’s bill, to be exact.”

The real aim? As Mark Alexander put it, “Democrats have disgracefully derailed emergency COVID-19 funding by claiming it helps corporations too much. They know that is a lie — relief for hard-hit corporate sectors IS relief for employees in those sectors, but the lie plays well in the Leftmedia.”

Democrats clearly want a recession, so dragging this out makes sense. Worse, the poison pills they insist on adding will likely slow the recovery, much like they did during Barack Obama’s administration.

Sen. Cotton rightly noted, “The Democrats see an opportunity in this crisis. Not to help the American people, but to hold an emergency relief bill hostage until they get their radical wish list. How long will … Americans across the country have to wait?”

And Rep. Dan Crenshaw delivered an appropriately blistering rebuke: “Do Dems want a recession? A depression? How can they justify this? This bill is critical for the livelihood of millions. Our country will be devastated without immediate help. Dems can lie all they want about ‘helping workers’ but now they are destroying their lives.” He added, “This will go down as one of the most cynical, disgusting, malevolent actions in history. Millions are losing jobs while they play these games.”

Nevertheless, Congress will (eventually) hammer out a deal, probably in the neighborhood of $2 trillion. And the relief to average Americans will be larded up with pork for Democrat constituencies, the $23.5 trillion national debt notwithstanding. Future generations will pay dearly for the Democrats’ cynical political hackery.

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