As it stands today, the Democrats can’t lose on the stimulus issue. If a deal gets done, it will have to be on their worker-friendly terms, and they will take the credit for it; if not, Trump and the GOP will get the blame for the disastrous results. How did this happen? Why would the Republican leadership be so stupid?
Part of it is the supply side ideology that blinds them to actual facts on the ground, of course, but part of it is just their constituency. When Republicans go home, they listen to what businessmen are telling them, because businessmen, not workers, are their donors, peers, and friends. In this case, it is clear that business interests are telling them that their workers would rather lounge in the hammock of dependency than work for low wages. Hence, the GOP recovery plan.
For business interests, this is a classic tragedy of the commons. The owners all want low wages for their own workers, but if they all succeed, only dollar stores will have any consumers, and the economy as a whole will falter. Do they really understand this? Probably not.