President Biden’s Covid-19 relief proposal remains incredibly popular; if anything, it’s getting more popular as it barrels through Congress. Multiple polls show that something like 70 percent of Americans approve of the $1.9 trillion plan. It’s almost twice as popular as the Republican tax cut of 2017; it’s more popular than the Obama stimulus of 2009; it’s hard to believe now, but the Biden plan is more popular than Medicare was in the months before it passed in 1965.
Big business has also come on board: More than 150 senior executives at major companies have written congressional leaders urging enactment of Biden’s plan.
It’s not too hard to see why Democrats and independents like the plan. What I’m trying to understand is something that seems like a political paradox. Namely, how is it possible that so many Republicans approve of the plan?
Why is Republican support for Biden’s economic plans a puzzle? Because most of the Republican rank and file believe (based on nothing but lies) that the election was stolen. So we’re in a peculiar position where a substantial number of voters don’t believe Biden has the right to be running the country, but effectively approve of the way he’s running it, at least in terms of economic policy.
A recent Economist/YouGov poll makes the point. According to that poll, only 16 percent of self-identified Republicans believe that Biden won the election fairly, while 71 percent believe that it was stolen from Donald Trump. Yet 39 percent of Republicans favor Biden’s $1.9 trillion spending proposal. A Morning Consult poll puts Republican support for the plan at 60 percent!
OK, believing that the presidency was stolen and supporting the policies of the man on whose behalf you think it was stolen isn’t literally a contradiction. But it’s still very strange. …
CBO projects loss of 1.4 million jobs by 2025 if the minimum wage is raised in steps to $15.
Since 65 million workers would be in line for raise on the average of 50% — that’s 40% of the workforce of 160 million — why does anybody even think twice about 1.4 million jobs lost? First place, statistically it is just noise.
Secondly, it proves what I am always saying — that as long as the 40% end up with more pay overall — sales lost to higher prices of goods will be replenished by added demand in the pockets of labor. Where else would the money that the 60% lost out on go? — but to added demand for 40 percentile made goods — consumers tending to spend proportionately more at businesses that hire more workers at their own wage level.
I actually predict more low wage jobs after a minimum wage hike. Nice of the CBO to back me up — at least about the general direction. Pump more pay into one segment of the workforce, watch that portion of the economy flourish.
Dobbs is not so strange. when you consider that people are not logical. that’s all people, not just the insane other guys. fortunately neither are “facts” logical.but more importantly for political purposes, the other guys went over to the other side because our side wasn’t delivering for them. the covid relief promises them at least a bunch of money in the short term. what’s not to like about that? our side could capitalize on that by continuing to deliver. my guess is that we won’t. and the other side will capitalize on our failure by offering the other guys pie in the sky with a side of “logical” insane therefore that will destroy democracy and any hope the people ever had for the next thousand years.
DenisI suspect the “lost jobs” is a politically induced hallucination. Companies in the same line of business will have to raise wages, but they will be able to increase prices because all of their competitors will have to raise wages at the same time, All that extra pay may enable low low wage workers to endure longer (weeks not years) periods of unemployent while they seek education or better jobs, or just time off for sanity. consider that some of those jobs lost will be second jobs. meanwhile, as you point out, the higher wage is not money lost to the economy. it may mean (i doubt it) that people will buy fewer hamburgers because the price went up 25 cents, but other businesses will get the money otherwise spent on hamburgers.. unfortunately that is more likely to be corporate landlords than any honest business. and therein lies the real problem of poverty in america. some high-end person recently observed that inflation was not likely to be a problem because wages are not rising. “ve haf vays” to keep wages from rising. at the other end, “inflation” is being absorbed by the stock market, and when they finally shake that tree, the cash will end up in the pockets of the rich who will not spend as much of it back into the economy as you might think.
strange are the ways of spell check. when “covid” becomes “coifed” without asking me, but “thenm” passes uncorrected, i have to wonder about the perfect competence of our computerized future.also, i was careful to include appropriate spacing in my comments. but that got lost in the posting. not sure what the other commenters know that i don’t.
Republicans Grapple With Raising the Minimum WageThe politics of a $15 minimum wage are increasingly muddled, but some Republicans are gravitating toward a higher base pay, citing the economic needs of working-class Americans.WASHINGTON — The policy debate over raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour is the latest fault line between Democrats, who largely support the idea, and Republicans, who generally oppose such a sharp increase as bad for business.But it is also revealing new fissures in the Republican Party, which is straining to appeal to its corporate backers, some of whom believe that more than doubling the minimum wage would cut deeply into their profits, and the working-class wing, which fueled President Donald J. Trump’s rise and would stand to gain from a pay increase.After decades of either calling for the abolishment of a federal minimum wage or arguing that it should not be raised, Republicans are beginning to bow to the realities facing the party’s populist base with proposals that acknowledge the wage floor must rise. President Biden is likely to try to capitalize on that shift as he tries to deliver on his promise to raise the minimum wage, even if it does not make it into the $1.9 trillion aid package because of a ruling Thursday evening by the Senate parliamentarian. …
Coberly,I am saying that hamburger sales …… I actually like to stay away from fast food since it has such abnormally high labor costs — 25%; about double the average business — but, when we think minimum wage, everybody thinks of McDonald’s …… hamburger sales may be lost from the upper 60% (workers above the $15 level) both from higher prices and because the 60% have fewer dollars in to spend on hamburgers in days when the bottom 40% is asserting its bargaining power to demand more pay (via law or labor union), thereby raising prices across the board on all the kinds of services the 40% produce. Higher prices + less money overall to pay for them: poor days for the 60%.So how do the jobs stay alive? Only way is for the bottom 40% pick up the lost spending with their extra pay. Hey, the CBO says that’s what will happen — only 2% job losses for the lower 40% — while pay for 40% of the workforce goes up average 50%. Thanks for proving my point CBO! :-O
For some reason if I comment here these days I have to wait all day or untill the next day for my comment to appear. Does this have something to do with the new software? [2/27 — 10:42 CT]
DenisI have no idea what you mean by my proving your point. I’d be happier with your analysis if you had more numbers, or more conclusive arguments with the numbers you have. and maybe even a (choke) study showing NO jobs lost to higher min wage. I think I have seen many such, but I don’t really keep track. I don’t see the top 60% losing any money at all. I do see a potential re-shuffling of money among the top one percent or so. i don’t see that the “higher percent of wages in product costs” in the hamburger business affects the problem at all. very unlikely people are going to give up their fast food over a small increase in prices. very unlikely the business will go out of business because of higher wage costs when their competitors will be paying the same wages. possible shift in consumer spending away from non fast food (because all those extra 25 cents hamburgers add up over 3 billion served.) mostly i think the landlords of the hambuger workers will just raise rents. the higher minimum wage will be lost to inflation before it is fully phased in. i don’t think i am disagreeing with you, but i don’t see how i am proving your point.
Denisthe other way that workers will lose any advantage from higher min wage is that employers will not hire “workers” but rather “contract” with “associates.” i think the answer for this would be a union (better call it a business) that supplies labor to business on contract. supplies ALL labor, all low wage labor anyway. When business can’t exploit a work or starve wage system, they will have to pay your worker supply business a living wage plus overhead (living wage includes health care and retirement (social security) insurance. waiting for someone smart enough to do this. since it’s a business and not government or a union, the usual liars will have nothing to say about it…or have to find a whole new set of lies.
I see 8 comments (including this one) of yours since 10:16 this morning and two of Denis’s since 11:38 AM. Yes there is a problewm, Dan knows about it, he has to talk to the programmer, and he is not available right now.
Run, so are the spaces after each line, including the “salutation”… not even the normal space between words. your program appears to disregard the “return” key entirely.
run delay is standard operating procedure these days. this time comment appeared “posted.” as did Denis’. but both had disappeared the next time I logged in. still missing. milk carton?
Coberly, –As far as I am concerned, (projected) loss of 1.3 million jobs out of 60 million+ workers now earning less that $15 an hour is not losing any jobs. I don’t know why the media never seems to catch that in their reporting. –If bottom 40% are charging more for their work the top 60% (top 59% is what I am really talking about) will have less money. –As far as some organization dealing out labor to employers (I think that is what you are suggesting), a law setting up sector wide labor agreements (common around the world) would have the same basic effect I think.
Yes. the same basic effect. but how much progress have you made with that law setting up sector wide agreements?
and if 1.3 million people lost their jobs, 1.3 million people would think they were hurting. Meanwhile there seem to be some good reasons for thinking no jobs would be lost. even research to that effect. depending upon whose research you want to believe I suppose.
anyway, as with all political discussion, this is not getting anyone anywhere.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The House passed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan early Saturday morning with $1,400 direct payments to Americans and with two members of the Massachusetts delegation playing key roles in its passage.
U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield, as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, was responsible for $941 billion — or about half the $1.9 trillion bill. As Rules Committee chair, U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Worcester, played a key role shepherding the bill through the process.
In a telephone interviews after the vote, Neal and McGovern told The Republican the Senate will take up COVID-19 response package next week and hopefully get it on President Joe Biden’s desk soon thereafter.
The House vote was largely along party lines.
“We thought we’d lose one or two (votes of Democrats),” Neal said. “And that’s all we lost, two.”
The two Democrats voting no were Jared Golden of Maine and Kurt Schrader of Oregon, according to the Associated Press.
Neal said he expects people to have those stimulus checks next month so that many can meet day-to-day household expenses and stimulate more demand in the larger economy.
Many economists, Neal said, expect a robust recovery in the spring and summer months.
“The time for action is now. Economists from the left, right and center agree that failing to do enough is much riskier than doing too much. There are no shortcuts to defeating this virus, and this package recognizes the challenges that lie ahead,” Neal said. “But all of this work will only matter if the Senate can move quickly to bring this legislation to President Biden’s desk. This is our moment, and together, we will recover from this virus and set the American people on a new path.”
The danger, Neal said, is in doing too little. Spending too little money now to get vaccines into arms, reopen schools and help people pay bills would only prolong the economic trouble.
McGovern said earlier bills were too small.
“One of the reasons we are at this point is that President Trump and (Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell) kept lowballing us,” McGovern said. …
ORLANDO — In a speech here Sunday to close out the Conservative Political Action Conference, former President Donald Trump will “declare that the incredible journey we began together four years ago is far from over,” coming right up to the line of announcing his 2024 intentions and laying out his vision for the future of “our” Republican party, according to excerpts obtained by NBC News ahead of Trump’s appearance.“I stand before you today to declare that the incredible journey we began together four years ago is far from over,” the former president is expected to say in his first speech since leaving the White House last month. “We are gathered this afternoon to talk about the future — the future of our movement, the future of our party, and the future of our beloved country.” The remarks — at least, as scripted — make clear that Trump doesn’t plan to start a new party or leave the GOP, but it does put fellow Republicans who have crossed him on notice.“The Republican Party is united,” the excerpts read. “The only division is between a handful of Washington DC establishment political hacks, and everybody else all over the country.” Among those lawmakers likely to get a name-check from Trump is Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who voted to impeach him and has been vocal that the party should move away from his leadership going forward. …
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Taking the stage for the first time since leaving office, former President Donald Trump on Sunday called for GOP unity, even as he exacerbated intraparty divisions by attacking fellow Republicans and promoting lies about the election in a speech that made clear he intends to remain a dominant political force.Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he has been hailed as a returning hero, Trump blasted his successor, President Joe Biden, and tried to lay out a vision for the future of the GOP that revolves firmly around him, despite his loss in November.“Do you miss me yet?” Trump said after taking the stage to his old rally soundtrack and cheers from the supportive crowd.Trump, in his speech, tried to downplay the civil war gripping the party over the extent to which Republicans should embrace him, even as he unfurled an enemies list, calling out by name the 10 House Republicans and seven GOP senators who voted to impeach or convict him for inciting the U.S. Capitol riot. He ended by singling out Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican, who has faced tremendous backlash in Wyoming for saying Trump should no longer play a role in the party or headline the event.While he insisted the division was merely a spat “between a handful of Washington, D.C., establishment political hacks and everybody else, all over the country,” Trump had a message for the incumbents who had dared to cross him: “Get rid of ‘em all.” …
Critics of a strong currency say it hurts
American factory workers by making imports cheap.
President Biden has made reviving American manufacturing a top priority. To deliver, he may first have to deal with something even more fundamental to the U.S. economy: the strength of the dollar.
Because a strong dollar lowers the price of imports and raises the price of exports, it gives foreign companies an advantage over American competitors and can drag down U.S. employment.
“Dollar overvaluation is the big problem,” said Mike Stumo, chief executive of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, which represents small and midsize manufacturers and farmers. Mr. Stumo describes policies that prop up the dollar as a “war on the working class.”
Few recent presidents have devoted much attention to this issue. Donald J. Trump fulminated against the decline of U.S. manufacturing and occasionally mused about weakening the dollar, but focused his policies more on tariffs than on currency.
But Mr. Biden has hired a handful of senior economic advisers who are concerned about the dollar’s strength and have explored ways to reduce it.
“There are a lot of folks who want to try some new things in there,” said Mr. Stumo, whose group presented ideas for weakening the dollar to three of Mr. Biden’s agency transition teams.
The dollar’s strength over much of the past few decades has bloated the U.S. trade deficit, which roughly tripled as a share of gross domestic product in the late 1990s and has remained high.
At its simplest level, the trade deficit represents a kind of leakage from the U.S. economy: Americans buy more in goods and services from abroad than the rest of the world buys from the United States, and the country takes on foreign debt to pay for the difference. If Americans bought more domestically made products and fewer imports, the spending would create jobs for U.S.-based workers and require less debt.
Traditionally, most economists have nonetheless taken a blasé posture toward trade deficits, arguing that they reflect underlying economic fundamentals — namely, a country’s appetite to consume or invest rather than save.
A country with a young population may run a large trade deficit because young workers tend to consume more than older workers, who are focused on saving for retirement. An economy growing unusually quickly can also run a larger-than-usual trade deficit, as spending spikes for goods like cars and phones.
The problem for the United States is that its trade deficit appears to be far larger than demographics and other fundamentals would predict. According to an analysis by the International Monetary Fund, a reasonable current account deficit, a somewhat broader measure of the trade deficit, would have been about 0.7 percent of the $21 trillion U.S. economy in 2019. The actual deficit, adjusted for short-term factors like the strength of the economy, was about 2 percent of gross domestic product — larger by hundreds of billions of dollars.
This divergence between economic models and the actual trade deficit partly reflects the dollar’s strength relative to other currencies. In some cases, other countries have suppressed their currencies’ value to make their goods cheaper for Americans. …
ORLANDO, Fla. — For decades, the same ritual took place in the aftermath of Republican electoral defeats.
Moderate, establishment-aligned party officials would argue that candidates had veered too far right on issues like immigration, as well as in their language, and would counsel a return to the political center. And conservatives would contend that Republicans had abandoned the true faith and must return to first principles to distinguish themselves from Democrats and claim victory.
One could be forgiven for missing this debate in the aftermath of 2020, because it is scarcely taking place. Republicans have entered a sort of post-policy moment in which the most animating forces in the party are emotions, not issues.
This shift was on vivid display last weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where the annual gathering’s Trumpification and the former president’s vow to exact revenge against his intraparty critics dominated headlines.
But just as striking was what wasn’t said at the event. There was vanishingly little discussion of why Republicans lost the presidency, the House and the Senate over the last four years, nor much debate about what agenda they should pursue to rebuild the party.
The absence of soul-searching owes in part to the Republicans’ surprise gains in the House and the denialism of many activists that they lost the White House at all, a false claim perpetuated with trollish gusto by former President Donald J. Trump himself on Sunday, to the delight of the crowd.
The former president was, however, hardly the only high-profile Republican to demonstrate that confronting Democrats and the news media, while harnessing the grievance of the party rank and file toward both, is the best recipe for acclaim within today’s G.O.P.
“We can sit around and have academic debates about conservative policy, we can do that,” Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said to an ovation in his CPAC remarks. “But the question is, when the klieg lights get hot, when the left comes after you: Will you stay strong, or will you fold?”…
The Paradox of Pandemic Partisanship
NY Times – Paul Krugman – February 25
President Biden’s Covid-19 relief proposal remains incredibly popular; if anything, it’s getting more popular as it barrels through Congress. Multiple polls show that something like 70 percent of Americans approve of the $1.9 trillion plan. It’s almost twice as popular as the Republican tax cut of 2017; it’s more popular than the Obama stimulus of 2009; it’s hard to believe now, but the Biden plan is more popular than Medicare was in the months before it passed in 1965.
Big business has also come on board: More than 150 senior executives at major companies have written congressional leaders urging enactment of Biden’s plan.
It’s not too hard to see why Democrats and independents like the plan. What I’m trying to understand is something that seems like a political paradox. Namely, how is it possible that so many Republicans approve of the plan?
Why is Republican support for Biden’s economic plans a puzzle? Because most of the Republican rank and file believe (based on nothing but lies) that the election was stolen. So we’re in a peculiar position where a substantial number of voters don’t believe Biden has the right to be running the country, but effectively approve of the way he’s running it, at least in terms of economic policy.
A recent Economist/YouGov poll makes the point. According to that poll, only 16 percent of self-identified Republicans believe that Biden won the election fairly, while 71 percent believe that it was stolen from Donald Trump. Yet 39 percent of Republicans favor Biden’s $1.9 trillion spending proposal. A Morning Consult poll puts Republican support for the plan at 60 percent!
OK, believing that the presidency was stolen and supporting the policies of the man on whose behalf you think it was stolen isn’t literally a contradiction. But it’s still very strange. …
CBO projects loss of 1.4 million jobs by 2025 if the minimum wage is raised in steps to $15.
Since 65 million workers would be in line for raise on the average of 50% — that’s 40% of the workforce of 160 million — why does anybody even think twice about 1.4 million jobs lost? First place, statistically it is just noise.
Secondly, it proves what I am always saying — that as long as the 40% end up with more pay overall — sales lost to higher prices of goods will be replenished by added demand in the pockets of labor. Where else would the money that the 60% lost out on go? — but to added demand for 40 percentile made goods — consumers tending to spend proportionately more at businesses that hire more workers at their own wage level.
I actually predict more low wage jobs after a minimum wage hike. Nice of the CBO to back me up — at least about the general direction. Pump more pay into one segment of the workforce, watch that portion of the economy flourish.
https://ontodayspage.blogspot.com/2021/02/higher-min-wage-makes-more-low-wage.html
Dobbs is not so strange. when you consider that people are not logical. that’s all people, not just the insane other guys. fortunately neither are “facts” logical.but more importantly for political purposes, the other guys went over to the other side because our side wasn’t delivering for them. the covid relief promises them at least a bunch of money in the short term. what’s not to like about that? our side could capitalize on that by continuing to deliver. my guess is that we won’t. and the other side will capitalize on our failure by offering the other guys pie in the sky with a side of “logical” insane therefore that will destroy democracy and any hope the people ever had for the next thousand years.
DenisI suspect the “lost jobs” is a politically induced hallucination. Companies in the same line of business will have to raise wages, but they will be able to increase prices because all of their competitors will have to raise wages at the same time, All that extra pay may enable low low wage workers to endure longer (weeks not years) periods of unemployent while they seek education or better jobs, or just time off for sanity. consider that some of those jobs lost will be second jobs. meanwhile, as you point out, the higher wage is not money lost to the economy. it may mean (i doubt it) that people will buy fewer hamburgers because the price went up 25 cents, but other businesses will get the money otherwise spent on hamburgers.. unfortunately that is more likely to be corporate landlords than any honest business. and therein lies the real problem of poverty in america. some high-end person recently observed that inflation was not likely to be a problem because wages are not rising. “ve haf vays” to keep wages from rising. at the other end, “inflation” is being absorbed by the stock market, and when they finally shake that tree, the cash will end up in the pockets of the rich who will not spend as much of it back into the economy as you might think.
strange are the ways of spell check. when “covid” becomes “coifed” without asking me, but “thenm” passes uncorrected, i have to wonder about the perfect competence of our computerized future.also, i was careful to include appropriate spacing in my comments. but that got lost in the posting. not sure what the other commenters know that i don’t.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/26/us/politics/republicans-minimum-wage.html?smid=tw-share
Coberly,I am saying that hamburger sales …… I actually like to stay away from fast food since it has such abnormally high labor costs — 25%; about double the average business — but, when we think minimum wage, everybody thinks of McDonald’s …… hamburger sales may be lost from the upper 60% (workers above the $15 level) both from higher prices and because the 60% have fewer dollars in to spend on hamburgers in days when the bottom 40% is asserting its bargaining power to demand more pay (via law or labor union), thereby raising prices across the board on all the kinds of services the 40% produce. Higher prices + less money overall to pay for them: poor days for the 60%.So how do the jobs stay alive? Only way is for the bottom 40% pick up the lost spending with their extra pay. Hey, the CBO says that’s what will happen — only 2% job losses for the lower 40% — while pay for 40% of the workforce goes up average 50%. Thanks for proving my point CBO! :-O
Your comment
For some reason if I comment here these days I have to wait all day or untill the next day for my comment to appear. Does this have something to do with the new software? [2/27 — 10:42 CT]
DenisI have no idea what you mean by my proving your point. I’d be happier with your analysis if you had more numbers, or more conclusive arguments with the numbers you have. and maybe even a (choke) study showing NO jobs lost to higher min wage. I think I have seen many such, but I don’t really keep track. I don’t see the top 60% losing any money at all. I do see a potential re-shuffling of money among the top one percent or so. i don’t see that the “higher percent of wages in product costs” in the hamburger business affects the problem at all. very unlikely people are going to give up their fast food over a small increase in prices. very unlikely the business will go out of business because of higher wage costs when their competitors will be paying the same wages. possible shift in consumer spending away from non fast food (because all those extra 25 cents hamburgers add up over 3 billion served.) mostly i think the landlords of the hambuger workers will just raise rents. the higher minimum wage will be lost to inflation before it is fully phased in. i don’t think i am disagreeing with you, but i don’t see how i am proving your point.
oh, i see (now that your comment appears where i can see it) it was CBO proving your point.
Denisthe other way that workers will lose any advantage from higher min wage is that employers will not hire “workers” but rather “contract” with “associates.” i think the answer for this would be a union (better call it a business) that supplies labor to business on contract. supplies ALL labor, all low wage labor anyway. When business can’t exploit a work or starve wage system, they will have to pay your worker supply business a living wage plus overhead (living wage includes health care and retirement (social security) insurance. waiting for someone smart enough to do this. since it’s a business and not government or a union, the usual liars will have nothing to say about it…or have to find a whole new set of lies.
Run comments are disappearing after they appear as posts. this seems to have happened to both mine and Denis’ last comments on this thread.
coberly:
I see 8 comments (including this one) of yours since 10:16 this morning and two of Denis’s since 11:38 AM. Yes there is a problewm, Dan knows about it, he has to talk to the programmer, and he is not available right now.
Run, so are the spaces after each line, including the “salutation”… not even the normal space between words. your program appears to disregard the “return” key entirely.
Run 75441 no prob. just letting you know.
Thank you. I am assuming there was a delay in seeing your comments somehow.
run delay is standard operating procedure these days. this time comment appeared “posted.” as did Denis’. but both had disappeared the next time I logged in. still missing. milk carton?
coberly:
I am glad you posted this out here as I will have Dan read it directly as he talks to the programmers. Open thread is a good place to post this.
Run74451none of your replies (which coe in to my email) hav appeared here either. no idea why you are seeing them and i am not.
Coberly, –As far as I am concerned, (projected) loss of 1.3 million jobs out of 60 million+ workers now earning less that $15 an hour is not losing any jobs. I don’t know why the media never seems to catch that in their reporting. –If bottom 40% are charging more for their work the top 60% (top 59% is what I am really talking about) will have less money. –As far as some organization dealing out labor to employers (I think that is what you are suggesting), a law setting up sector wide labor agreements (common around the world) would have the same basic effect I think.
Denis
Yes. the same basic effect. but how much progress have you made with that law setting up sector wide agreements?
and if 1.3 million people lost their jobs, 1.3 million people would think they were hurting. Meanwhile there seem to be some good reasons for thinking no jobs would be lost. even research to that effect. depending upon whose research you want to believe I suppose.
anyway, as with all political discussion, this is not getting anyone anywhere.
COVID relief heads to Senate after key help from Massachusetts congressmen
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The House passed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan early Saturday morning with $1,400 direct payments to Americans and with two members of the Massachusetts delegation playing key roles in its passage.
U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield, as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, was responsible for $941 billion — or about half the $1.9 trillion bill. As Rules Committee chair, U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Worcester, played a key role shepherding the bill through the process.
In a telephone interviews after the vote, Neal and McGovern told The Republican the Senate will take up COVID-19 response package next week and hopefully get it on President Joe Biden’s desk soon thereafter.
The House vote was largely along party lines.
“We thought we’d lose one or two (votes of Democrats),” Neal said. “And that’s all we lost, two.”
The two Democrats voting no were Jared Golden of Maine and Kurt Schrader of Oregon, according to the Associated Press.
Neal said he expects people to have those stimulus checks next month so that many can meet day-to-day household expenses and stimulate more demand in the larger economy.
Many economists, Neal said, expect a robust recovery in the spring and summer months.
“The time for action is now. Economists from the left, right and center agree that failing to do enough is much riskier than doing too much. There are no shortcuts to defeating this virus, and this package recognizes the challenges that lie ahead,” Neal said. “But all of this work will only matter if the Senate can move quickly to bring this legislation to President Biden’s desk. This is our moment, and together, we will recover from this virus and set the American people on a new path.”
The danger, Neal said, is in doing too little. Spending too little money now to get vaccines into arms, reopen schools and help people pay bills would only prolong the economic trouble.
McGovern said earlier bills were too small.
“One of the reasons we are at this point is that President Trump and (Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell) kept lowballing us,” McGovern said. …
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-cpac-speech-declare-his-political-journey-far-over-n1259093
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/02/28/nation/trump-is-set-return-spotlight-with-cpac-speech/?event=event25
How Can Biden Bring Back Manufacturing Jobs?
NYT – March 1
Weaken the Dollar
Critics of a strong currency say it hurts
American factory workers by making imports cheap.
President Biden has made reviving American manufacturing a top priority. To deliver, he may first have to deal with something even more fundamental to the U.S. economy: the strength of the dollar.
Because a strong dollar lowers the price of imports and raises the price of exports, it gives foreign companies an advantage over American competitors and can drag down U.S. employment.
“Dollar overvaluation is the big problem,” said Mike Stumo, chief executive of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, which represents small and midsize manufacturers and farmers. Mr. Stumo describes policies that prop up the dollar as a “war on the working class.”
Few recent presidents have devoted much attention to this issue. Donald J. Trump fulminated against the decline of U.S. manufacturing and occasionally mused about weakening the dollar, but focused his policies more on tariffs than on currency.
But Mr. Biden has hired a handful of senior economic advisers who are concerned about the dollar’s strength and have explored ways to reduce it.
“There are a lot of folks who want to try some new things in there,” said Mr. Stumo, whose group presented ideas for weakening the dollar to three of Mr. Biden’s agency transition teams.
The dollar’s strength over much of the past few decades has bloated the U.S. trade deficit, which roughly tripled as a share of gross domestic product in the late 1990s and has remained high.
At its simplest level, the trade deficit represents a kind of leakage from the U.S. economy: Americans buy more in goods and services from abroad than the rest of the world buys from the United States, and the country takes on foreign debt to pay for the difference. If Americans bought more domestically made products and fewer imports, the spending would create jobs for U.S.-based workers and require less debt.
Traditionally, most economists have nonetheless taken a blasé posture toward trade deficits, arguing that they reflect underlying economic fundamentals — namely, a country’s appetite to consume or invest rather than save.
A country with a young population may run a large trade deficit because young workers tend to consume more than older workers, who are focused on saving for retirement. An economy growing unusually quickly can also run a larger-than-usual trade deficit, as spending spikes for goods like cars and phones.
The problem for the United States is that its trade deficit appears to be far larger than demographics and other fundamentals would predict. According to an analysis by the International Monetary Fund, a reasonable current account deficit, a somewhat broader measure of the trade deficit, would have been about 0.7 percent of the $21 trillion U.S. economy in 2019. The actual deficit, adjusted for short-term factors like the strength of the economy, was about 2 percent of gross domestic product — larger by hundreds of billions of dollars.
This divergence between economic models and the actual trade deficit partly reflects the dollar’s strength relative to other currencies. In some cases, other countries have suppressed their currencies’ value to make their goods cheaper for Americans. …
Trumpism Grips a Post-Policy GOP as Traditional Conservatism Fades
NY Times – March 1
ORLANDO, Fla. — For decades, the same ritual took place in the aftermath of Republican electoral defeats.
Moderate, establishment-aligned party officials would argue that candidates had veered too far right on issues like immigration, as well as in their language, and would counsel a return to the political center. And conservatives would contend that Republicans had abandoned the true faith and must return to first principles to distinguish themselves from Democrats and claim victory.
One could be forgiven for missing this debate in the aftermath of 2020, because it is scarcely taking place. Republicans have entered a sort of post-policy moment in which the most animating forces in the party are emotions, not issues.
This shift was on vivid display last weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where the annual gathering’s Trumpification and the former president’s vow to exact revenge against his intraparty critics dominated headlines.
But just as striking was what wasn’t said at the event. There was vanishingly little discussion of why Republicans lost the presidency, the House and the Senate over the last four years, nor much debate about what agenda they should pursue to rebuild the party.
The absence of soul-searching owes in part to the Republicans’ surprise gains in the House and the denialism of many activists that they lost the White House at all, a false claim perpetuated with trollish gusto by former President Donald J. Trump himself on Sunday, to the delight of the crowd.
The former president was, however, hardly the only high-profile Republican to demonstrate that confronting Democrats and the news media, while harnessing the grievance of the party rank and file toward both, is the best recipe for acclaim within today’s G.O.P.
“We can sit around and have academic debates about conservative policy, we can do that,” Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said to an ovation in his CPAC remarks. “But the question is, when the klieg lights get hot, when the left comes after you: Will you stay strong, or will you fold?”…