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Bipartisan group pitches $908bn Covid-19 relief to break deadlock in Congress
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A bipartisan group of US lawmakers on Tuesday unveiled a $908bn Covid-19 relief bill aimed at breaking a months-long deadlock between Democrats and Republicans over new emergency assistance for small businesses, unemployed people, airlines and other industries.
The measure has not been written into legislation. Nor has it been embraced by the Trump administration, President-elect Joe Biden or leaders in the Senate or House of Representatives, all of whom would be needed for passage.
But it comes with the backing of a group of conservatives and moderates who claim it will appeal to a broad swath of Congress. Economists and senior government figures, including the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, have warned the US economy is at risk unless Congress acts.
Lawmakers are hoping to wrap up their work for the year by mid-December but they still have a massive government-funding bill to approve or else risk agency shutdowns starting on 12 December. If the bipartisan coronavirus aid bill gains traction, it could either be attached to the spending bill or advance on a separate track.
“It would be stupidity on steroids if Congress left for Christmas without doing an interim package,” said Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat.
Earlier this year, more than $3tn in coronavirus aid was enacted, which included economic stimulus measures and money for medical supplies. But since then negotiations about more aid have stalled in Congress.
On Tuesday Powell told Congress that the outlook for the US economy was “extraordinarily uncertain” as the rise in Covid-19 cases continues to take an economic toll on the country. The latest monthly jobs report, released on Friday, is expected to show that the pace of recovery in the jobs market is continuing to slow.
The plan was unveiled at a Capitol Hill news conference, amid a surge in coronavirus cases, with significant increases in deaths and hospital resources at a breaking point.
The Republican senator Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, urged quick action on the bipartisan plan as she ticked off business closures mushrooming in her state “during a pretty dark and cold time of year”, with many suffering job losses and “food insecurity”.
The proposal would provide emergency aid through 31 March, including $228bn in paycheck protection program funds for hotels, restaurants and other small businesses. State and local governments would receive direct aid, the lawmakers said.
The Ohio governor, Mike DeWine, a Republican, appealed for help from Congress, noting in an interview on CBS that his state has more than 5,000 coronavirus patients in hospitals and not enough money to distribute the much-awaited Covid vaccines that are expected to be available beginning this winter.
US airlines would receive $17bn for four months of payroll support as part of $45bn for the transportation sector that also includes airports, buses and Amtrak passenger rail, according to two people familiar with the plan.
Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, a Republican, said the bill contained $560bn in “repurposed” funding from the Cares Act enacted in March, with the remaining $348bn in new money.
The measure includes provisions Republicans have been pressing for, including liability protections for businesses and schools. But it is far more expensive than the $500bn that the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, has been advocating.
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and her fellow Democrats would win a central demand with the aid to state and local governments, which face layoffs of frontline workers.
A compromise $300 a week for four months in additional unemployment benefits is in the package, according to the lawmakers. Democrats had been seeking $600.
Separately, a group of Democratic senators introduced legislation on Tuesday that would extend until October 2021 the $600 a week in jobless benefits for workers who lost their jobs due to Covid-19.
While it is significantly below the $2.2tn Pelosi sought in her last offer to the White House before the 3 November elections, the $908bn is for a relatively short period, potentially opening the door to additional requests for money once the Biden administration is in place.
Pelosi and the treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, were expected to discuss coronavirus aid and the must-pass government funding bill later on Tuesday. More - in US Politics
Scott Atlas resigns as Trump pandemic adviser after controversial tenure
Scott Atlas has resigned as special adviser to Donald Trump, a White House official said on Monday, after a controversial four months during which he attacked science-based public health measures and clashed repeatedly with other members of the coronavirus taskforce.“I am writing to resign from my position as Special Advisor to the President of the United States,” Atlas said in a letter to Trump dated 1 December, according to Fox News, which first reported his resignation. Atlas later confirmed his resignation in a tweet.Atlas is a neuroradiologist and fellow at Stanford’s rightwing Hoover Institution, where he works on healthcare policy. He has no expertise or experience in infectious diseases or epidemiology, yet was nevertheless selected by Trump to advise the president on the pandemic.Atlas joined the White House this summer, where he clashed with top government scientists, including Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr Deborah Birx, as he resisted stronger efforts to contain the pandemic.Atlas attacked public health measures such as masks, stay-at-home orders and social distancing. He called on residents of Michigan to “rise up” against restrictions put in place by Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who had been the target of a kidnapping plot, leading to calls for his firing.Atlas repeatedly downplayed the threat of the virus, which has killed more than 265,000 Americans.He also promoted the idea that the US should aim to achieve “herd immunity”, a so-called strategy that would probably result in millions of deaths, and was repeatedly rebuked by public health and infectious disease experts, in addition to Stanford University and the Stanford faculty senate.His views also prompted Stanford to issue a statement distancing itself from the faculty member, saying Atlas “has expressed views that are inconsistent with the university’s approach in response to the pandemic”.“We support using masks, social distancing, and conducting surveillance and diagnostic testing,” the university said on 16 November. “We also believe in the importance of strictly following the guidance of local and state health authorities.”Atlas has been sharply criticized by public health experts, including Fauci, the leading US infectious disease expert, for providing Trump with misleading or incorrect information on the virus pandemic. He has downplayed the importance of face masks and this month said lockdowns had been “an epic failure” in stopping the virus’s spread.Atlas defended his role in his resignation letter, saying, “I cannot think of a time where safeguarding science and the scientific debate is more urgent.”The resignation comes as the country faces a deadly surge in coronavirus cases and record-high hospitalisations. The US is currently reporting more than 100,000 new coronavirus cases a day.Dr Celine Grounder, a member of Biden’s advisory panel on the crisis, greeted the news of the resignation with relief.“I’m relieved that in the future, people who are qualified, people who are infectious disease specialists and epidemiologists like me will be helping to lead this effort,” she told CNBC.“You wouldn’t go to a podiatrist for a heart attack and that was essentially what was happening.”Atlas was hired as a “special government employee”, which limited his service to government to 130 days in a calendar year, a deadline he reached this week. More
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Congress races to avoid government shutdown amid pandemic as funding expires
The US Congress on Monday began a two-week sprint to rescue the federal government from a possible shutdown amid the coronavirus pandemic, the first major test since the election of whether Republicans and Democrats intend to cooperate.Government funding for nearly all federal agencies expires on Saturday 11 December.Congressional negotiators have made progress on how to divvy up around $1.4tn to be spent by 30 September 2021, the end of the current fiscal year, according to a House of Representatives Democratic aide.But more granular details are still unresolved and votes by the full House and Senate on a huge funding bill may come close to bumping up against that 11 December deadline.Still unclear is whether Donald Trump, who was defeated in the 3 November election, will cooperate with the effort.If the post-election “lame duck” session of Congress fails to produce a budget deal, the new Congress convening in January would have to clean up the mess just weeks before the inauguration of Joe Biden.Trump has already warned that he would veto a wide-ranging defense authorization bill Congress aims to pass if a provision is included stripping Confederate leaders’ names from military bases.Failure by the Democratic-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate to pass a spending bill could have dire consequences. Some healthcare operations could be short-staffed or otherwise interrupted at a time when Covid-19 cases in the US have been surging. Nearly 267,000 people have died in the US as a result of the virus.The spending bill could be the vehicle for providing billions of dollars to state and local governments to help them handle coronavirus vaccines on track to be available in coming weeks and months.Beyond pandemic worries, if government funds were allowed to run out next month, airport operations could slow, national parks would close, some medical research would be put on hold and thousands of other programs would be jeopardized as government workers are furloughed, further hurting the struggling US economy.Washington suffered record-long partial shutdowns between 22 December 2018 and 25 January 2019, the result of a standoff between Democrats and Trump over funding the US-Mexico border wall that was a centerpiece of his presidency.This time around, Republicans are seeking $2bn for the southern barrier that most Democrats and some Republican lawmakers claim is an ineffective remedy to halting illegal immigration.Negotiators also have been battling over the amount of money Republicans want for immigrant detention beds.Disagreements over abortion and family planning, education and environment programs also have been simmering. If they cannot be resolved by 11 December, agency shutdowns could be avoided only by Congress passing a stopgap funding bill.Also hovering over the budget debate will be warnings that emergency funds must be allocated in separate coronavirus aid legislation following months of deadlock.Democrats’ most recent offer was a wide-ranging $2.2tn bill to help state and local governments deal with the health and economic crisis, expand Covid-19 testing and supplies, and renew federal direct payments to individuals and families during the pandemic.Their goal is to provide a significant shot of stimulus to an economy that many experts fear could take a second dive in coming months if the pandemic shuts down more businesses.Republicans have deemed that proposal exorbitant and have been sticking with calls for a scaled-down $500bn menu of initiatives.So far there have been no signs of serious negotiations, leaving many to believe a stimulus bill will be the first order of business in Biden’s presidency, which begins on 20 January. More
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It's only fake-believe: how to deal with a conspiracy theorist
Unless you’ve been on a silent retreat for the past year, you will have almost certainly heard the rumours – that the pandemic is an elaborate hoax, or that the virus was created as a Chinese weapon, or that dangerous elites are trying to kill off the elderly and to establish a new world order, or that the symptoms are caused by 5G.It is troubling enough to see these ideas on social media. But when you are hearing them from your family, your friends, or a casual acquaintance, it is even harder to know how to respond. You are going to struggle to convince the most committed believers, of course, but what about people who are only flirting with the ideas?These difficult conversations are only set to increase now that a new vaccine is on the horizon. Certain niches of internet are already rife with the “plandemic” theory, which alleges that the spread of the virus has been designed to create big bucks for pharmaceutical companies and the philanthropist Bill Gates (whose charity is funding many of the efforts). The idea has been debunked numerous times, whereas there is good evidence that conspiracy theorists such as David Icke are themselves reaping huge profits from spreading misinformation. The danger, of course, is that their ideas will discourage people from taking the vaccine, leaving them vulnerable to the actual disease. More
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US Covid cases, hospitalisations and deaths rise amid Thanksgiving rush
The US reported 181,490 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, a third daily rise in a row, as hospitalisations hit a record for a 16th day in succession, at 89,959.
There were 2,297 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University, the largest single-day rise since May, bringing the pandemic toll to 262,065 out of nearly 12.8m cases. The death rate is still lower than in the spring.
The alarming numbers were reported as millions of Americans defied official advice against travel and gatherings for Thanksgiving.
In an address to the nation on Wednesday, Joe Biden appealed for resilience and sympathised with those contemplating a holiday without loved ones.
“I know this time of year can be especially difficult,” said the president-elect, whose wife and daughter were killed in a car crash in December 1972. “Believe me, I know. I remember that first Thanksgiving. The empty chair, silence that takes your breath away. It’s really hard to care. It’s hard to give thanks … It’s so hard to hope, to understand.
“I’ll be thinking and praying for each and every one of you this Thanksgiving.”
Biden’s transition team were unable to coordinate with federal authorities for two weeks after the election was called, as Donald Trump refused to concede. The president still has not taken that step, but has allowed transition funds to be released.
Biden heralded the approach of apparently effective vaccines. The US was “on track for the first immunisations to begin by late December, early January”, he said.
“We’ll need to put in place a distribution plan to get the entire country immunised as soon as possible, which we will do. It’s going to take time. And hopefully the news of the vaccine will serve as incentive to every American to take simple steps to get control of the virus.”
Biden listed such steps, including wearing a mask, social distancing and more, which the Trump administration has been loath to seek to enforce, even at its own events. Trump, members of his family, aides and senior Republicans have fallen sick.
“There’s real hope,” Biden insisted. “Tangible hope.”
Later, in Washington, the newly 6-3 conservative supreme court sided with religious communities who sued to block New York state Covid restrictions on attendance at houses of worship. Amy Coney Barrett, the devout Catholic justice who replaced Ruth Bader Ginsburg last month, sided with other conservatives on the ruling.
Avi Schick, an attorney for Agudath Israel of America, told the Associated Press: “This is an historic victory. This landmark decision will ensure that religious practices and religious institutions will be protected from government edicts that do not treat religion with the respect demanded by the constitution.”
On Wednesday, New York saw more than 6,000 daily Covid cases for the first time since late April. Pennsylvania recorded more than 7,000 cases, its second-highest total since the pandemic began. Massachusetts and Nevada saw record case numbers.
In Wyoming, the Republican governor, Mark Gordon, has opposed a mask mandate. On Wednesday, it was announced that he had tested positive.
US airports saw around 900,000 to 1 million people a day pass through checkpoints from Friday to Tuesday, down around 60% from last year but some of the biggest crowds seen since the pandemic took hold. Typically, more Americans drive for Thanksgiving than fly.
Officials – among them New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo – have been forced to cancel their own Thanksgiving plans in order to set an example. One who did not, Denver’s mayor, Michael Hancock, issued an apology on Wednesday.
Having asked city staff and residents to avoid holiday travel, Hancock flew to Mississippi to spend the holiday with his wife and youngest daughter.
“I made my decision as a husband and father,” he said, “and for those who are angry and disappointed, I humbly ask you to forgive decisions that are born of my heart and not my head.” More
