50 failed states

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had an op-ed published in the New York Times yesterday.  He says he wants us to run the dang money printer.

States and localities are in desperate need of additional federal intervention before the bulk of the CARES Act funding expires this summer. Budget gaps like the one in New Jersey cannot be closed by austerity alone. Multiply New Jersey’s problems to reflect the experiences of 50 state governments and thousands of local governments and the result, without more help from Congress, could be a significantly worse and protracted recession.

The CARES Act allocated $150 billion to state and local governments. This new aid package must be significantly larger and provide not only assistance for state and local governments but also continued support for the unemployed, investments in public health and aid as needed to stabilize aggregate demand and restore full employment.

As it stands right now, unfortunately, there isn't much to suggest that we're actually going to see the kind of action Bernanke is calling for.  If anything the Trump administration is leaning toward more austerity. Consider the sabotage going on at the Post Office, for example.

The Trump administration has consolidated control over the Postal Service, traditionally an apolitical institution, during the pandemic by making a financial lifeline for the nation’s mail service contingent upon the White House political agenda. President Trump in April called the agency “a joke” and demanded it quadruple package rates before he’d authorize any emergency aid or loans.

The Postal Service’s future needs to be as a low-cost package carrier, industry analysts contend, as parcels make up a growing portion of the agency’s volume and profits, and paper mail volumes continue to decline as coupons and bills increasingly move online. Postal leaders project the agency could run out of money between March and October 2021.

“If this is true, it would be a real concern to customers if service were slowed, especially in light of the fact that the Postal Service may get more rate authority, meaning higher rates, later this year or early next year,” said Art Sackler, manager of the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service, an industry group whose members include Amazon, eBay, Hallmark and other commercial mailers.

“This is framing the U.S. Postal Service, a 245-year-old government agency, and comparing it to its competitors that could conceivably go bankrupt,” said Philip Rubio, a professor of history at North Carolina A&T State University and a former postal worker. “Comparing it to U.S. Steel says exactly that ‘We are a business, not service.’ That’s troubling.”

There are no such thing as public services in the hellworld we've built.  Everything that isn't an all-out grift, just isn't viable.  We've already seen the hostility with which conservatives are attacking public education. This week's threatening demands that schools reopen under dangerous circumstances is only the latest round of that particular gaslighting operation.  Yesterday, Senator Kennedy responded to the pleas for the safety of teachers and students from education professionals by inviting them to "kiss my ass."   Meanwhile, Stephanie Grace picked up on another startling comment from the Vice President during his visit yesterday.

And between congratulating the state for having flattened the curve (before it unflattened) and offering the obligatory paean to LSU football (Coach O was in the house), Pence offered this genuinely shocking statement: “We don’t want CDC guidance to be a reason why people don’t reopen their schools.”

Even if the Centers for Disease Control’s guidance suggests they can’t be reopened safely just yet in some places, and under some circumstances? Really, Mr. VP?

Yes, really, according to the administration’s push to get localities to fall in line with President Donald Trump’s insistence that all is basically well, despite an alarming increase in coronavirus cases in Louisiana and many other states. Pence, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and others said that of course schools would have to be opened safely, but avoided getting into the specifics.

Those specifics, of course, are at the heart of what federal agencies such as the CDC do; assessing risk is a key part of their mission. Does Pence also think we should ignore warnings from the National Hurricane Center if we’d rather not evacuate? Take unproven medications without worrying about side effects? Start smoking, because the Surgeon General can’t tell us what to do?

Apparently, yes, that is precisely the point.  Not only does the Trump administration mean to ignore the advice of CDC, it wants to cut the agency out of the loop entirely.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all Covid-19 patient information to a central database in Washington beginning on Wednesday. The move has alarmed health experts who fear the data will be politicized or withheld from the public.

The new instructions were posted recently in a little-noticed document on the Department of Health and Human Services website. From now on, the department — not the C.D.C. — will collect daily reports about the patients that each hospital is treating, the number of available beds and ventilators, and other information vital to tracking the pandemic.

Under the same sort of logic that brought us, "If we didn’t do any testing we would have very few cases,” we now have, if CDC can't give us any advice, then we won't have to follow it.

Yesterday, John Barry wrote that, as cases spike, we are now facing a "second chance" to get the shutdown right.

During the 1918 influenza pandemic, almost every city closed down much of its activity. Fear and caring for sick family members did the rest; absenteeism even in war industries exceeded 50 percent and eviscerated the economy. Many cities reopened too soon and had to close a second time — sometimes a third time — and faced intense resistance. But lives were saved.

Had we done it right the first time, we’d be operating at near 100 percent now, schools would be preparing for a nearly normal school year, football teams would be preparing to practice — and tens of thousands of Americans would not have died.

But getting the response "right" this time would require our leaders to take seriously their roles as stewards of public health and safety.  It would mean extending public services rather than gutting them. It would mean protecting teachers rather than bullying them. And it would mean listening to doctors rather than silencing them. The Trump administration is doing none of that.

Worst of all, despite Benrnake's plea, the Congress is no nearer to offering the states the support they will need to see their people through the economic consequences of a second shutdown. In fact, this week, Republicans there are demanding even more austerity measures as unemployment benefits are set to expire. All the conditions are in place to leave us with 50 failed states grappling with an even bigger pandemic come the end of the year.  Barry closes out his article about the second chance by writing, "we won't get a third."  But from the looks of things, we're going to have to at least hope there is a chance number two and half in there somewhere.