Coronavirus

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      McConnell blocks initial Democratic effort for $2,000 Covid stimulus checks

      by

      A growing number of Republicans on Tuesday backed Donald Trump’s demand to increase coronavirus relief payments to US citizens from $600 to $2,000, though the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, blocked Democrats’ effort to quickly pass the measure.
      Trump’s party has been plunged into chaos and conflict over his demands to increase one-off cheques for Americans, a measure that passed the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives on Monday.
      “$2000 for our great people, not $600!,” Trump tweeted on Tuesday, saying Republicans must approve the payments “unless they have a death wish”.
      The conflict over the payments has created an odd situation in the last days of his administration where Trump and Democrats are pushing for the same outcome. Some critics saw Trump’s move as an apparent return to his posture as a populist outsider and disrupter of the Washington establishment, and as loyalty tests to strengthen his sway after he leaves offices.
      His position has also created a dilemma for McConnell, while Democrats – and Senator Bernie Sanders – see a renewed chance to pass a higher amount of aid with so many Americans facing financial hardship.
      Put on the spot by Trump, more Republicans on Tuesday abandoned their previous opposition to the higher sum and came over to the president’s side. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, senators from Georgia facing tight races for re-election next week, tweeted their support for $2,000 direct payments. Loeffler told the Fox News channel: “I’ve stood by the president 100% of the time. I’m proud to do that and I’ve said absolutely we need to get relief to Americans now and I will support that.”

      Donald J. Trump
      (@realDonaldTrump)
      Unless Republicans have a death wish, and it is also the right thing to do, they must approve the $2000 payments ASAP. $600 IS NOT ENOUGH! Also, get rid of Section 230 – Don’t let Big Tech steal our Country, and don’t let the Democrats steal the Presidential Election. Get tough! https://t.co/GMotstu7OI

      December 29, 2020

      Senator Marco Rubio of Florida did likewise, stating: “I agree with the president that millions of working-class families are in dire need of additional relief, which is why I support $2,000 in direct payments.” Fellow Republican Josh Hawley has also expressed support.
      Final passage of the aid increase in the Senate would require 60 votes and the backing of a dozen Republicans to hand Trump an unlikely victory.
      The Georgia runoffs could weigh heavily in McConnell’s thinking on whether to allow such a vote to go ahead.
      As Trump played golf in Florida on Tuesday, Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, made a plea from the Senate floor: “In the wealthiest nation on earth, modern-day breadlines stretch for miles down American highways. The fastest way to get money into Americans’ pockets is to send some of their tax dollars right back from where they came.
      “Two-thousand-dollar stimulus cheques could mean the difference between American families having groceries for a few extra weeks or going hungry. The difference between paying the rent or being kicked out of your home that you’ve lived in for years. It could buy precious time for tens of millions of people as the vaccine thankfully makes its way across the country.”
      Schumer demanded: “Will Senate Republicans stand against the House of Representatives, the Democratic majority in the Senate, and the president of their own party to prevent these $2,000 checks from going out the door?”
      McConnell objected, blocking initial consideration of the measure, but was set to come under growing pressure from Democrats and members of his own party to hold an up-or-down vote this week.
      For example Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont, threatened to block McConnell from holding a separate vote on Wednesday to override Trump’s veto of a $740bn defence bill unless the majority leader yields.
      “This week on the Senate floor Mitch McConnell wants to vote to override Trump’s veto of the $740bn defense funding bill and then head home for the New Year,” Sanders said. “I’m going to object until we get a vote on legislation to provide a $2,000 direct payment to the working class.”
      The defence bill is heading to the Senate after the House voted 322 to 87 to override Trump’s presidential veto. It was the first time either chamber of Congress has delivered such a rebuke. Some 109 Republicans joined their Democratic colleagues to ensure the required two-thirds majority.
      This prompted further anger and criticism from Trump against his own party. “Weak and tired Republican ‘leadership’ will allow the bad Defense Bill to pass,” he tweeted, complaining that the legislation will change the names of military bases that honour Confederate leaders and maintain legal protects for big tech companies.
      Trump has been less engaged with Congress than previous presidents and remained on the sidelines during months of negotiations over the $900bn coronavirus relief package, only to threaten to withdraw his signature before finally caving in last Sunday.
      But the current disputes appear connected to his fixation with overturning his election defeat. He has railed against McConnell and others for acknowledging Biden as president-elect and called on Republicans to raise objections when Congress gathers to certify the outcome on 6 January. Some analysts have described it as less a power grab than an attention grab by a man who sees the media spotlight shifting to Biden.
      Trump tweeted: “….Can you imagine if the Republicans stole a Presidential Election from the Democrats – All hell would break out. Republican leadership only wants the path of least resistance. Our leaders (not me, of course!) are pathetic. They only know how to lose!”
      Trump’s erratic behaviour in the final weeks of his presidency have even alienated media owner and longtime ally Rupert Murdoch. His New York Post newspaper said in an editorial this week: “If you insist on spending your final days in office threatening to burn it all down, that will be how you are remembered. Not as a revolutionary, but as the anarchist holding the match.” More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      The three most misused phrases in US politics in 2020 | Jeffrey Frankel

      by

      Donald Trump and the Covid-19 pandemic dominated the news headlines in 2020. Three terms in particular came to symbolise the year: “witch-hunt,” “black swan” and “exponential”.Trump has tweeted the phrase “witch-hunt” approximately once every three days on average during his presidency and not only in connection with his impeachment trial. He continued to use it later in the year to describe accusations that he mismanaged America’s Covid-19 response, inquiries into his tax returns, an investigation into alleged criminal conduct at the Trump Organization and other controversies.Most people made their minds up long ago about whether Trump was guilty of his alleged transgressions. But neither his supporters nor his critics have given full thought to the linguistic implications of the term “witch-hunt”. Perhaps it doesn’t mean what they think it does.The original witch-hunts began in early modern Europe and spread to colonial America, in the religious persecution of those accused of practising witchcraft. In Europe, an estimated 40,000-60,000 people – mainly women – were executed between 1400 and 1782. Americans usually think of the 1692-93 witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, in which 30 people were convicted and 19 hanged.The term entered widespread use only in the mid-20th century, to describe the frenzied search for communists “under the bed”. Arthur Miller’s 1953 play about the Salem trials, The Crucible, was an allegory for US senator Joseph McCarthy’s hearings into alleged communist infiltration of the US government.To be sure, the 17th-century witch trials and McCarthyism differed in important ways. For one thing, communists really existed. But the two historical episodes had one thing in common that distinguishes them from the accusations against Trump. In a genuine witch-hunt, the hunters start from the firm belief that a particular type of evil-doer – witches or communists – is hiding in plain sight, and then try to identify who they are.When the president and his many supporters accuse his detractors of carrying out a witch-hunt, they are making a different claim. They are claiming that Trump’s critics start from the unwavering belief that he is up to no good, and see it as their job to find crimes to pin on him. They have identified him, and they are out to get him one way or another. “Persecution” or “harassment” would more accurately convey Trump’s meaning.Such distinctions are crucial. When federal authorities charged the gangster Al Capone with tax evasion in 1931, it was not a witch-hunt. The target of their investigation was determined first; then the charges that could put him away were identified – an application of the rule of law.The second phrase that pervaded 2020 was “black swan”. When the new coronavirus spread beyond China and suddenly affected the health and jobs of people around the world, many described it as a quintessential “black swan” event.Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s eponymous 2007 book turned black swan virtually into a household expression, because it appeared to describe the 2007-09 financial crisis so well. Taleb defined the term to mean a major event that nobody realised was even a possibility, because they had never seen one of its kind before. But the metaphor is more insightful than that.The historical importance of the notion of a black swan lies in British philosophy. Like most Britons, David Hume (writing in the 18th century) and John Stuart Mill (writing in the 19th century) had never seen one. Reasoning by induction, they might easily have concluded that all swans were white. But, as British ornithologists were aware, Dutch explorers had discovered black swans in Australia in 1697. So, the best way to use the black swan metaphor is to point out that competent experts can and do factor in data from other decades, centuries and countries, and that competent policymakers should listen to their warnings.Contrary to the widespread belief in US financial markets before 2007, housing prices can go down as well as up. Similarly, health experts and well-informed policymakers had been well aware before 2020 that a pandemic like Covid-19 was not only possible, but likely to strike sooner or later. In too many countries, however, political leaders failed to heed the warnings and recommendations. The world has paid dearly for their mistake.So, this year’s Covid-19 pandemic was indeed a black swan. But the phrase is perhaps best defined not just as a sudden major development that catches the general public by surprise, but as a “tail event” – known by scientific experts and responsible officials to be a dangerous possibility (albeit one with relatively low probability in any given year).Finally, the word “exponential” was used frequently in common speech even before the pandemic – and almost always incorrectly, to mean “rapid”. Of course, anyone wishing to play language police must confront the argument made by Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, who insisted that, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean.”But linguistic precision is often important for achieving intellectual precision. Exponential is a mathematical term. It does not mean rapid. Hard as this may be to believe, there is not even a correlation or association between exponential and high growth rates. The money that one has in the bank changes exponentially, due to compound interest, but the rate can be low or even negative, as European interest rates demonstrate.With the arrival of Covid-19, people finally began to use the word “exponential” correctly, to describe the number of infections. The reason why the number of cases rises exponentially is that each infected person infects a number of other people. Epidemiologists call this average ratio the rate of reproduction, represented by R. It is designated R0 in a population with no immunity and no countermeasures.The use of R has drawbacks, particularly the difficulty of estimating it. But the concept makes an important point. If R is greater than one, as it was in the early stages of the pandemic and presumably has become again in many places, it means that things are getting worse.R can be brought down via wearing face masks, social distancing, frequent hand-washing, testing, isolation, and now inoculation with the new Covid-19 vaccines. When R falls below one, it means that the pandemic is dying out, and that the rate of exponential growth is negative.So, here’s wishing everyone no witches to hunt, the swans they expect and an R well below one in 2021.• Jeffrey Frankel is a professor at Harvard University’s John F Kennedy School of Government. He served as a member of President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers© Project Syndicate More

    • 88 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Coronavirus sharpens America's already stark economic inequalities

      by

      [embedded content]
      Walter Almendarez doubts there will be any presents beneath his artificial Christmas tree – not for his daughter, his nephews or anyone else.
      Back in March, Almendarez reread an email over and over again, trying to process the news that he had just been let go from Los Angeles’s Chateau Marmont, where he had worked for over two decades. He was among more than 200 people fired by the swanky hotel in one fell swoop.
      “It was just terrible, the way they did it,” he said.
      Widespread local shutdowns made finding a new job practically impossible, and soon, he used up his 401(k) retirement savings just trying to pay the bills.
      Like Almendarez, tens of millions of people across America are struggling to make ends meet in an economy devastated by the impact of efforts to control the coronavirus pandemic. Yet at the same time millions of other Americans are enjoying an end-of-year spending spree. The National Retail Federation is projecting that holiday sales will jump between 3.6 and 5.2% this year compared with 2019, with consumers collectively spending well over $750bn.
      Those startling discrepancies represent a stark example of how the pandemic has exacerbated America’s already chronic inequalities, amid a widespread awakening to the country’s deep-rooted problems with economic and racial injustice.
      “It is definitely something that has increased disparities between white and Black, between those well-off and less well-off – high wage, low wage. All of those things have been absolutely pulling apart,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
      During the pandemic, 651 billionaires have accrued more than $1tn in additional wealth – enough to send every American a $3,000 check and then some. But so far, that prosperity has not trickled down to 26.1 million US workers, who in November were still wrestling with direct impacts from the economic downturn, including unemployment and drops in pay.
      Those hardships have disproportionately fallen on Black and brown people, who were less likely to be able to work from home even pre-pandemic. In the third quarter of 2020, the unemployment rates for Black people and Latinos were 13.2% and 11.2% respectively, compared with 7.9% for white people.
      The slowdown has also caused a “shecession” for women, especially women of color, who have been overburdened with caretaking responsibilities while simultaneously watching their industries flounder.
      As Americans struggle to pay rent or buy food, “the worst suffering” people can experience “could really be heading for us as we go into the end of the year”, warned Amanda Fischer, policy director at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a research and grant-making non-profit.
      Early into the pandemic, Congress’s Cares Act, which provided $2.2tn in coronavirus aid, proved “one of the most effective anti-poverty tools we’ve seen in American history”, Fischer said. But those provisions were only temporary, and once they vanished, vehicles lined up outside food banks while renters fell months behind on their bills.
      Then, when the US economy started to rebound, it did so through a “K-shaped” recovery, benefiting the rich and leaving behind almost everyone else. The stock market – where about 80% of wealth has historically been owned by the top 10% of households – continued to surge, and CEOs projected widespread confidence in the economy, despite many of them expecting to reduce their workforce and let wages stagnate.
      High earners also fared well, with the employment rate for those making over $60,000 eventually eclipsing what it had been near the beginning of 2020, according to not-for-profit organization Opportunity Insights. More

    • 188 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      How California went from a leader in the Covid fight to a state in despair

      by

      At the San Joaquin hospital in California’s Central Valley, nurses cover infectious Covid-19 patients with clear, tent-like barriers – or, when those aren’t available, white sheets – as they’re wheeled through the ICU.
      “It’s for everybody’s protection,” said Jessica Vasquez, an ICU nurse at the hospital – the sheets ensure that infection doesn’t spread to other patients and medical staff. But like so many of the protocols that the hospital has implemented since the coronavirus pandemic struck, it feels uncanny.
      It’s eerie, that these days, she barely talks to her patients – many of whom are too weak to speak. She remembers a man, who – not long before he died of the virus, suddenly grabbed her hand. “He just said, ‘Thank you, thank you.’” None of his loved ones could be there with him.
      “I’ve just felt so scared,” she said. “This virus can come, for any of us”
      When the virus first hit California, Vasquez was relieved to see the state implement a lockdown – it was the first American state to do so. Back in March, personal protective gear for medical staff was in short supply and hospitals were scrambling to understand the best practices to treat an illness they’d never encountered before, but at least, “people understood this was serious. They stayed inside, if they could – and California avoided the fate of New York and Louisiana.
      In that first phase of the pandemic, hospitals in the nation’s most populous state were strained, but they weren’t overwhelmed the way New York hospitals were. They didn’t have to acquire massive refrigerator trucks to serve as mobile morgues for the virus’ victims.
      Until now. Less than a fortnight before the Christmas holiday, California distributed 5,000 body bags to the hard-hit regions including Los Angeles, and readied 60 refrigerated trailers. As of Monday, the state has tallied more than 2.1m cases and counted more than 24,000 dead. The ICU capacity in southern California hit 0% by mid-December. Two people were dying of Covid-19 every hour in hard-hit Los Angeles county, where the public health director, Barbara Ferrer, fought back tears as she reported that thousands of “people who were beloved members of their families are not coming back”.
      Facing an increasingly dire situation, the state enacted a second lockdown, asking Californians to remain at home throughout the holidays to slow the spread of the virus. But nine months after the first shelter-in-place order, a pandemic-fatigued, frustrated public pushed back.
      They balked at leaders’ choice to allow retail shopping and entertainment production to remain open, while most schools were shuttered and families asked to keep away from loved ones. Rightwing protestors gathered outside the homes of public health officials, while progressives demanded that the government prioritize reopening schools over shopping malls. As politicians in Washington debated a second economic relief bill, restaurant owners fretted over whether their businesses could survive a second lockdown. Lines at coronavirus testing sites and food banks grew, as the pandemic devastated ranks of essential workers at farms, grocery stores, garment factories and warehouses. “After months and months, people are broken, and they’re tired,” said Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease specialist at UC San Francisco. “And they need support.”
      The year culminated in a deadly, damning indictment of California – its leaders inability to convincingly enact and enforce public health measures, its structural racism and inbuilt inequalities, its vicious political infighting and its inability to function as a “nation-state”, as governor Gavin Newsom likes to call it, in isolation of of a hostile federal government. More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Covid vaccines and $600 payments: key provisions in the US stimulus bill

      by

      Donald Trump signed the new Covid-19 stimulus package into law on Sunday night, suddenly giving into pressure from Congress after calling the legislation a “disgrace” days earlier.The $900bn emergency relief bill includes funds to help small businesses, health providers and schools, as well as individuals facing unemployment, eviction and food insecurity.Here is a look at a few of the key provisions in the more than 5,000-page package:Individual aidMost Americans can expect a $600 stimulus check from the government, half the amount distributed to individuals in the spring. The stimulus checks will be made available to adults with annual incomes up to $75,000, with smaller payments available to those who make more. There will also be $600 available per child. This round, families with mixed-immigration status will also qualify for the funds, after US citizens in such families were excluded from collecting the checks in the spring.Trump said he wanted to give Americans $2,000 stimulus checks, a move favored by Democrats. But Republican lawmakers are not expected to support it.Unemployment benefits will also include an extra $300 per week for at least 10 weeks. That is half the amount the government provided from March to August.Covid-19 vaccine and testingThere is $69bn included in the bill to aid Covid-19 vaccine distribution, contact tracing and testing. This includes $9bn to healthcare providers and $4.5bn to mental health services. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said last week that more than a million people in the US had received the first dose of the vaccine – 10 days after Covid-19 vaccine administration began in the country.Small business aidThe package extends the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which provided roughly $525bn in aid to more than five million businesses after it was enacted in the spring. Loans of up to $2m will be available to small, hard-hit businesses and $15bn of the funding is dedicated to live venues such as movie theaters and museums.PPP, which ended in August, was criticized for its complexity and loopholes and the $284bn extension attempts to address those issues. Congress members said they attempted to better target the funds after Black-owned businesses reported difficulties accessing the loans. Businesses have until 31 March to apply for the loans, but it is not clear when the application process will open.School fundingEducational institutions will get $82bn, with $54bn for public schools, which provide free education to children in kindergarten through high school. This is roughly four times more than what Congress provided to public schools in its spring economic relief package.State governments are facing budget deficits because of falling personal income tax and sales tax revenue, leaving public schools vulnerable. The promised funding still falls short of requests by public school groups, but president-elect Joe Biden has promised to direct more help to schools.The rest of the money will be directed to colleges and universities ($23bn), an education emergency relief fund ($4bn) and Native American schools ($1bn).Rental assistanceState and local governments will be able to distribute funds to people who may be facing eviction under a $25bn first-of-its-kind rental assistance program. The assistance can be used for rent, back rent, utilities and other related expenses.The bill also extends the federal eviction moratorium by a month. The moratorium is limited and has allowed evictions to continue in certain circumstances.Broadband infrastructureAt a time when millions of Americans are working from home, attending school and seeing their doctors online, Congress is providing $7bn to expand high-speed internet access. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) estimated that 21 million Americans lack high-speed internet access but other studies have estimated the number at close to 42 million.About half of the money will be used for a $50 per month broadband benefit to help cover internet bills for low-income families. Funds will also be used to help with broadband issues for communities near historically Black colleges and universities, the federal government’s telehealth program and rural broadband. More

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      US warned of possible coronavirus surge in wake of holiday travel

      by

      Public health experts are cautioning the US to brace for another Covid-19 surge following holiday travel, as the virus continues to spread unchecked throughout the country. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials said the agency had screened 1.28 million travelers at US airports nationwide on Sunday – marking the highest number of air travelers since mid-March, Reuters reported. While this is approximately 50% fewer passengers than the same day of 2019, Sunday marked the sixth day over the previous 10 days that saw more than one million people traveling through airports alone.“And the reason I’m concerned and my colleagues in public health are concerned also is that we very well might see a post-seasonal, in the sense of Christmas, New Year’s, surge, and, as I have described it, as a surge upon a surge, because, if you look at the slope, the incline of cases that we have experienced as we have gone into the late fall and soon-to-be-early winter, it is really quite troubling,” top US infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci said Sunday on CNN.“We are really at a very critical point.”There have been 19,145,982 cases in the US and 333,140 deaths, Johns Hopkins University’s most recent data indicate; Tennessee and California have become the new US centers, with 119.7 and 95.7 people infected per 100,000, respectively.New York City and state, which got coronavirus under control after a deadly spring, has also seen an uptick in cases. On Sunday, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a 7.07% positivity rate for the city’s seven-day average.Some estimates predict that US deaths could total 500,000 by spring.US officials are also closely monitoring a coronavirus mutation detected in parts of the UK. While they say that the strain is no more likely to result in serious illness – nor more likely to resist vaccines – it appears to be more contagious.Starting Monday, travelers entering America from the UK must show a negative Covid-19 test within three days of their flight following a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention mandate last week, AP noted.Health officials in Los Angeles said they are testing for the new mutation as COVID-19 cases continue to rise in California. “I wouldn’t be surprised that it’s already here,” Dr.Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease professor at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, told ABC-7 News.Meanwhile, the vaccine rollout – which has already seen setbacks and controversies – is not expected to happen widely for several months, making near-term relief seem all the more uncertain. While the US goal under Operation Warp Speed was expected to provide vaccine doses to 20 million by year’s end, only around 1.9 million people have received a jab, per CNBC and KVIA.Allegations of fraudulent vaccine distribution have already emerged. New York state authorities have announced a criminal probe into one healthcare provider, alleging that it “may have fraudulently obtained Covid-19 vaccine, transferred it to facilities in other parts of the state in violation of state guidelines and diverted it to members of the public,” according to the New York Post.President-elect Joe Biden has also warned that the US pandemic is poised to get far worse before it gets better.“One thing I promise you about my leadership during this crisis: I’m going to tell it to you straight. I’m going to tell you the truth. And here’s the simple truth: our darkest days in the battle against Covid are ahead of us, not behind us,” Biden recently said. More

    • 100 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Donald Trump signs Covid-19 relief and spending bill

      by

      Donald Trump has abruptly signed a $900 billion Covid-19 relief and spending bill, ending days of drama over his refusal to accept the bipartisan deal that will deliver long-sought cash to businesses and individuals and avert a federal government shutdown.Without the legislation, the government would have shut down on Tuesday and millions of Americans would have lost eviction protections and unemployment benefits. His delay in signing the bill has already allowed crucial unemployment aid programs to lapse.Trump blindsided members of both parties and upended months of negotiations when he demanded last week that the package – already passed by the House and Senate by large margins and believed to have Trump’s support – be revised to include larger relief checks and scaled-back spending.But on Sunday night, while vacationing in Florida, Trump released a statement saying he had signed the bill, and it was his “responsibility to protect the people of our country from the economic devastation and hardship” caused by the coronavirus.Signing the bill into law prevents another crisis of Trump’s own creation and ends a standoff with his own party during the final days of his administration. It was unclear what, if anything, Trump accomplished with his delay, beyond angering all sides and empowering Democrats to continue their push for higher relief checks, which his own party opposes.Trump had received the bill last Thursday and his decision to delay signing it allowed unemployment benefits for millions of Americans to expire. The lapsed benefits will not restart until the first week of January.In the statement, Trump said he would still send a “redlined” version of the bill to Congress highlighting changes he wanted to the legislation. There is no indication Congress plans to act on these changes, in part because Trump’s presidency ends in a few weeks.Trump ended the statement by saying “much more money is coming,” although he provided nothing to back this promise.Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell welcomed Trump’s signing of the bill. “I am glad the American people will receive this much-needed assistance as our nation continues battling this pandemic,” the Kentucky Republican said.Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it was a “downpayment on what is needed” adding: “Now, the president must immediately call on congressional Republicans to end their obstruction and to join him and Democrats in support of our stand-alone legislation to increase direct payment checks to $2,000.”Democratic lawmakers, who have a majority in the House of Representatives and have long wanted $2,000 relief checks, hope to use a rare point of agreement with Trump to advance the proposal – or at least put Republicans on record against it – in a vote on Monday afternoon.It was not immediately clear why Trump changed his mind as his resistance to the massive legislative package promised a chaotic final stretch of his presidency.White House officials have been tight-lipped about Trump’s thinking but a source familiar with the situation cited by Reuters said that some advisers had urged him to relent because they did not see the point of refusing.Republican officials were relieved that Trump had backed away from his veiled veto threat, saying it should help Republican Senate candidates David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in the Georgia runoff elections on 5 January that will determine control of the Senate.Republican representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois said too much was at stake for Trump to “play this old switcheroo game”.“I don’t get the point,” he said. “I don’t understand what’s being done, why, unless it’s just to create chaos and show power and be upset because you lost the election.”Washington had been reeling since Trump turned on the deal, without warning, after it had won sweeping approval in both houses of Congress and after the White House had assured Republican leaders that Trump would support it.The bill laid unsigned on his desk since Christmas Day as the president, who was mostly silent through weeks of intense negotiations, spent the weekend at the Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach.Instead, he assailed the bill’s plan to provide $600 Covid-19 relief checks to most Americans – insisting it should be $2,000 – and took issue with spending included in an attached $1.4 trillion government funding bill to keep the federal government operating through September.And already, his opposition has had consequences, as two federal programs providing unemployment aid expired on Saturday.Lauren Bauer of the Brookings Institution had calculated that at least 11 million people would lose aid immediately as a result of Trump’s failure to sign the legislation; millions more would exhaust other unemployment benefits within weeks.How and when people are affected by the lapse depends on the state they live in, the program they are relying on and when they applied for benefits.In some states, people on regular unemployment insurance will continue to receive payments under a program that extends benefits when the jobless rate surpassed a certain threshold, said Andrew Stettner, an unemployment insurance expert and senior fellow at the Century Foundation think tank.About 9.5 million people, however, had been relying on the pandemic unemployment assistance program that expired altogether Saturday. That program made unemployment insurance available to freelancers, gig workers and others normally not eligible. After receiving their last checks, those recipients will not be able to file for more aid, Stettner said.Joe Biden, who won November’s presidential election and who will be sworn in as Trump’s successor on 20 January, accused him of an “abdication of responsibility” in a statement on Saturday.The relief bill wrangles come as the coronavirus pandemic continues to worsen in the US, with medical experts joining Biden in predicting that the darkest days lay ahead.“We very well might see a post-seasonal, in the sense of Christmas, New Year, surge,” Dr Anthony Fauci, the US head of infectious diseases, told CNN on Sunday. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Millions lose benefits as Trump refuses to sign Covid relief package

      by

      Millions of Americans battling the financial hardships of the coronavirus pandemic lost their unemployment benefits on Sunday as Donald Trump continued to refuse to sign a relief package agreed in Congress and headed instead to the golf course.The president’s belligerence over the bipartisan Covid relief and spending bill, that would have extended the benefits and given direct cash payments to most American families, drew the ire of senior Republicans, who accused Trump of inflicting more misery on citizens.“He should have weighed in eight months ago,” Larry Hogan, the governor of Maryland, said on CNN’s State of the Union in response to Trump’s claim that he would only sign if the relief package included $2,000 in direct payments instead of the $600 agreed.“The paycheck protection plan ran out in July. Tomorrow, unemployment benefits run out. So sign the bill, get it done. And then, if the president wants to push for more, let’s get that done too.”In a later appearance on ABC’s This Week, Hogan asserted: “Millions of Americans are going to suffer.”Trump, who is spending the Christmas and New Year holiday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, raised objections to the $900bn relief bill only after it was passed by Congress last week, having been negotiated by his own treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin.The bill has lain unsigned on his desk since Christmas Day as the president, who was mostly silent through weeks of intense negotiations, spent the weekend at the Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach.In a tweet criticizing the bill, Trump claimed, without clarification, that it was stuffed with “billions of dollars in pork”.Meanwhile Joe Biden, who won November’s presidential election and who will be sworn in as Trump’s successor on 20 January, accused him of an “abdication of responsibility” in a statement on Saturday.Democrats in the House of Representatives will try again on Monday to break the impasse by voting to increase the amount of the direct payments, a move thwarted once already by House Republicans on Christmas Eve.“On Monday we will hold a recorded vote on our stand-alone bill to increase economic impact payments to $2,000,” Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House speaker, said in a statement after the first attempt failed.“To vote against this bill is to deny the financial hardship that families face and to deny them the relief they need.”As well as denying help to long suffering Americans, Trump’s refusal to sign the package also holds up a connected $1.4tn funding bill, which could result in a US government shutdown as early as Tuesday, in the midst of a deadly pandemic that has killed more than 332,000 in the US.Financial experts say the burden on American families will worsen. Lauren Bauer, a fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, has calculated that 11 million people will lose aid immediately from the expiration of two unemployment programs, and millions more will exhaust other unemployment benefits within weeks.Andrew Stettner, an unemployment insurance expert and senior fellow at the Century Foundation think tank, said the number may be closer to 14 million because joblessness has spiked since late November.“All these folks and their families will suffer if Trump doesn’t sign the damn bill,” Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, said in a tweet.About 9.5 million people have been relying on the pandemic unemployment assistance program that expired Sunday. That program made unemployment insurance available to freelancers, gig workers and others who were normally not eligible.Even if Trump relents, the expiration of the programs will cause delays in processing retrospective payments, adding to the financial burden for many.Hogan, on ABC’s This Week, predicted that more Republicans were willing to stand up to Trump over the relief bill, aware that the end of his administration and Biden’s inauguration was only 24 days away.“I think more and more are, and will,” he said. “It’s going to be a lot different after 20 January when he’s not in the position to exert such influence as he does now.”The relief bill wrangles come as the coronavirus pandemic continues to worsen in the US, with medical experts joining Biden in predicting that the darkest days lay ahead.“We very well might see a post-seasonal, in the sense of Christmas, New Year, surge,” Dr Anthony Fauci, the US head of infectious diseases, told CNN on Sunday.“When you’re dealing with a baseline of 200,000 new cases a day and about 2,000 deaths per day, with the hospitalizations over 120,000, we’re really at a very critical point. You see people at airports crowded in lines, trying to stay physically separated, but it’s so difficult to do that.“And that generally is followed, when people get to the destination they want to be, that you’re going to have mixing of household people at a dinner or at a social function. As much as we advise against it, nonetheless it happens.”Associated Press contributed to this report More