Congress is Abandoning Us
by David Klemt
The Biden Administration and Congress have elected to turn their backs on tens of thousands of restaurants and bars.
No funds will be included in the proposed spending bill to replenish the Restaurant Revitalization Fund.
Congress is expected to vote on the massive spending bill this Friday. As has been reported, the RRF Replenishment Act will not be part of this bill.
“Today’s news that Congress is walking away from the RRF is a gut punch to the 177,000 restaurants who now have some incredibly difficult decisions ahead of them,” said Sean Kennedy, executive vice president of the National Restaurant Association.
This abandoning of the industry by Congress doesn’t just affect 177,000 venues.
Generally speaking, the average restaurant in America has less than 50 employees. Cut that number in half to be conservative and 177,000 restaurants employ nearly 4.5 million people.
Essentially, Congress and the current administration have said that well over four million lives simply do. not. matter.
This is to say nothing of the other jobs in other industries lost when restaurants, bars, and other hospitality industry businesses struggle or close.
Currently, Democrats are laying this failure at the feet of GOP leadership. It’s convenient, I suppose, to claim one party objected to the inclusion of the RRF in this omnibus bill.
However, I view this as a failure of every member of Congress. We were promised a vote on the RRF Replenishment Act. That “promise” has proven to be as empty as the supposed support our politicians have been expressing for the industry.
To say I’m unhappy is painfully inadequate.
Should We Be Surprised?
The $1.7 trillion Build Back Better Act was passed by the House last November. Of course, the bill didn’t include the RRF Replenishment Act, either.
It’s clear now that that failure was a harbinger of this latest one. Therefore, it’s clear we’re on our own and must respond at the polls.
Congress has had ten months to replenish the RRF. The closest they came was a unanimous consent motion shot down last August by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).
Politicians are already backpedaling, attempting to mitigate fallout, and once again offering meaningless words. Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) reportedly said the following in response to this news:
“I’ve talked to Senator Schumer already. If we can bring it to the floor as a separate bill, we might do that. We’re not giving up.”
Please. They gave up on us and our industry months ago. As one Twitter user put it succinctly, “Will not happen if it doesn’t go into the omnibus.”
Personally, I don’t see how I can possibly vote for any of Nevada’s current members of Congress. They’ll likely never read this, and if they do they likely won’t care, but these are the people who lost my votes yesterday:
- Rep. Mark Amodei (R)
- Rep. Steven Horsford (D)
- Rep. Susie Lee (D)
- Rep. Dina Titus (D)
- Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D)
- Sen. Jacky Rosen (D)
We Go it Alone
As usual, we’re left to look out for ourselves and each other. The problem with constant praise for being resilient, resourceful, and scrappy is that people assume this industry never needs help. Worse, many believe we don’t deserve the help other industries receive.
Well, I think I speak for a lot of the industry when I say we’re tired of being resilient. In fact, I believe Eileen Wayner, CEO of Tales of the Cocktail, said that to me last year before we recorded an episode of Bar Hacks.
Yes, we’re resilient. We’re tough, scrappy, resourceful, adaptable… All of that is true. It’s also true that this industry has endured—and continues to endure and feel the ramifications of—an unprecedented two years. We’re tired and we need help.
It’s clear that help, at best, “might” come. After ten months of waiting, I see that “might” translates from political speak to plain English as, “You’re all on your own.”
Image: MIKE STOLL on Unsplash