Republicans Holding Help Hostage

More Americans are like my brother, Michael, than like me. Like most Americans my brother doesn’t really keep tabs on politics or government in general. Michael had been out of work for nearly 6 months due to being laid off by his employer when business got so slow due to the pandemic. During that time he became quite frustrated that congress failed to pass a second stimulus and many expanded unemployment benefits had expired. My brother, like many Americans, blamed both parties for unwillingness to compromise.

I explained to him that the Democratic controlled House had passed two more stimulus bills since the initial CARES Act while the Republican controlled Senate led by Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn hadn’t even bothered to hold hearings on either bill let alone vote on them. I told showed him that members of the House leadership were continuing to negotiate with the Senate leadership but that the sticking points are serious and meeting Republican demands was dangerous for the public. It’s important to understand that what McConnell and Cornyn are demanding could result in the deaths of thousands more Americans because immunity from liability for injury caused by failure to adequately protect workers and customers from exposure to COVID-19 would encourage more employers to put workers health at risk. That’s not just a possibility, it already happened in many work places including meat packing plants in the mid-West that ended up closing back in April and May when so many of their employees became ill.

Republicans argue that business will suffer without immunity as too many spurious lawsuits will be filed. So far there have been fewer than 250 businesses sued across the nation over COVID-19 issues, which is a drop in the proverbial bucket compared to the 10,000 lawsuits brought over the usual issues that occur every year. There is a simpler way to address such concerns and but the Trump administration has failed to take action. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has the responsibility and power to write rules for workplace safety, they simply haven’t done so. Instead OSHA has written recommendations with weasel wording like “if feasible” and “when possible” rather than setting a rule stating the employers “will” follow the directive. If OSHA simply wrote and promulgated such workplace safety rules the only businesses at serious risk of being sued would be those that didn’t comply with the rules.

The other ridiculous demand that Republicans are making is to drop financial assistance to states and cities all of which have found budgets suddenly cut due to massive reductions in sales tax revenue because the pandemic has so many people staying at home and out of work so they can’t spend. Unfortunately that doesn’t mean that we don’t need police, firefighters, and other city and state workers. Since cities and states cannot legally run deficits many have already laid off critical workers because there simply isn’t enough money to pay them. This not only hurts everyone in that community by the loss of the service, it also just adds another person to the roles of unemployed and therefore need assistance paying their bills.

During the election, Republicans made spurious claims about Democrats wanting to defund the police, in reality Republicans are the ones who are actually doing it. As in most cases this is not a both sides are to blame situation, Republicans are the ones who are withholding support for hungry children in an effort to give away worker protections. If you want something done call Senator John Cornyn and give him a piece of your mind.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - December 16, 2020

Stimulus, Unemployment, and Your Health

In the last week there were nearly 15,000 deaths in the United States due to COVID-19 for a total of 55,415 and of those 623 were in Texas where another 150 died last week. All that and much of Texas re-opened for business as of last Friday. While we’re still told to practice social distancing and wear a mask though many still don’t like the police officer I noticed walking into an urgent care medical office to drop off some material from the city.

That $1200 stimulus payment we’re all supposed to get won’t go far for many who were put out of work as they still have to same bills to pay. Worse too many still haven’t gotten the money that was authorized over a month ago. Loans to small business provided by the second stimulus were absorbed by big businesses because too many banks would rather loan to them than small businesses. The third stimulus just added more funds and rules but still doesn’t address the needs of those out of work.

The unemployment rate is over 23% with around 26.5 million Americans out of work. Many workers were furloughed but still aren’t going back to work as their businesses aren’t on the re-open list yet. Many others were laid-off and therefore have less hope of returning to work in the near future. Food banks all over the country are running out of food as they experience three and four times normal demand. Given the difficult straits so many are in right now it’s a good thing Democrats in the House are working on another stimulus bill that will offer direct payments to the American people as well as provide funds for state and city governments so they can continue to pay their police, fire and other essential workers.

Unfortunately there may be problems getting such a bill passed by the Senate as Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said "My guess is their first choice would be for the federal government to borrow money from future generations to send it down to them now," McConnell said in a radio interview. "That's not something I'm going to be in favor of."

New York Republican congressman Peter King was livid calling "McConnell's dismissive remark that states devastated by Coronavirus should go bankrupt rather than get the federal assistance they need and deserve is shameful and indefensible, to say that it is 'free money' to provide funds for cops, firefighters and healthcare workers makes McConnell the Marie Antoinette of the Senate."

Trump seems worried that taking too long to re-open businesses will leave the economy in a slump that will cost him the election. I worry that re-opening without taking the necessary measures which the medical community says involve mass testing and contact tracing followed by quarantine of those found testing positive will insure that many more people die than necessary and a second shut down may become necessary insuring further economic damage and uncertainty. We’d all be better off if we do it right the first time but Trump and Gov. Abbott don’t seem to share my view.

We’ll be continuing to stay at home for all but essentials like groceries and prescriptions as I have the good fortune of working from home. I hope anyone else that can work from home will so they can remain healthy.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - April 29, 2020

Wasteful spending in the stimulus, but it's not what you think

The stimulus package signed into law by President Obama last year has been criticized by many for not creating jobs and for generally being a program of wasteful spending that only makes conditions worse. There is some truth to that, in fact 36.6% was wasted in an attempt to achieve Republican support. That 36.6% was tax cuts like accelerated depreciation (multiplier .027) which time and again has been shown to create substantially less economic activity than direct spending on things like schools and bridges (multiplier 1.59) or extending unemployment benefits (multiplier 1.64). Government spending increases by the Roosevelt administration stopped the economic free fall America suffered during the Great Depression. Tax cuts like Reagan’s trickle down economic policies led to greater deficits and no new jobs.

Much of the remaining stimulus funds went to state and local governments for use in paying our policeman and teachers among others. Without those funds our children would have found themselves in classrooms with substantially more kids per class and we know that leads to poor education. So while the stimulus didn’t create as many jobs as we need it did prevent things from getting worse.

If we want our economy to start making new jobs paying more than fast food wages we’re going to have to spend some big money and the best way to do that is to invest in infrastructure because not only does it provide jobs but we also end up with something of value when it’s done.

Cornyn and Hutchison hypocritical as usual

While Senators, John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison, complain about the Obama administration and Democratic controlled Congress spending on the stimulus, the budget and potentially on health care reform their votes in favor of building seven more F-22 fighters for $1.75 billion are hypocritical in the extreme. Republicans including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Senators John McCain and John Kyl among others agreed that the F-22 was unnecessary and an inappropriate expenditure. Fortunately the vote to kill the F-22 was truly bi-partisan with 42 Democrats, 15 Republicans and 1 independent; unlike some other legislation lately which had only token Republican support.

Our senators claim to make their votes based on what’s good for Texas and the country but how is building a cold war era fighter that can’t be flown near an aircraft carrier and hasn’t been used in combat over Baghdad because its super-sensitive electronics can’t deal with the mass of radio signals good for the country?

I’ve heard some Republicans say they voted for the F-22 to save jobs; but their party generally claims, quite loudly, that government spending doesn’t create jobs, so which is it? There are plenty of worthwhile projects that $1,750,000,000 could fund including bridge repairs, building schools, green energy and energy efficiency projects that would pay dividends for all of us for years to come.