The Progressive-Democrats in Congress held up the last Wuhan Virus Federal aid program for four critical days, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Pelosi (D, NY). These persons tried to force inclusion in the aid an array of programs irrelevant to it but central to the Progressive-Democrats’ ideology and platform.

They’re at it again. The new aid effort, currently under way in the Senate, is centered on small businesses and their employees: an additional $250 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program

Two top [Progressive-]Democrats—House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer—in a statement on Wednesday morning said they want the additional $250 billion for PPP to get packaged with other provisions, such as $100 billion for health-care institutions, $150 billion for state and local governments and extra help for food-stamp recipients.

These two, and their cronies in both houses of Congress, are holding up the aid while they try to force inclusion of $100 billion for health-care institutions, $150 billion for state and local governments and extra help for food-stamp recipients.

This is just naked extortion. Nice aid program you have there. You need to pay some protection fees for it.

Never mind that additional funding—from some source, not necessarily on the taxpayers’ backs, but maybe so—for hospitals, et al., for state and local governments who’ve a long history of fiscal irresponsibility, for those on food stamps could easily be discussed and debated in a separate bill or three.

Never mind, too, that not a single red penny of the $150 billion already appropriated for health care and medical-related stockpiles has been spent. Piling more money behind that bottleneck serves no purpose beyond virtue-signaling.

No. Small businesses and their employees can just go hang unless Progressive-Democrats get their demands met. As The Wall Street Journal put it, [t]ens of thousands of small businesses are heading for bankruptcy without short-term liquidity from the feds. That’s OK, though, if Party can’t get its demands met.

Again, no. Paying the vig, paying the ransom—paying the Danegeld just gets the payer stuck with the Dane forever.