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“After more than a week’s worth of meetings, at least some clarity is emerging in the bipartisan Washington talks on a huge COVID-19 response bill. Negotiators are still stuck, but still trying…
“Pelosi is staking out a hard line on extending a $600-per-week supplemental pandemic federal jobless benefit, which lapsed last week. Republicans offered to extend the benefit into December and cut it to $400… Similarly, the White House has offered Democrats $150 billion in new appropriations to help state and local governments alleviate revenue losses from the damage the coronavirus has wrought on the economy… Pelosi and President Donald Trump agree on another $1,200 direct payment to most Americans… Pelosi is also pressing the case for a 15% increase in food stamp benefits that are especially important to key progressive constituencies, and Democrats won’t allow $20 billion in aid to farmers without a big trade-off on food aid.” AP News
The right blames Democrats for delaying a stimulus deal and calls for a payroll tax cut.
“According to a recent Harris poll, ‘Most American adults (58%) say the $600 a week in enhanced unemployment benefits should expire by the end of August.’ The reason? ‘Two-thirds of Americans (62%) also think the enhanced jobless benefits discourage people from going back to work. Even among unemployed Americans, nearly half (46%) say they would avoid returning to work if the benefits are continued past July 31.’”
Matt Weidinger, USA Today
“Former Obama treasury secretary Timothy Geithner, Obama economic adviser Jason Furman and others have put forward a bipartisan plan that would phase out the federal supplement by tying it to each state’s unemployment rates. The supplement would be capped at $400 a week, with the precise amount pegged to a worker’s previous earnings. In states that cannot calculate previous earnings, the supplement would be capped at $200…
“But Democrats don’t want a bipartisan compromise. They are insisting on extending the $600 a month until January with no changes and have refused to even pass a temporary extension of the program while the two sides negotiate…
“Pelosi has no incentive to negotiate. If Republicans capitulate, Democrats win — because the $600 supplement will slow the recovery while they get credit for forcing the GOP to give unemployed Americans a massive cash infusion. And if Republicans don’t cave, Democrats also win — because people lose their benefits, the recovery craters and Republicans get the blame… for Pelosi, defeating Trump is the only thing that matters, regardless of how much pain it causes working Americans.”
Marc A. Thiessen, Washington Post
“Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin seems to have convinced Mr. Trump that [compromising with Democrats] is necessary to get a grand deal and help the economy through Election Day. We’d say the opposite is closer to the truth. The jobless payments will keep unemployment higher than it would otherwise be, as University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan has shown…
“Another $300 billion or more for the states would be counterproductive in encouraging more states to keep their economies locked down for longer. Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants $30 billion from the feds to fill his rising budget gap but is still keeping New York City largely under wraps… The polls show the economy is the one issue on which a majority trusts Mr. Trump more than it does Joe Biden. But if he signs another Nancy Pelosi special, voters can be forgiven if they wonder what the economic policy difference is between Republicans and Democrats.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
“From canceling countless billions of dollars in student loan debt to offering stimulus payments to illegal immigrants, Democrats are touting their own generosity with taxpayer money. This doesn’t even touch on the nearly $1 trillion in proposed bailouts to state and local governments… States that have allowed themselves to run up debt in hopes of receiving a federal bailout should not be rewarded…
“Additional coronavirus-related spending is inevitable. What is not inevitable, however, is trillions of more dollars being spent on matters entirely unrelated to the COVID-19 pandemic. Options such as a payroll tax cut would help get relief to front-line workers now and encourage businesses to hire new workers in an effort to get our economy back on track. Our budgetary woes will only continue amid a recession, but at the very least, Congress should be making a concerted effort to curb spending wherever possible.”
Noah Wall, Washington Examiner
“[Deferring payroll taxes by executive order] would make the election a referendum on middle-class taxes… This bold act would flip the political tables. Democrats can’t credibly call it a tax cut for the rich. Mr. Trump could cap it at, say, $75,000 of income, so the vast majority of the benefit would [go straight] into the wallets of middle- and lower-income workers, almost all of whom pay more payroll than income tax. Voters would instantly see the 7.5% boost to their paychecks. Mr. Trump could then run against the $3 trillion House spending bill…
“Late in the summer of 1948, Truman stopped negotiating with what he called the ‘do nothing’ Republican Congress and started campaigning against it. He won—and so could Mr. Trump.”
Stephen Moore and Phil Kerpen, Wall Street Journal
The left blames Republicans for delaying a stimulus deal and highlights the need for extending unemployment benefits.
The left blames Republicans for delaying a stimulus deal and highlights the need for extending unemployment benefits.
“[Republicans] are not nearly as united as the Democrats. Some appear to want a deal — most notably, all those senators with competitive elections coming up in three months. Some, perhaps a dozen to 20 in the Senate and at least a few dozen in the House, aren’t even willing to support the $1 trillion Republican plan and will be happy to oppose the final deal. And then there are those Republicans who prefer a deal when it comes to policy, but are terrified of being on the wrong side of party politics…
“Whether the threat of the upcoming elections in the midst of economic collapse is sufficient to smooth over all those divisions is going to be unclear right up to the point where a deal actually passes.”
Jonathan Bernstein, Bloomberg
“[Some Republicans] are beginning to see Democrats’ aggressive posture as an indication that they’d rather have the issue than a deal. ‘I predict that as long as the Democrats believe they can win a PR war on inaction, and have it blamed on Republicans, they’re not going to be willing’ to cut a deal, [Sen. Marco] Rubio [R-FL] told reporters. ‘They basically feel like they can win.’ Democrats do feel like they have that upper hand, and that’s why they’re holding firm. But they also really do want to replace devastated state and local budgets, and to save the Postal Service ahead of a mostly mail-in election they’re currently favored to win. They’re not just stringing Republican[s] along for kicks.”
Jim Newell, Slate
“While Republicans are right that the $600 jobless benefit may seem high, that alone does not mean it should be cut… With the U.S. economy sinking into recession, a more generous supplement acts as a powerful stimulus. Consumer spending makes up more than 70% of the economy, and most of those who receive the benefit will spend it quickly. This powerful and ongoing jolt would help revive the economy – or at least keep it alive – as well as offset worries that economic inequality will soar as a result of the pandemic.”
David Salkever, Salon
“One solution might be weekly payments that start at $600 but uniformly decline across the board over time on the presumption that the economy will improve. Alternatively, payments could start at the full amount but be pegged to the unemployment rate. Instead, [some] Republicans have proposed a perpetual motion machine…
“They give states two months to update their systems and figure out how to do the computations [to determine each individual worker’s previous earnings]. In the likely event that states can’t meet that deadline, they could get another two months. By that time, the supplemental benefits would be about to expire. This approach is way too complicated. When you are relying on rickety state unemployment insurance systems to distribute jobless benefits in the midst of a pandemic, the best approach is KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid.”
Editorial Board, USA Today
“Multiple studies have now found that people are not refusing to work because their unemployment benefits are too generous. Not only that, but the added $600 benefit has boosted consumer spending, helped people pay for housing and otherwise kept the economy from getting even worse… in a world where Republicans were not utterly bonkers, they’d want to put as much money as possible into the economy, if only to help salvage President Trump’s reelection bid. But for whatever reason — perhaps some combination of anti-government ideology and pessimism that anything can save Trump — they’re determined not to offer too much help.”
Paul Waldman, Washington Post
It’s worth noting that the “Senate Republicans’ relief bill would provide nursing homes sweeping protections against coronavirus related-lawsuits… [The bill would] raise the standard of proof plaintiffs must meet while narrowing the definition of gross negligence… [The bill] also specifies that any problems at a nursing home due to a lack of staff or resources can’t be considered gross negligence—providing a ready-made defense for most facilities, which are often understaffed and have been losing money…
“‘The intention is to stop all litigation,’ [Toby Edelman, senior policy attorney at the Center for Medicare Advocacy] says. The staffing exemption, she predicts, could be a defense for any nursing homes that do get sued: ‘Yeah, we didn’t feed your mother or give her her medication, but it’s not our fault, because we didn’t have the staff.’”
Madison Pauly, Mother Jones
