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      The Business Rules the Trump Administration Is Racing to Finish

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Jobs CrisisCurrent Unemployment RateThe First Six MonthsPermanent LayoffsWhen a $600 Lifeline EndedAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Business Rules the Trump Administration Is Racing to FinishFrom tariffs and trade to the status of Uber drivers, regulators are trying to install new rules or reduce regulations before President-elect Joe Biden takes over.President Trump is rushing to put into effect new economic regulations and executive orders before his term comes to a close.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesJan. 11, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ETIn the remaining days of his administration, President Trump is rushing to put into effect a raft of new regulations and executive orders that are intended to put his stamp on business, trade and the economy.Previous presidents in their final term have used the period between the election and the inauguration to take last-minute actions to extend and seal their agendas. Some of the changes are clearly aimed at making it harder, at least for a time, for the next administration to pursue its goals.Of course, President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. could issue new executive orders to overturn Mr. Trump’s. And Democrats in Congress, who will control the House and the Senate, could use the Congressional Review Act to quickly reverse regulatory actions from as far back as late August.Here are some of the things that Mr. Trump and his appointees have done or are trying to do before Mr. Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20. — Peter EavisProhibiting Chinese apps and other products. Mr. Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday banning transactions with eight Chinese software applications, including Alipay. It was the latest escalation of the president’s economic war with China. Details and the start of the ban will fall to Mr. Biden, who could decide not to follow through on the idea. Separately, the Trump administration has also banned the import of some cotton from the Xinjiang region, where China has detained vast numbers of people who are members of ethnic minorities and forced them to work in fields and factories. In another move, the administration prohibited several Chinese companies, including the chip maker SMIC and the drone maker DJI, from buying American products. The administration is weighing further restrictions on China in its final days, including adding Alibaba and Tencent to a list of companies with ties to the Chinese military, a designation that would prevent Americans from investing in those businesses. — Ana SwansonDefining gig workers as contractors. The Labor Department on Wednesday released the final version of a rule that could classify millions of workers in industries like construction, cleaning and the gig economy as contractors rather than employees, another step toward endorsing the business practices of companies like Uber and Lyft. — Noam ScheiberTrimming social media’s legal shield. The Trump administration recently filed a petition asking the Federal Communications Commission to narrow its interpretation of a powerful legal shield for social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube. If the commission doesn’t act before Inauguration Day, the matter will land in the desk of whomever Mr. Biden picks to lead the agency. — David McCabeTaking the tech giants to court. The Federal Trade Commission filed an antitrust suit against Facebook in December, two months after the Justice Department sued Google. Mr. Biden’s appointees will have to decide how best to move forward with the cases. — David McCabeAdding new cryptocurrency disclosure requirements. The Treasury Department late last month proposed new reporting requirements that it said were intended to prevent money laundering for certain cryptocurrency transactions. It gave only 15 days — over the holidays — for public comment. Lawmakers and digital currency enthusiasts wrote to the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, to protest and won a short extension. But opponents of the proposed rule say the process and substance are flawed, arguing that the requirement would hinder innovation, and are likely to challenge it in court. — Ephrat LivniLimiting banks on social and environmental issues. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is rushing a proposed rule that would ban banks from not lending to certain kinds of businesses, like those in the fossil fuel industry, on environmental or social grounds. The regulator unveiled the proposal on Nov. 20 and limited the time it would accept comments to six weeks despite the interruptions of the holidays. — Emily FlitterOverhauling rules on banks and underserved communities. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is also proposing new guidelines on how banks can measure their activities to get credit for fulfilling their obligations under the Community Reinvestment Act, an anti-redlining law that forces them to do business in poor and minority communities. The agency rewrote some of the rules in May, but other regulators — the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation — did not sign on. — Emily FlitterInsuring “hot money” deposits. On Dec. 15, the F.D.I.C. expanded the eligibility of brokered deposits for insurance coverage. These deposits are infusions of cash into a bank in exchange for a high interest rate, but are known as “hot money” because the clients can move the deposits from bank to bank for higher returns. Critics say the change could put the insurance fund at risk. F.D.I.C. officials said the new rule was needed to “modernize” the brokered deposits system. — Emily FlitterNarrowing regulatory authority over airlines. The Department of Transportation in December authorized a rule, sought by airlines and travel agents, that limits the department’s authority over the industry by defining what constitutes an unfair and deceptive practice. Consumer groups widely opposed the rule. Airlines argued that the rule would limit regulatory overreach. And the department said the definitions it used were in line with its past practice. — Niraj ChokshiRolling back a light bulb rule. The Department of Energy has moved to block a rule that would phase out incandescent light bulbs, which people and businesses have increasingly been replacing with much more efficient LED and compact fluorescent bulbs. The energy secretary, Dan Brouillette, a former auto industry lobbyist, said in December that the Trump administration did not want to limit consumer choice. The rule had been slated to go into effect on Jan. 1 and was required by a law passed in 2007. — Ivan PennAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      China Exerts a Heavier Hand in Hong Kong With Mass Arrests

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storynews analysisWith Mass Arrests, Beijing Exerts an Increasingly Heavy Hand in Hong KongThe central Chinese government, which once wielded its power over Hong Kong with a degree of discretion, has signaled its determination to openly impose its will on the city.Police officers escorting Andrew Wan, a pro-democracy politician who recently resigned from Hong Kong’s legislature, after his arrest along with more than 50 others on Wednesday.Credit…Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesVivian Wang, Austin Ramzy and Jan. 6, 2021Updated 9:54 a.m. ETHONG KONG — They descended before dawn, 1,000 police officers fanning out across Hong Kong to the homes and offices of opposition lawmakers, activists and lawyers. They whisked many off in police cars, often without telling relatives or friends where they were being taken.Within a few hours on Wednesday, the Hong Kong police had arrested 53 people, searched 76 places and frozen $200,000 of assets in connection with an informal primary for the pro-democracy camp — all under the auspices of Beijing’s new national security law. In one swoop, the authorities rounded up not only some of the most aggressive critics of the Hong Kong government but also little-known figures who had campaigned on far less political issues, in one of the most forceful shows of power in the Chinese Communist Party’s continuing crackdown on the city.The message was clear: Beijing is in charge.The mass arrests signaled that the central Chinese government, which once wielded its power over Hong Kong with a degree of discretion, is increasingly determined to openly impose its will on the city. In the months since the law took effect, Beijing and the Beijing-backed Hong Kong leadership have moved quickly to stamp out even the smallest hint of opposition in the Chinese territory, where the streets once surged with huge pro-democracy protests.The security law, which was enacted in June, has been the most visible tool of the crackdown. With the seeming blessing of Beijing, the Hong Kong authorities have been given the power to interpret the law as they see fit, taking advantage of vague parameters that criminalize anything the government considers to be acts of terrorism, secession, subversion or collusion with foreign powers.The informal primary last July, for example, had little political import, since the Hong Kong government ultimately postponed the election. Even so, it provoked a coordinated show of official force on Wednesday that more than doubled the number of people ensnared under the law. And Hong Kong rounded them up while its most vocal critics, the United States and Britain, were distracted by their own political and health crises.Campaign flags during an informal primary election in July for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy legislative candidates.Credit…Isaac Lawrence/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“The difference of the national security law from every other piece of legislation is that the national security law will not wait until the worst has happened,” said Ronny Tong, a member of the cabinet that advises Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive. “Every single piece of national security law is aimed at preventing the occurrence of the worst.”The Hong Kong government itself was more direct. In a statement Wednesday evening, the government said it would “take resolute enforcement action to achieve a deterrent effect.”In a matter of months, Beijing has also upended the rules that have governed Hong Kong since the former British colony returned to Chinese control in 1997. The Chinese government bypassed Hong Kong courts in November and issued its own decision to order the removal of four opposition lawmakers. By doing so, it circumvented Hong Kong’s local constitution, which limits the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislative body, to making amendments or interpretations, legal scholars said.The move all but obliterated the pro-democracy bloc of the city’s legislature. After the ouster, the 15 remaining opposition lawmakers resigned in protest, leaving an entirely Beijing-friendly group of lawmakers.Beijing is reaching into nearly every sector of society. In recent months, the Hong Kong government has ordered civil servants to take oaths of office that emphasize the city is a part of China. Pro-Beijing politicians have called for reforms to the city’s independent judiciary, raising fears that it could become like the party-controlled courts in the mainland. Officials have also promised to redesign school curriculums to ensure that students are being taught “patriotism” and a sense of Chinese national identity.People lining up to vote in the primary. More than 600,000 Hong Kongers participated.Credit…Vincent Yu/Associated PressFor many democracy supporters, the question is not whether Beijing will assert itself again, but when.“We cannot fantasize that, as long as we listen to the Chinese Communist Party, as long as we stop protesting in the streets, the party will let go of us,” said Li Chi-wang, a district councilor.Many worry that Beijing will move next against the district councilors, a hyperlocal elected position, after the opposition’s landslide victory in 2019. Any mass disqualifications could leave the pro-democracy camp without a single foothold in elected office in Hong Kong.The government has already announced plans to reform a mandatory high school civics course, known as liberal studies, that pro-Beijing figures have accused of radicalizing Hong Kong’s youth. University professors have described a chill on their campuses, as administrators try to prevent any national security violations. The legal scholar Benny Tai, who was arrested on Wednesday, was fired by the University of Hong Kong last year in relation to antigovernment protests in 2014.Of special concern is the judiciary, considered one of the few remaining bulwarks against Beijing’s influence. In recent months, pro-Beijing newspapers have issued front-page denunciations of judges deemed overly lenient on protesters. A Chinese legal scholar called for the trial of Jimmy Lai, the pro-democracy media tycoon who was arrested in August on national security charges, to be transferred to the mainland.Jimmy Lai, a pro-democracy media tycoon, at his Hong Kong home in August, days after his arrest on national security charges.Credit…Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesThe primary election, which drew more than 600,000 voters, was another red line. Hong Kong officials had said that holding the election could amount to subversion, citing opposition figures’ statements that, if elected, they would seek to use a majority in the legislature to block government proposals.In particular, many candidates had said that they would seek to utilize a provision in Hong Kong law that forces the city’s chief executive to step down if legislators veto a proposed budget twice.Establishment leaders suggested the opposition was foolish to challenge Beijing by seeking to paralyze the government.“Last July both the central government and the Hong Kong government had warned these people,” said Lau Siu-kai, a former Hong Kong government official who is now a senior adviser to Beijing.Still, many critics of the government were left reeling by the arrests, not only because of their scale, but also because — as many pointed out — the supposed offense was authorized in Hong Kong’s own law.Legislators are “granted the right to disapprove budgets introduced by the government,” Civil Human Rights Front, a pro-democracy group, said. “Through the primary election, the candidates only exercised their rights to debate their political stance, and the electors had the freedom to elect those who are in their favor.”But Mr. Tong, the cabinet member, said that those rights could not infringe on national security. “On the face of it,” he said, it is the right of lawmakers to veto legislation, “but if you think more about it, it is not.”The willful vetoing of proposals without really considering them would amount to a breach of lawmakers’ duties, he added.Officials have indicated that their work is far from finished. A senior police superintendent told reporters on Wednesday that officers might make more arrests in connection with the primary election. The Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government, Beijing’s official arm in Hong Kong, called for vigorous enforcement of the law.“Only when Hong Kong’s national security law is fully and accurately implemented, and firmly and strictly enforced, can national security, Hong Kong’s social stability and public peace be effectively guaranteed,” the office said in a statement.Perhaps the clearest sign of Beijing’s desire to flex its power was in whom the authorities chose to arrest.Until Wednesday, those arrested under the national security law had largely been prominent activists, or people openly demonstrating against the government, such as a man who collided into police officers on a motorcycle while at a rally, or students who the police said had shouted pro-independence slogans.But the latest arrests showed that the authorities were willing to punish any participation in pro-democracy activities, however mild or low profile.Jeffrey Andrews, a social worker of Indian descent who was born and raised in Hong Kong, was known more for his work helping members of ethnic minority groups than for fiery slogans. Mr. Andrews ran in the primary and finished last in his race.Lee Chi-yung also placed last in his region. While his opponents in the primary had emphasized their antigovernment bona fides, Mr. Lee’s campaign was devoted to a different issue: promoting accessibility in Hong Kong, in memory of his late daughter, who had used a wheelchair all her life.“When Hong Kongers tried to express their views, whether through district council elections or primaries, the government chose not to listen,” Lo Kin-hei, the chairman of the Democratic Party, said in a news conference. “Instead, they took revenge.”“If even a primary election can be twisted into something that can endanger national security, then this country’s national security is very fragile indeed,” he added.A billboard promoting China’s national security law in Hong Kong in June.Credit…Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The Electoral College Isn’t Supposed to Work This Way

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Electoral College Isn’t Supposed to Work This WayThe 1887 Electoral Count Act is a clear and present danger to democracy.Trevor Potter and Mr. Potter is a former commissioner and chairman of the Federal Election Commission, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, and the founder and president of the Campaign Legal Center. Mr. Fried was the solicitor general under President Ronald Reagan and serves on the board of the Campaign Legal Center.Jan. 6, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETRep. Louie Gohmert with members of the House Freedom Caucus in December.Credit…Al Drago for The New York TimesThe 2020 presidential election has been a disaster for people who think the Electoral College is still a good idea. Joe Biden’s clear victory has been followed by attempts by the incumbent president to induce Republican legislators and other elected Republican officials in five states he lost to ignore the certified vote counts in their states and substitute their partisan preferences for the voters’ decision. Now Congress will formally receive the electoral votes, after a series of attempts to subvert the democratic process, all made possible by the Electoral College.An early salvo was a suit filed in the U.S. Supreme Court by the State of Texas and supported by 126 Republican House members and 18 Republican attorneys general asking the court to throw out the electors chosen by those same five states because Texas said it did not like the way they conducted their elections.Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas filed suit asking the courts to declare that Vice President Mike Pence has the legal right to pick the next president himself under the 12th Amendment — by ignoring the electoral votes for Mr. Biden cast by those five states. Instead, the Gohmert suit asks Mr. Pence to replace them with “votes” cast by the losing Trump elector slates in those states.In response to public pleas from President Trump, Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri has announced that he will join Republican members of the House in objecting to the votes of some states cast for Mr. Biden, thereby requiring separate votes by the House and Senate on those electors. This, in theory, could result in a deadlock that could be broken by the House voting — with one vote for each state delegation — for president, resulting in the election of Donald Trump to a second term after losing in both the popular vote and the Electoral College. The fact that Democrats hold a majority in the House makes this outcome unlikely, of course, but it is a viable gambit for future elections.When the Electoral College was created, many conceived the United States as a confederation of “sovereign states.” And only a small percentage of the adult population could vote at all — property-owning white males in many states — and senators and the president were not elected by popular vote. Today the country is one of the longest-lasting democracies in the world, with almost all adult citizens entitled to vote for the president and members of Congress — our Constitution and body politic are not what they were in 1787.The presidential election is really 51 elections, each conducted and certified by its jurisdiction. Those who support the continued use of the Electoral College system say that the states “speak” to one another through it and so it performs a vital role in promoting national unity and the constitutional system.But the multiple challenges to the votes of the people this year — expressed through the states and their votes in the Electoral College — teach us that the Electoral College is a fragile institution, with the potential for inflicting great damage on the country when norms are broken. Many of the attempts to subvert the presidential election outcome this year are made possible by the arcane structure and working of the Electoral College process and illustrate the potential for the current Electoral College to promote instability rather than the stability the framers sought.When some state legislatures were pressed by President Trump to consider changing the outcome of the election, they all declined — this time. But what would have happened if a majority of legislators in one or more states had decided to overrule the voters and “reassert” their constitutional authority to choose electors? The Electoral Count Act of 1887 gives the final say to governors — the electors they certify are entitled to the presumption of legitimacy. What would have happened if some of the governors of the states Mr. Trump targeted had given in and certified Trump electors despite the official vote count in their states for Biden? We would have had a constitutional crisis of the highest order, calling into question our national commitment to democratic elections.So as some Republicans have persisted in the view that a legislature or governor could have certified electors other than those chosen by the people and certified by state election officials, they have shown the Electoral College to be potentially dangerous. The possibility that politicians of either party could change an election’s outcome through postelection manipulation of the Electoral College is destabilizing.And the idea that the vice president, sitting in the chair as presiding officer of the joint session of Congress to “count the electoral votes,” could decide on his own to ignore electors certified by the states and replace them with impostors certified by no one leads straight to the end of democracy. The push by Senator Hawley and Representative Gohmert and other Republicans to challenge duly certified electoral votes and attempt to have the citizens and states they represent be disenfranchised is another path to the same destination.All of this will, and should, propel calls for modernization of the Electoral College. Many will seek its abolition and replacement by a single nationwide poll. But at the very least, the irrational intricacies of the 1887 Electoral Count Act should be replaced by a uniform system guaranteeing that the popular vote in each state controls the ultimate allocation of that state’s electors. The 2020 election has highlighted the destabilizing tendencies in the current system and the need for reform.Mr. Potter is a former commissioner and chairman of the U.S. Federal Election Commission, was general counsel to John McCain’s two presidential campaigns and is founder and president of the Campaign Legal Center. Mr. Fried was the U.S. Solicitor General under President Ronald Reagan, is a professor at Harvard Law School and serves on the board of the Campaign Legal Center.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      How Trump's Attack on Relief Bill Has Divided GOP

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesThe Stimulus DealThe Latest Vaccine InformationF.A.Q.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTrump’s Attack on Coronavirus Relief Divides G.O.P. and Threatens RecoveryFrom the campaign trail in Georgia to Capitol Hill, President Trump’s demand for changes to the $900 billion pandemic relief plan upended political and economic calculations.President Trump posted a video on Tuesday night demanding significant changes to the pandemic relief bill and larger direct stimulus checks to Americans.Credit…Oliver Contreras for The New York TimesLuke Broadwater, Emily Cochrane, Astead W. Herndon and Dec. 23, 2020WASHINGTON — President Trump’s denunciation of the $900 billion coronavirus relief deal drove a wedge through the Republican Party on Wednesday, drawing harsh criticism from House Republicans and threatening the delivery of unemployment checks, a reprieve on evictions and direct payments to struggling Americans.His four-minute video on Tuesday night demanding significant changes to the bill and larger direct stimulus checks also complicated his party’s push to hold the Senate with victories in two runoff races in Georgia next month. The Republican candidates he pledged to support went from campaigning on their triumphant votes for the relief bill to facing questions on Mr. Trump’s view that the measure was a “disgrace.”Their Democratic rivals appeared to turn a liability into a political advantage 13 days before the election on Jan. 5, agreeing with the president’s demand for $2,000 direct payment checks and calling for Republicans to accede to his wish. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and top Democrats prepared to move forward on Thursday with new legislation that would provide the $2,000 checks, daring Republicans to break with the president and block passage of the bill in the House.But the effect on struggling Americans was perhaps the most profound: With no deal signed by the president, some unemployment programs are set to run out this week, and several other critical provisions are to end this month. The uncertainty that Mr. Trump injected into the process came at a perilous moment for the economy, as consumer spending and personal incomes resumed their slides.“Does the president realize that unemployment benefits expire the day after Christmas?” an exasperated Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia and one of the key negotiators of the package, wrote on Twitter.It is not clear whether Mr. Trump, who is furious at congressional Republicans who have acknowledged his defeat, would actually veto the package. But given how late it is in the 116th Congress, even refusing to sign it could ensure that the bill dies with the Congress on Jan. 3 and must be taken up all over again next year.The 5,593-page spending package would not only provide relief but also fund the government through September. With his threat, the president raised the prospects of a government shutdown beyond Monday and also jeopardized a promise of swift relief to millions of struggling Americans and businesses.Mr. Trump on Wednesday also made good on his promise to veto a major defense policy bill, in part because it directed the military to strip the names of Confederate generals from bases. That sets up a showdown for next week; when the House returns on Monday for the override vote, it could also vote on another stopgap spending bill to prevent government funding from lapsing.Before the turmoil, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had promised that $600 direct payments from the pandemic relief bill could be distributed as early as next week; that is an untenable timeline without Mr. Trump’s signature. The end to two expanded unemployment programs the day after Christmas could push nearly five million people into poverty virtually overnight, according to an estimate from researchers at Columbia University.Some state labor departments — which administer both state and federal unemployment benefits — are already preparing for the end of the programs because of the delay in reaching an agreement, meaning some jobless workers may temporarily lose their benefits all the same because many states will not be able to reverse course in time to avoid a lapse in payments.Frustration with Mr. Trump boiled over on Wednesday during a private conference call of House Republicans who had loyally stood by the president; many of them had joined a baseless lawsuit to try to overturn the results of the election. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader, told members that he had spoken to the president and that he had not yet committed to a veto of the bill.But Mr. McCarthy conceded, “This bill has been tainted,” according to one person on the call.“The bill has been tainted,” Representative Kevin McCarthy of California told House Republicans on a private conference call on Wednesday.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesIn his videotaped statement on Tuesday, Mr. Trump accused lawmakers of putting aid for foreign governments before the needs of the American people.Some lawmakers on the call complained about the pork projects in the spending measure; others chimed in to challenge the characterization of the projects as pork, and one longtime House Republican vented generally about voter perceptions of the package after Mr. Trump’s scathing critique.“I don’t know if we recover from this,” said Representative Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina, according to three officials on the call. “We will have a hell of a time getting this out of people’s head.”The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      Trump’s Attack on Coronavirus Relief Divides G.O.P. and Threatens Recovery

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesThe Stimulus DealThe Latest Vaccine InformationF.A.Q.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTrump’s Attack on Coronavirus Relief Divides G.O.P. and Threatens RecoveryFrom the campaign trail in Georgia to Capitol Hill, President Trump’s demand for changes to the $900 billion pandemic relief plan upended political and economic calculations.President Trump posted a video on Tuesday night demanding significant changes to the pandemic relief bill and larger direct stimulus checks to Americans.Credit…Oliver Contreras for The New York TimesLuke Broadwater, Emily Cochrane, Astead W. Herndon and Dec. 23, 2020Updated 9:55 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — President Trump’s denunciation of the $900 billion coronavirus relief deal drove a wedge through the Republican Party on Wednesday, drawing harsh criticism from House Republicans and threatening the delivery of unemployment checks, a reprieve on evictions and direct payments to struggling Americans.His four-minute video on Tuesday night demanding significant changes to the bill and larger direct stimulus checks also complicated his party’s push to hold the Senate with victories in two runoff races in Georgia next month. The Republican candidates he pledged to support went from campaigning on their triumphant votes for the relief bill to facing questions on Mr. Trump’s view that the measure was a “disgrace.”Their Democratic rivals appeared to turn a liability into a political advantage 13 days before the election on Jan. 5, agreeing with the president’s demand for $2,000 direct payment checks and calling for Republicans to accede to his wish. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and top Democrats prepared to move forward on Thursday with new legislation that would provide the $2,000 checks, daring Republicans to break with the president and block passage of the bill in the House.But the effect on struggling Americans was perhaps the most profound: With no deal signed by the president, some unemployment programs are set to run out this week, and several other critical provisions are to end this month. The uncertainty that Mr. Trump injected into the process came at a perilous moment for the economy, as consumer spending and personal incomes resumed their slides.“Does the president realize that unemployment benefits expire the day after Christmas?” an exasperated Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia and one of the key negotiators of the package, wrote on Twitter.It is not clear whether Mr. Trump, who is furious at congressional Republicans who have acknowledged his defeat, would actually veto the package. But given how late it is in the 116th Congress, even refusing to sign it could ensure that the bill dies with the Congress on Jan. 3 and must be taken up all over again next year.The 5,593-page spending package would not only provide relief but also fund the government through September. With his threat, the president raised the prospects of a government shutdown beyond Monday and also jeopardized a promise of swift relief to millions of struggling Americans and businesses.Mr. Trump on Wednesday also made good on his promise to veto a major defense policy bill, in part because it directed the military to strip the names of Confederate generals from bases. That sets up a showdown for next week; when the House returns on Monday for the override vote, it could also vote on another stopgap spending bill to prevent government funding from lapsing.Before the turmoil, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had promised that $600 direct payments from the pandemic relief bill could be distributed as early as next week; that is an untenable timeline without Mr. Trump’s signature. The end to two expanded unemployment programs the day after Christmas could push nearly five million people into poverty virtually overnight, according to an estimate from researchers at Columbia University.Some state labor departments — which administer both state and federal unemployment benefits — are already preparing for the end of the programs because of the delay in reaching an agreement, meaning some jobless workers may temporarily lose their benefits all the same because many states will not be able to reverse course in time to avoid a lapse in payments.Frustration with Mr. Trump boiled over on Wednesday during a private conference call of House Republicans who had loyally stood by the president; many of them had joined a baseless lawsuit to try to overturn the results of election. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader, told members that he had spoken to the president and that he had not yet committed to a veto of the bill.But Mr. McCarthy conceded, “This bill has been tainted,” according to one person on the call.“The bill has been tainted,” Representative Kevin McCarthy of California told House Republicans on a private conference call on Wednesday.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesIn his videotaped statement on Tuesday, Mr. Trump accused lawmakers of putting aid for foreign governments before the needs of the American people.Some lawmakers on the call complained about the pork projects in the spending measure; others chimed in to challenge the characterization of the projects as pork, and one longtime House Republican vented generally about voter perceptions of the package after Mr. Trump’s scathing critique.“I don’t know if we recover from this,” said Representative Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina, according to three officials on the call. “We will have a hell of a time getting this out of people’s head.”The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      Trump’s Team Eyes the Exits

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyTrump’s Team Eyes the ExitsFarewell, henchmen.Ms. Cottle is a member of the editorial board.Dec. 22, 2020, 7:52 p.m. ETCredit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesOh, how the mighty have fallen.In February 2019, William Barr strode into the Department of Justice as the 85th attorney general. He was on his second tour of duty, having first held the post under President George H.W. Bush. Despite some observers’ concerns about his criticism of the Russia investigation and, more generally, his expansive view of presidential authority, Mr. Barr assumed office with the reputation of a seasoned, wise man, a grown-up in an administration teeming with unruly brats. At the very least, he was an upgrade over then Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, the Trump toady installed as an emergency seat warmer when Jeff Sessions was ousted.On Wednesday, Mr. Barr will slouch out of the cabinet with his ethical compass shattered, his reputation soiled and his dignity in flames. For fans of democracy, his departure should be met with rejoicing.Back in the Bush days, Mr. Barr held that the attorney general’s “ultimate allegiance must be to the rule of law” rather than to “the president who appointed him,” as he said in a 1992 speech. This time around, his tenure seemed aimed at assuring Mr. Trump that he’d been kidding about all that. Whether misrepresenting the Mueller report to cover the president’s backside, ordering federal law enforcement to remove peaceful demonstrators from in front of the White House or eroding public confidence in the electoral process, Mr. Barr has repeatedly made clear where his true loyalties lie. Hint: not with the American people.Unlike many Trump lackeys, the secretary wasn’t merely sucking up to the president — though there was plenty of that. He also used Mr. Trump’s autocratic proclivities to advance his own long-held vision of executive power. He was seen by many as the administration’s most dangerous henchman.Despite all he did for the president, Mr. Barr still wound up on the naughty list after refusing to advance Mr. Trump’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and for not working hard enough to smear Joe Biden’s son Hunter. On Dec. 14, the president tweeted that Mr. Barr would be stepping down “just before Christmas to spend the holidays with his family.”Perhaps dissatisfied with the violence already done to his legacy, the secretary submitted a resignation letter that should be required reading for aspiring sycophants. He gushed about how “honored” and “proud” he was to have played his part in Mr. Trump’s “unprecedented achievements” — achievements “all the more historic” for occurring “in the face of relentless, implacable resistance” and a vicious “partisan onslaught,” the “nadir” of which were the “baseless accusations of collusion with Russia. Few could have weathered these attacks, much less forge ahead with a positive program.” On and on he fawned, cementing his place in the bootlickers hall of fame.With the cord cut, Mr. Barr has been inching away from the president the past couple of days. On Monday, he said he saw no need to appoint special counsels either to oversee the D.O.J.’s inquiry into Hunter Biden’s taxes or to investigate Mr. Trump’s election-fraud fantasies. Sorry. This is where too little meets too late.The attorney general will not be the only Trumpie to retreat amid a gag-inducing swirl of fawning, preening, base stoking and earth salting. Also last week, in discussing the transition with career officials in the education department, Secretary Betsy Devos called on them to “resist.” Declaring that her goal had always been “to do what’s right for students,” she pleaded with the troops to follow her noble example even after she is gone.This is pretty rich coming from an education chief most likely to be remembered for championing the interests of for-profit colleges above those of students. It also seems doubtful that officials will embrace Ms. Devos’s self-congratulatory lecture after she spent the past four years clashing with them and blaming them for making it hard to get things done.Over at the Pentagon, Trump appointees are reportedly being less than helpful in getting the incoming Biden administration up to speed. Meetings have been postponed, and the friction has broken into public view. Last week, acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller disputed a report by Axios that he had ordered a departmentwide halt to transition cooperation. He insisted the camps had mutually agreed to take a break until after the new year. The Biden team called this balderdash, and the transition’s executive director slammed the Pentagon for “recalcitrance.” This is hardly the kind of seamless handoff of power that inspires confidence in America’s national security.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is having a bumpy final stretch of a different sort. In a Friday radio interview, he noted that “we can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians” behind the recently exposed mass hack of U.S. government agencies and businesses. On Saturday, the president undercut him with a tweet, based on nothing, suggesting that China may have been the culprit. Mr. Pompeo has yet to comment on his boss’s alternative theory.Credit…Pool photo by Nicholas KammCredit…Oliver Contreras for The New York TimesThis humiliation came just a few days after Mr. Pompeo’s holiday-party debacle. Dismissing Covid-19 safety recommendations — including those issued by his own department — the secretary invited hundreds of guests to an indoor bash at the State Department last Tuesday. Only a few dozen people showed up. Mr. Pompeo canceled his scheduled speech, which raised some eyebrows until it was announced Wednesday that he was in quarantine after being exposed to the coronavirus.Way to own the libs, Mr. Secretary.Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, seems set on departing in a blaze of disinformation and belligerence. Since the election, she has been working overtime, including frequent appearances on Fox News, to promote the president’s risible tale of voting fraud. At a news conference last month, Ms. McEnany — who has been pulling double duty as a top Trump campaign surrogate — went so far over the line with her fraud fiction that Fox News’s Neil Cavuto felt compelled to cut away from her remarks. Give the gal points for shamelessness.Of course, none of these underlings are likely to come close to the boss in executing a graceless, puerile, destructive exit. As the clock ticks down, the president is furiously casting about for a way to cling to power — Anyone up for a Christmas coup? — even as he works to divide and weaken the nation that has fired him. If he can’t have his way, he’s up for smashing as many toys as possible on his way out.So much for Mr. Trump — or his people — ever growing into the job.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      95 Percent of Representatives Have a Degree. Look Where That’s Got Us.

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main story95 Percent of Representatives Have a Degree. Look Where That’s Got Us.All these credentials haven’t led to better results.Opinion columnistDec. 21, 2020Credit…Damon Winter/The New York TimesOver the last few decades, Congress has diversified in important ways. It has gotten less white, less male, less straight — all positive developments. But as I was staring at one of the many recent Senate hearings, filled with the usual magisterial blustering and self-important yada yada, it dawned on me that there’s a way that Congress has moved in a wrong direction, and become quite brazenly unrepresentative.No, it’s not that the place seethes with millionaires, though there’s that problem too.It’s that members of Congress are credentialed out the wazoo. An astonishing number have a small kite of extra initials fluttering after their names.According to the Congressional Research Service, more than one third of the House and more than half the Senate have law degrees. Roughly a fifth of senators and representatives have their master’s. Four senators and 21 House members have MDs, and an identical number in each body (four, twenty-one) have some kind of doctoral degree, whether it’s a Ph.D., a D.Phil., an Ed.D., or a D. Min.But perhaps most fundamentally, 95 percent of today’s House members have a bachelor’s degree, as does every member of the Senate. Yet just a bit more than one-third of Americans do.“This means that the credentialed few govern the uncredentialed many,” writes the political philosopher Michael J. Sandel in “The Tyranny of Merit,” published this fall.There’s an argument to be made that we should want our representatives to be a highly lettered lot. Lots of people have made it, as far back as Plato.The problem is that there doesn’t seem to be any correlation between good governance and educational attainment that Sandel can discern. In the 1960s, he noted, we got the Vietnam War thanks to “the best and the brightest” — it’s been so long since the publication of David Halberstam’s book that people forget the title was morbidly ironic. In the 1990s and 2000s, the highly credentialed gave us (and here Sandel paused for a deep breath) “stagnant wages, financial deregulation, income inequality, the financial crisis of 2008, a bank bailout that did little to help ordinary people, a decaying infrastructure, and the highest incarceration rate in the world.”Five years ago, Nicholas Carnes, a political scientist at Duke, tried to measure whether more formal education made political leaders better at their jobs. After conducting a sweeping review of 228 countries between the years 1875 and 2004, he and a colleague concluded: No. It did not. A college education did not mean less inequality, a greater G.D.P., fewer labor strikes, lower unemployment or less military conflict.Sandel argues that the technocratic elite’s slow annexation of Congress and European parliaments — which resulted in the rather fateful decisions to outsource jobs and deregulate finance — helped enable the populist revolts now rippling through the West. “It distorted our priorities,” Sandel told me, “and made for a political class that’s too tolerant of crony capitalism and much less attentive to fundamental questions of the dignity of work.”Both parties are to blame for this. But it was Democrats, Sandel wrote, who seemed especially bullish on the virtues of the meritocracy, arguing that college would be the road to prosperity for the struggling. And it’s a fine idea, well-intentioned, idealistic at its core. But implicit in it is also a punishing notion: If you don’t succeed, you have only yourself to blame. Which President Trump spotted in a trice.“Unlike Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who spoke constantly of ‘opportunity’” Sandel wrote, “Trump scarcely mentioned the word. Instead, he offered blunt talk of winners and losers.”Trump was equally blunt after winning the Nevada Republican caucuses in 2016. “I love the poorly educated!” he shouted.A pair of studies from 2019 also tell the story, in numbers, of the professionalization of the Democratic Party — or what Sandel calls “the valorization of credentialism.” One, from Politico, shows that House and Senate Democrats are much more likely to have gone to private liberal arts colleges than public universities, whereas the reverse is true of their Republican counterparts; another shows that congressional Democrats are far more likely to hire graduates of Ivy League schools.This class bias made whites without college degrees ripe for Republican recruitment. In both 2016 and 2020, two thirds of them voted for Trump; though the G.O.P. is the minority party in the House, more Republican members than Democrats currently do not have college degrees. All 11 are male. Most of them come from the deindustrialized Midwest and South.Oh, and in the incoming Congress? Six of the seven new members without four-year college degrees are Republicans.Of course, far darker forces help explain the lures of the modern G.O.P. You’d have to be blind and deaf not to detect them. For decades, Republicans have appealed both cynically and in earnest — it’s hard to know which is more appalling — to racial and ethnic resentments, if not hatred. There’s a reason that the Black working class isn’t defecting to the Republican Party in droves. (Of the nine Democrats in the House without college degrees, seven, it’s worth noting, are people of color.)For now, it seems to matter little that Republicans have offered little by way of policy to restore the dignity of work. They’ve tapped into a gusher of resentment, and they seem delighted to channel it, irrespective of where, or if, they got their diplomas. Ted Cruz, quite arguably the Senate’s most insolent snob — he wouldn’t sit in a study group at Harvard Law with anyone who hadn’t graduated from Princeton, Yale or Harvard — was ready to argue on Trump’s behalf to overturn the 2020 election results, should the disgraceful Texas attorney general’s case have reached the Supreme Court.Which raises a provocative question. Given that Trumpism has found purchase among graduates of Harvard Law, would it make any difference if Congress better reflected the United States and had more members without college degrees? Would it meaningfully alter policy at all?It would likely depend on where they came from. I keep thinking of what Rep. Al Green, Democrat of Texas, told me. His father was a mechanic’s assistant in the segregated South. The white men he worked for cruelly called him “The Secretary” because he could neither read nor write. “So if my father had been elected? You’d have a different Congress,” Green said. “But if it’d been the people who he served — the mechanics who gave him a pejorative moniker? We’d probably have the Congress we have now.”It’s hard to say whether more socioeconomic diversity would guarantee differences in policy or efficiency. But it could do something more subtle: Rebuild public trust.“There are people who look at Congress and see the political class as a closed system,” Carnes told me. “My guess is that if Congress looked more like people do as a whole, the cynical view — Oh, they’re all in their ivory tower, they don’t care about us — would get less oxygen.”When I spoke to Representative Troy Balderson, a Republican from Ohio, he agreed, adding that if more members of Congress didn’t have four-year college degrees, it would erode some stigma associated with not having one.“When I talk to high school kids and say, ‘I didn’t finish my degree,’ their faces light up,” he told me. Balderson tried college and loved it, but knew he wasn’t cut out for it. He eventually moved back to his hometown to run his family car dealership. Students tend to find his story emboldening. The mere mention of four-year college sets off panic in many of them; they’ve been stereotyped before they even grow up, out of the game before it even starts. “If you don’t have a college degree,” he explains, “you’re a has-been.” Then they look at him and see larger possibilities. That they can be someone’s voice. “You can become a member of Congress.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Mnuchin Gambles by Ending Fed Programs, Putting His Legacy on the Line

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