The Abbreviated Pundit Roundup is a regular feature of Daily Kos.
Catherine Rampell at The Washington Post writes—America is going into an economic coma. Here’s how we (eventually) wake up from it:
Normally during a recession, the goal of fiscal policy is to boost aggregate demand. The government uses spending and tax cuts to encourage people to go out and buy stuff.
But right now, even as we face a likely recession, that’s almost the opposite of what the government should be trying to achieve.
That’s because the ideal move, from a public health perspective, would be for all nonessential economic activity to shut down for, say, two (three? six?) months. Everyone — retailers, airlines, workers, restaurants, landlords, schoolchildren — would get a staycation.
Or, if you prefer: We’d all go into a collective coma, wake up however many months later and pick up exactly where we left off.
The problem, of course, is that even if we all went into a coma for the next several months, our financial obligations would not.
The New York Times Video Opinion Team notes that Donald Trump’s claims about the pandemic have been at odds with the information shared by his public health advisors. Take a look.
Adam Gaffney at The Guardian writes—Trump sees the coronavirus as a threat to his self-interest – not to people:
Afictional film about a US president mismanaging the response to a dangerous pandemic would never depict its lead character anywhere near as selfish and bumbling as Donald Trump in the age of Covid-19. He’d be too cartoonish and inept to be believable.
And yet, here we are. At a press conference on Sunday – the same day that state governors declared closures of bars and restaurants and when the Covid-19 death count shot up in Italy – the American president spent more time gushing over the Federal Reserve’s interest rate cut, heaping praise on big corporate retailers for keeping Americans well-supplied, and praising Friday’s rise in the stock market (“almost 2,000 points!”) than, say, addressing the health concerns of the public.
Trump’s response goes beyond incompetence – it’s a political abomination. However uncoordinated his administration’s moves have been, Trump has made it clear he sees this pandemic chiefly as a threat to the market and wealthy people’s personal interests (and relatedly, his own political future) – not to the people whose lives it will threaten or claim.
Justin Davidson at New York magazine writes—The Leader of the Free World Gives a Speech, and She Nails It:
Angela Merkel doesn’t do drama and she doesn’t give speeches on TV. So the mere fact that the German chancellor faced the camera across a desk and spoke to the nation Wednesday evening made the gravity of the situation clear. “Es ist ernst,” she said—“This is serious”— and those three bland words had more power than a hellfire sermon. Then she pivoted from statement to plea: “Take it seriously.” Quickly, she moved on to historical context, the reason for her unprecedented impromptu appearance: “Since German unification—no, since the Second World War—no challenge to our nation has ever demanded such a degree of common and united action.”
Merkel made no specific announcements and called for no nationwide curfews or additional closures. Yet what gave her address its force was her tone, which was direct, honest, and searingly empathic. She laid bare not just the test we all face but also the solace that leadership can provide. Without accusations, boasts, hedges, obfuscations, dubious claims, or apocalyptic metaphors she did what a leader is supposed to do: explain the gravity of the situation and promise that the government’s help would flow to everyone who needed it. She gave full-throated thanks to front-line medical workers, assured Germans that there is no need to hoard, and paused to offer gratitude to a group of workers who rarely get recognized by heads of state on national TV: “Those who sit at supermarket cash registers or restock shelves are doing one of the hardest jobs there is right now.”
David Dayen at The American Prospect writes—First Response:
The [Senate’s third emergency coronavirus] bill will comprise the economic stimulus for the nation, and with jobs at risk for over half of all Americans—an incredible thing to write—this needs to be a bazooka.
It also needs to be well thought-out. The bailouts in 2008 were sold as the only way to prevent a second Great Depression, which wasn’t entirely true but used as a device to get Congress hooked in. Last time the Congressional bailout (which was more of a cover for the Federal Reserve bailout) and the stimulus package occurred in different segments from different administrations. This time it appears to be all happening together, with the numbers soaring above $1 trillion.
During the last bailout, an ad hoc group of a few members of Congress and some outside experts that called itself the Skeptics Caucus questioned the bailout, and slowed it down enough that it had to be voted on a couple times, with theoretical help for homeowners added. (Longtime readers of mine know how that turned out.) This time, the Skeptics Caucus has assembled itself faster, though it’s a loose affiliation and it’s unclear whether there’s more than a toehold within Congress. “We have to stop these guys from stealing everything,” one skeptic told me.
For this group, and those who want to see justice in this time of crisis, there are three different areas of concern to think about.
Sean McMorris at the Los Angeles Times writes—There’s a better way to vote: Choose more than one candidate and rank them:
All of the voting states but one, Alabama, had some form of early voting on [Super Tuesday]. Democratic primary voters who cast their ballots as late as the weekend before March 3 would have seen major candidates drop out of the race after they voted. If they chose Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar or Tom Steyer, they essentially voted in vain. Illinois voters who showed up very early on March 2 to vote could have wasted their votes on Klobuchar or Elizabeth Warren.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Ranked-choice voting could have maintained the advantages of early voting, without the downside.
Under a ranked-choice system, first-choice votes for those Super Tuesday primary candidates who dropped out before election day would have gone to voters’ second-choice candidate, then to their third-choice candidate if their second-choice candidate was eliminated, and so on until the votes landed on a candidate who won at least 15% of votes and therefore qualified for a share of Democratic delegates.
The Editorial Board of the Toledo Blade writes—Stop the scammers:
The coronavirus crisis has brought out the compassion and good-heartedness of many Americans. But unfortunately there is no crisis that scammers will not seek to exploit.
It certainly didn’t take long for con artists to hatch a litany of schemes designed to prey on people’s fears in an emergency.
In Toledo, police have warned residents about people going door to door claiming to be selling coronavirus test kits or asking for advance payment for testing. Tests for the virus can be ordered only through a doctor’s office and no one with a reputable product is selling them door-to-door. [...]
Alice Rothchild at Seattle Times writes—Coronavirus: A good argument for Medicare for All:
As an obstetrician-gynecologist and member of Physicians for a National Health Program, I have long supported sweeping changes in how health care in the U.S. is financed, from challenging the cost and gate-keeping roles of health-insurance companies to the price gouging by big pharma. COVID-19 has laid bare the weaknesses in our system and the urgent need for Medicare for All. We cannot nationally isolate or personally buy our way out of this outbreak.
As Washingtonians shelter at home and our economy plunges into recession, the problem with a health-insurance system based on employment becomes increasingly clear. Workers are financially incentivized to avoid screening and show up for work despite symptoms. The threat from loss of wages for small businesses and gig workers as well as those on unpaid sick leave raises the negative impact of insurance payments, copays, premiums and the ability to self-pay. GoFundMe reports that a third of its campaigns are done to pay medical bills. The Trump administration’s talk of sending $250 billion directly to millions of Americans is a desperately needed temporary fix that will explode the deficit and ignore the demands for structural changes. [...]
Jared Bernstein at the Minneapolis Star Tribune writes—Congress is passing a stimulus bill. We'll need a bigger one almost immediately:
[T]he cause of the coming recession is uniquely clear. It’s not like the last time, when a housing bubble inflated by complex finance triggered an economically harrowing, multitiered chain of events that rippled from banks to credit markets to consumers. It’s far simpler than that: Fighting the virus means stopping economic activity.
The fiscal response thus cannot be to restart economic activity, at least not yet. In 2001, George W. Bush told America: “Fly and enjoy America’s great destination spots. Get down to Disney World in Florida. Take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed.” Doesn’t really work today, does it?
This, then, is a moment for stimulus policy by Occam’s razor, the notion that the simplest solution is often the best one. We need to temporarily transfer a lot of money to a lot of households and businesses. For households, the simplest way to do so is with direct checks, a policy that’s been effective in three past recessions. The government sends, or better, directly deposits, checks to families based on the number of adults and children. Economist Jason Furman recently touted this approach: “A week ago, I thought $1,000 per adult, $500 per child. Now I’d double or triple that. … And make clear that if the economy is in bad shape at the end of the year we’ll do it again, and keep doing it.”
Mike Lawlor at the Hartford Courant writes—Help contain coronavirus by putting fewer people in jail:
Journalists and advocates have called for releasing low-risk-for-violence high-risk for COVID-19 persons incarcerated in Connecticut and around the nation. I support these voices, but I want to add my own: Can we please stop admitting these same folks to jail in the first place?
In a typical month, Connecticut admits more than 1,700 people to our jails. As it turns out, in a typical month we release about the same number. A sizeable majority of those released have been incarcerated for a few weeks or months. To me, that is clear evidence that prosecutors and judges have determined that extended periods of incarceration are not necessary in those cases. In other words, there is no reason to believe that these short-term prisoners pose a significant risk to the safety of their fellow citizens.
Our president has declared a COVID-19 “national emergency,” adding that those are two “very big words.” With that in mind, the time has come to reconsider the decisions that our government makes and focus our attention on reducing the risk posed to the community at large by the unfolding pandemic.
I am not arguing that these individuals are not deserving of serious consequences for their criminal misconduct. I am arguing that not all of them need to be incarcerated.
Michelle Cottle at The New York Times writes—Well Played, Bernie Sanders. But for the sake of the Democratic Party and the nation, it’s time to step aside and join forces with Joe Biden.
It is time to bid a gentle and grateful farewell to Bernie Sanders’s quest for the presidency. [...]
Even as his electoral prospects have dimmed, many of his supporters have urged him to stay in the race — to keep his ideological vision and his revolution alive.
If anything, they see the coronavirus crisis, and the economic havoc it is wreaking, as an argument to keep Mr. Sanders’s voice front and center, arguing for the interests of the people over the powerful. [...]
Beyond campaign tools and tactics, Mr. Sanders’s brand simply does not suit the moment. It’s hard to argue with his contention that the coronavirus has exposed deep flaws in America’s health care system and economy. (The Times’s editorial board continues to forcefully argue as much.) But whatever the resonance of his message, he is not the preferred messenger for these twitchy times. As in last week’s primaries, voters in the three states that voted on Tuesday were asked which candidate they trusted to handle a major crisis. And, as was the case last week, Mr. Biden held the overwhelming edge.
When people are frightened, they want to be comforted. This has never been Mr. Sanders’s strong suit.
Richard Wolffe at The Guardian writes—The Democratic race is over. Voters have picked Joe Biden. There is no reason for Sanders to stay in this race, no matter how fervent his fans. It’s Biden who will unify us:
There is no reason for Sanders to stay in this race, no matter how fervent his fans and no matter how passionately he wants to advocate for his policies. He has spent the last four years advocating for those policies, pushing the Democratic party towards his ideas to remarkable effect.
Back in the 2008 election and Barack Obama’s first term, it was unthinkable to propose a public healthcare option: the defeat of Clinton’s healthcare proposals was still too raw, more than a decade after they had failed. Today all the Democratic contenders proposed a public option, and Joe Biden’s healthcare policies are far to the left of Obama’s.
Mission accomplished? Apparently not. Bernie’s advisers say Biden hasn’t done enough to unify the party, or generate voter enthusiasm.
This is not a position supported by the primary results.
E.J. Dionne Jr. at The Washington Post writes—Biden and Sanders should work together now to protect the election:
For his part, Biden was all about outreach in his recorded statement on Tuesday night, which was directed largely at offering a unifying message to a country facing a pandemic. Biden’s calm tone of resolve and conciliation sharply contrasted with Trump’s erratic and often divisive messages throughout the crisis.
And Biden went out of his way to praise Sanders and his supporters for changing the nation’s political conversation. “Let me say especially to the young voters who have been inspired by Senator Sanders: I hear you,” Biden said. He stressed that he shared with Sanders “a common vision for the need to provide affordable health care for all Americans, reducing income inequity that has risen so drastically, to tackling the existential threat of our time, climate change.”
If Sanders and Biden want an immediate joint project, they can unite in pointing to the dangers to the election process itself, brought home by Gov. Mike DeWine’s decision to cancel in-person voting in Ohio primary on Tuesday. DeWine argued that opening the polls would undermine efforts to contain the coronavirus.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said on MSNBC that he believed DeWine, a Republican, acted “in totally good faith,” but expressed worry about “any precedent” the cancellation might set. Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, made the second point more sharply, telling me that “this is the Trump era, when old rules don’t always apply and outrageous things occur with regularity.”
Branko Marcetic at Jacobin writes—The Post-Trump Phase of the Post-Truth Era Could Be Starting Soon:
For all the talk of living in a “post-truth” world under Trump, this has never really been true. Yes, Trump and his acolytes lie systematically and shamelessly, like past presidents have done. But there has also been a broad and vigilant media effort devoted to tracking and correcting the president’s constant lies, ensuring that with nearly every public appearance Trump makes, his falsehoods are loudly called out (“The 30 most troubling lines from Donald Trump’s latest news conference on coronavirus,” reads one recent CNN headline).
But if we weren’t living in a post-truth world before, last night’s CNN debate confirms we are now.
Last night, former–vice president Joe Biden — who has spent this campaign telling all manner of lies about himself and others — lied nonstop about his record, that of his opponent, and what he plans to do as president, with no pushback other than from his opponent.
Multiple times, Biden charged Sanders “still hasn’t told us how he’s going to pay for” Medicare for All, even though he released a detailed funding plan last month. He misleadingly charged that Sanders had voted against the 2008 auto bailout. He accused Sanders of having “nine Super PACs” and threatened to “list them,” then backed down when challenged to do so. (For the record, one of those supposed “Super PACs” took only six donations over $5,000 in 2019).
But it was on his own record that Biden was particularly dishonest.
Nancy LeTourneau at The Washington Monthly writes—Mitch McConnell Is Running Scared:
For a couple of years now, Mitch McConnell has been acting like a majority leader who knows that his Republican Party is in decline. Other than passing tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy and large corporations, he hasn’t been interested in doing anything except confirming Trump’s judicial nominees. As I noted previously, that is because he is aware that his party will soon be out of power, but the extremist judges he’s confirming will be able to “legislate from the bench.”
Lately, McConnell has sent some signals that the Republican Party—and possibly his own position—might be in jeopardy this year. The first signal has to do with his ongoing attempts to stack the courts with extremist judges. Not content to have confirmed two Supreme Court justices and 191 other federal judges, McConnell has been trying to force additional openings. [...]
Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, who has used his position as majority leader to build a judicial confirmation juggernaut for President Trump over the past three years, has been personally reaching out to judges to sound them out on their plans and assure them that they would have a worthy successor if they gave up their seats soon, according to multiple people with knowledge of his actions [...]
While that is a typically despicable move by the senate majority leader, it indicates that he knows that he’s running out of time.
Mariana Mazzucato is a professor at University College London and the author of The Value of Everything. Azzi Momenghalibaf is a senior program officer at the Open Society Public Health Program. At The New York Times, they write—Drug Companies Will Make a Killing From Coronavirus:
The search for treatments and vaccines to curb transmission of the new coronavirus is in overdrive. Fortunately, there are a number of promising candidates thanks to the U.S. government’s investment in biomedical research and development.
Since the 2003 SARS outbreak, the United States has spent nearly $700 million of taxpayer money on coronavirus research — more than any other country — through the National Institutes of Health. Yet the question right now for Americans — thousands of whom are forced to ration their insulin and face astronomical bills for live-saving drugs — is not only when these treatments and vaccines will become available, but at what price.
As the world’s leader in public financing of biomedical research, the U.S. government has the opportunity to set a precedent to ensure that medicines developed with public funding are accessible and affordable to the public; this will have enormous implications not only how for we deal with the coronavirus, but also for the crisis of unaffordable medicines in America.