The main sticking point I think is aid to state and local governments and it’s mostly because conservatives are hoping this gets them a free policy win the voters would never support on their own. Their hope is if they give cities and states minimal or no aid they will be forced into huge layoffs and budget cuts, which of course Republicans like. They just can’t admit this because they would get buried in an electoral landslide.
The federal government exists in large part to protect individuals and states from one-off events like this - to basically act as a national insurance company. Unfortunately it’s failing at that job now because it’s being run by incompetents.
I don't think it is incompetence. I think it is religious belief. I think they believe that their station and money and power in life is a reward for their kind of competence, selfish indifference to the needs of others and the ability to take what they think they deserve. They aren't incompetent. They were raised in a way that turned them into human scum. Look at Mao and the Dali Lama.
You can't hate yourself and love others. If there is no love of the universe and all that is within it, there is only an empty pit that can never be filled even if you pour every innocent life you can find into it. Try to grasp the magnitude of how deeply sad those Republicans are as they try to fill their stomachs rather than their hearts with joy. The only joy they know is mockery, standing on the necks of people they unconsciously identify as themselves contemptuous of those who feel empathy.
Such people need to be stopped without mercy but also without contempt. They may not know what they do but when one acts out and actively harm others with malice, even unconsciously, it can't be excused or allowed to continue.
Democratic politicians don't understand this sufficiently, I believe, because they also are insulated from real pain, both within them and as suffered by others they are supposed to represent. Politics has become the art of insulating oneself from personal responsibility on the pretext that some voter might be offended.