Who would have guessed that kneecapping the service industry would be bad for the service sector?
And states do have options for funding relief at the state level. For example they could temporarily raise income taxes on the wealthy for the duration of the pandemic. Or issue pandemic bonds.
The state and local government had to act entirely because the federal government had no real plan. Someone is going to fill the decision making vacuum, but it is a problem when the people making the decisions don't have the financial power to make the right decision. The federal government is the only government in the US that had the power to pay people to stay home and experts were telling us that was the right decision 9 months ago.
State governments have the power to pay people to stay home. They might have to shift funding from other areas or raise taxes in order to do so.
But they don't have the money to do so. Plans like that require deficit spending, which the federal government can do but the states can't.
Your alternative suggestions are not serious ideas. Do you really think the states could find the money to pay people to stay home by levying taxes on basically those same payments?
So, basically, you think they should do things like finance their house with their credit card (general obligation bonds) instead of taking out a mortgage (federal deficit spending)? And what's your reason for that?
Honestly, this seems more like you're opposed to stay at home orders directly, but expressing that opposition indirectly by demanding arbitrary (unreasonable) policy restrictions to make them seems less desirable by making their implementation unnecessarily painful and difficult.
>State governments have the power to pay people to stay home. They might have to shift funding from other areas or raise taxes in order to do so.
Most states are run on a deficit and several states are already near bankruptcy. There simply isn't a capability at the state level to have the type of financial response that is possible at the federal level with its ability to print money.
This is not true. All the states except Vermont have a legal requirement of a balanced budget.
https://www.ncsl.org/research/fiscal-policy/state-balanced-b...
>State balanced budget requirements in practice refer to operating budgets and not to capital budgets. Operating budgets include annual expenditures--such items as salaries and wages, aid to local governments, health and welfare benefits, and other expenditures that are repeated from year to year. State capital expenditure, mainly for land, highways, and buildings, is largely financed by debt
It is much easier to balance the budget when you ignore all those capital expenses.
Also there are other complexities involved. You can look at what happened in Illinois a few years back as an example. They basically didn't have an official state budget for multiple years. That didn't stop them from racking up costs and debt. It contributed to a debt crisis that the state is still trying to claw its way out of.
The first isn't true at all. Most US States are forbidden to run deficits[0].
Which is why many states are already cutting services and laying off workers.
What's more, there are significant restrictions in most states on when and how they can raise money by issuing debt obligations (bonds).
With sales and income tax revenues plummeting in many states, that leaves them with few options other than cutting services, laying off workers and slashing public programs.
Without Federal assistance, things are going to get much worse before they get better.
[0] https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-are-state...
https://rockinst.org/issue-area/new-yorks-balance-of-payment...
Because Florida benefits immensely from supporting a state which has, if it were a country, the 6th highest GDP in the world.
The economy in Florida would be heavily affected if California left the union.
Your question is basically like asking "why do federations exist?"
"Some small businesses" is a washy phrase with no substance.
The Federal government tried to create PPP programs, but look at what happened. Multi-million dollar franchises pulled in huge chunks while small restaurants got nothing. It's the 2008 bank bailouts all over again. It's like PS5/nvidia graphics cards scalping for businesses.
The corruption flows through every system, and the blame can be focuses on businesses with the means and people and legal staff to take advantage of the situation at the expense of every possible competitor.
Also Trump removed the independent watchdog for the coronavirus funds.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/07/trump-removes-indep...
Free money from the federal government wouldn't have improved that situation. If state governors want to shut down businesses then state governments should be issuing relief payments.
Unfortunately, for most people the truth is that they "like their representatives, it's all the rest that are corrupt"
Plus Washington is close enough to a 50/50 split right now that you can always just say it was the other party holding everything up.
States had a choice, leave everything open and deal with the loss of life, and still suffer as people would be going out less. OR shut down to help prevent deaths and hope the federal government would help (which it should have).
Instead it became a political battle to give corporate immunity, and nobody got anything after March.
The state and local governments that shutdown did the right thing - they put the health and safety of their populations first. The federal government failed them by defaulting on its obligations. It did this intentionally.
It's more complex than that. The UK is keeping things stable/frozen, but with nothing being produced, the value of their money is shifting.
You cannot keep paying people to do nothing. You have people in jobs where they are still employed, saving tons (because there's nothing to spend it on) and record buying of future e-waste (Going back to the 2000s, PS3 prices were back to normal two weeks before x-mas Christmas. PS5s are still $1000+ on eBay), and the income inequality is growing between those who happen to be in safe industries and those who weren't .. and it's arbitrary. Nothing has changed for the manager at a Wal-Mart, or a UPS driver or an engineer, but it has for the restaurant manager or someone who owns a small corner store in California.
The completely arbitrary and almost random lock-down decisions have crushed all small business, giving over their entire customer bases to large big box stores.
The people with their small businesses don't want handouts. They'll take it sure, but they want to work. Some have shifted and found new creative ways to make money. That's the nature of capitalism. You do what you have to, within the limits we've evolved over the past 100 years (no more child labor; pure capitalism without regulation is bad), to offer goods and services people want. But many are struggling.
In contrast, the earlier larger unemployment payments provided a perverse incentive to keep people from returning to jobs that had reopened. Lowering them a bit has helped those return to jobs that were there, but it's been devastating to those who have nothing to go back to.
We cannot just inject money. Social welfare has been a disaster in many respect. Only only need to watch modern documentary that break the bubble: "What Killed Michael Brown" and "Uncle Tom" to see how the perverse incentives from badly constructed government systems actually hurt a lot of low income communities and destroyed families.
There is a lot of talk about "A great reset," used in many countries to indicate a global agenda to fundamentally change economic models. Make no mistake, people at the top with influence are not going to give up or redistribute their wealth. Bezos, Gates and others at the top will hold on to their wealth. But reconstruction could destroy people under a certain income threshold if it's not done correctly.
People need merit and value, and the draconian COVID regulations have removed personal agency from the masses.
Small business owners aren't feeling some pressing desire to continue their craft during the pandemic, beyond that of anyone with a passion. What's really driving their desperation is needing to pay rent, as the banks continue operating as normal, demanding their periodic tribute, and threatening to confiscate businesses if they don't find some way to pay up.
You said "people with their small businesses don't want handouts". The problem is that they've internalized rent as some inherent fact of life, while viewing anything that could mitigate rent as a "government handout" - despite decades of government financial meddling being responsible for this jam!
The direct solution was/is to suspend all rent/mortgages denominated in USD, and let the pain accrue to those who are usually benefiting from vacuum-up economics. Instead, as always, disinvolved capital was given a pass (along with a huge bailout!) while the political machine went to work dividing the productive members of society to distract from their real enemy.
The response here in Washington State has resulted in permanent closure of more businesses than deaths with covid within the state.
Instead Republicans have held aid hostage in exchange for legislation allowing businesses to force employees to work in unsafe environments with no recourse[1]. Even so far as a measure that would allow the US attorney general to penalized employees up to $50k for having the audacity to sue businesses for creating unsafe environments.[2]
1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/12/15/disturbin... 2. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/12/covid-liability-shield-la...
A reminder that Nancy Pelosi turned down not one but two $1 trillion+ stimulus offer from the White House before the election.
Trump makes $1.8 trillion economic relief offer, but deal with Pelosi remains elusive (Oct 09 2020)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/10/09/trump-ec...
Nancy Pelosi blasts the White House's $1.6 trillion stimulus plan, saying it's not even 'half a loaf' (Oct 01 2020)
https://www.businessinsider.com/nancy-pelosi-blasts-white-ho...
But if you look at how that money is allocated, it won't be very good for anyone except those who are milking this crisis for all they can.
The bill needs to be much bigger to have any considerable impact.
Remember -- the economy only works if people are spending money, and people are only spending money when they have money in their pockets. Trickle-up economics is real and it works.
Republicans were willing to negotiate on a smaller package.
It was held up by the speaker because it made Trump look bad.
If you want to know why COVID relief is tied up in Congress, one key reason is that Republicans are demanding legal immunity for corporations so they can expose their workers to COVID without repercussions.
Dems don’t want you to die for a check. That’s what we’re fighting over.
Here you go[0]. Although it says the opposite of what GP claimed.
[0] https://www.axios.com/trump-coronavirus-stimulus-negotiation...
That's a good reason to refuse to pass the bill.
The "aid" is a red herring if you are setting up those same people for dangerous situations with zero accountability from the people who are forcing them to put themselves in hazard's way.
It is myopic to think that a smaller stimulus bill (that would barely cover 1 month's expenses for the average American -- recall that it's been 8 months since the first stimulus) would be proposed for anything except to stave off the fervor of mass civil unrest for a short while longer.
Absent a written standard from the government body in charge of these things, it's a free-for-all of liability. So I open my restaurant following local standards and a customer gets COVID and sues me because I used disinfectant X when I should have used Y, or the staff was wearing mask A instead of mask B, or whatever.
I don't think its unreasonable whatsoever to - again, absent the proper rules - ask for protection in this case. Folks like to characterize this as "protecting big corporations" but if you read the proposal it protects school, universities, hospitals, and so forth as well.
It's very strange that we couldn't move money around and hadn't been saving money "for a rainy day" exactly like this one.
In places where "social distancing" minimums have been impossible, the places have closed.
I'm in one of the most strict places in the entire United States, but I can still go to most every store I want, including hair salons. I'm only barred from places where there's a LOT of breathing (gym, church with singing), tight confines where social distancing can't be done (bars, restaurants) or staying in a singular location for a long time (church, clubs, sporting events).
Destruction of the service industries? Educational handicaps on multiple generations of students?
My point is that it's cheap to wear a mask and socially distance yourself while otherwise carrying on with life. It's extremely expensive on society to force everyone to stay home as much as possible and avoid certain businesses. It's expensive because it pushes the country more rapidly into debt, it pushes millions into poverty, it drives up suicide rates, and dozens more second and third order effects we won't find out about until the coming years.
That's why online school has been such a common thing; but, the United States isn't very good at it, and we haven't built out the appropriate social support structures and patterns (and have gone against those patterns in many cases), so it hasn't been especially viable.
Remote learning was considered better than cancelling school altogether; but, then we ran into the problem of parents and children working and going to school in the same place and that came with its own burdens.
But did we give enough thought to the third possibility? Just sending them to school normally with masks, periodically testing everyone, and contact tracing anyone who tests positive? Young people are surprisingly resilient to the disease, really just the teachers need to take extra precautions.
Assuming there are 200,000,000 people in the US over the age of 18, and assuming that each of them gets $1000/month for 12 months, we have 200,000,000 * 1000 * 12 = 2.4 Trillion, which is similar to what we actually spent. The problem is, instead of uniformly distributing that 2.4 trillion among our citizens, we added complexity (and waste due to overhead) by giving money to special interests (airlines for example) and big businesses in various ways.
I perceive the "I'm assuming you don't want ..." part as incredibly sarcastic and belittling, as though you're putting yourself on a pedestal of knowledge and belittling your fellows having a conversation.
I know I've not been the most polite in many of these conversations; and I need to work on that, too; but, perhaps you haven't noticed it and I wanted to bring it to your attention so you don't snap at people and in conversations that actually matter.
The majority of whom were already older than the average life expectancy. We'll see excess deaths this year, but are going to see a shortfall for the next few after that.
In an effort to stave off that danger, local governments enacted lockdowns with the intent of reducing the spread of the virus.
The virus, in the United States, has an established death rate of around 1.5% and a hospitalization rate higher than that.
It also experiences exponential growth.
Our hospitals didn't have the capacity to handle all the _potential_ load; and, once they're approaching that capacity, it's already too late and they'll blow past it. That's the danger of exponential growth.
Let's imagine doublings:
1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128.
If total capacity is 100, the moment that capacity is less than 20% used up, we're 2-3 timesteps away from using over 100%. It is a very dangerous gamble, and controversial decisions are made or not made and the worst part is that, when you do the safe thing, you have no way of being certain or explaining that the bad thing would have or could have happened, because "it's only 20%" and that looks small.
Edit: also, the military, FEMA, and non-profits built temporary hospitals in spring, but they weren't needed.
Federally, there was no strategy because federal powers were devoted to promoting the pandemic (e.g., via the Defense Production Act invocation to shield the meat packing industry from state safety efforts) rather than fighting it.
OTOH, hospitals also require skilled staff, which takes longer to build.
Absolutely. Steve the UberEats delivery driver can be moved into the ICU, putting folks on ventilators and providing critical care in a week or so, right?
And Gustavo, the busboy can be out providing EMT services in just a few days, right?
A doctor requires 8+ years of post-secondary education, in addition to several years of on-the-job training.
An RN requires at least 6+ years of post-secondary education, plus several years of on-the-job training. LPNs even longer.
So, yes. In the short term (~6-18 months), staff are most certainly fairly fixed resources.
As for hospital beds, those are limited to the square footage available for them. Sure, temporary hospital wards can be constructed and put in place fairly quickly, but unless Steve and Gustavo are staffing them, you still have a big problem.
I don't give up. Make a temporary hospital with ip web cams pointed at all the vitals. Build a quick and dirty dashboard that lets doctors/nurses monitor dozens of patients at once instead of having to physically walk around everywhere. If engineers can get more done with less using automation, medical professionals can do it too.
You're putting words in my mouth and then arguing against them. I think that's called a 'strawman argument'.
They can, however, collectively produce 9 babies, 9 months after the start date.
Normal hospitals are already staffed at pretty close to the maximum rate of less qualified to more expert staff for their caseload, and the easy caseload that requires less expert share of time is pushed out of hospitals entirely by the crisis. Surging additional minimally trained staff doesn't help anything.
I believe ICU nursing stations already use such dashboards routinely.
If they didn't, developing and testing new software to a level where it was reliable enough for such use without being checked up around, and training staff and adapting processes for it, would not be a quick process and, perhaps more importantly, would take staff time of clinical staff to participate in consultation and validation instead of clinical duties while it progressed.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. The solution doesn't have to be perfect. It can be quick and dirty now, and perfected later. It might be worth it, given the current solution is pushing hundreds of millions into poverty among other disastrous consequences.
Quick and dirty IT solutions often reduce efficiency compared to not having them, and that's more likely the less involvement and validation with the target workers you have in the course of building it.
Plus, again, this is something hospitals already have and use and which already is factored into staffing requirements, and you are responding only to the theoretical problem that would exist if it actually was a new innovation being developed.
About 10% of all the people who died in the US this year will have died from covid-19. Why are those 10% of deaths so much more terrible, so unimaginably horrible, that we're focusing exclusively on those, and completely ignoring the remaining 90% of deaths?
The broader point is that it's not clear that lockdowns are beneficial or necessary. They have real costs. Nobody is talking about how we weigh those costs and benefits. And despite the lockdowns, California still has a swamped medical system.
To move the conversation forward: people will never give up their sacred cows. The lockdowns were never about COVID, they're about control and rewarding political allies. Texas tried to ban abortion. California tried to ban religion. And nobody cares if the lockdowns work or not.
(Our government failed on both the lockdowns, which were scattered, too late in many places, and too poorly enforced in most places, and stimulus, but then our government, at many levels, has not been sane.)