Update 482 – ACB Stands For…Activist Conservative on the Bench Observers of this week’s hearings in Senate Judiciary on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett could not have missed the raging tax law question confronting the Court. Economic policy hides on the Court’s docket but that’s the ACA’s constitutionality on the line …
Update 476: Cong. to Heed Fed’s Fiscal Plea?Know When Federal Spending is Cost Free The window is closing for Congress to pass a much-needed corona relief/stimulus package. Prospects for a deal will be much slimmer in a lame duck session if Biden prevails as Republicans will likely be unwilling to boost the economy for a …
Update 473: Filibuster Rule [Nerd Alert]To Reform Policy, First Reform Process The upcoming elections will render a provisional verdict on the eternal question of the role of government. But that verdict could provide a mandate for government response to the various national crises and decisive federal action. The current gridlock that produces judges but not …
Update 471 — GOP’s Unkindest Cuts:The Skinny on Mitch Bill to Slash CARES Even emaciated elephants don’t change their stripes. Mitch McConnell’s half-baked, half-loaf, half trillion dollar retreat from the last GOP relief offer would cut CARES benefits across the board. This when 30 million Americans are newly out of a job, millions of firms …
Update 470 — Generating Inequities:Economic Impact of COVID on Millennials For the 75 million Americans born between 1981 and 1996 — the millennial generation — the economic scars caused by COVID will last longer and do more material harm than for any other cohort. From distant or delayed classroom learning at tuition rates making education …
Update 469 — Growing Chorus for ReliefAdministration Joins in; Will Mitch Switch? ‘Twas the week before Labor Day when all through the Senate, few creatures were stirring, at least from their tenets. In fact, the GOP Senate leadership needs a fig-leaf to act. Sticking to ideology is an increasingly risky proposition for the majority in …
Growing Chorus for Relief Administration Joins in; Will Mitch Switch? Read More »
Update 464: See You in Sept., Congress; GOP Sees Recovery Just Around Corona A patient in a hospital bed hears two doctors outside the room arguing about the best course of treatment. There is no agreement and consequently no treatment. This analogy of the patient’s plight to the predicament of the American people today fails because …
Update 463 — Trump’s Irregular Orders:What’s Done and What’s Left to Congress You can perhaps understand the frustration. Fractured Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won’t — and can’t — get a Corona relief/stimulus bill larger than a thimble through the Senate. Trump watches helplessly as the prospect of a swift and sizeable fiscal shot of stimulus …
Update 462 — As Corona Talks Stall on HillFed Facilities Attract Scrutiny in Congress One of the biggest Corona relief-related measures enacted thus far by Congress is the $454 billion CARES Act appropriation for Federal Reserve emergency lending facilities. $110 billion of that is to backstop two novel Fed facilities, the Main Street Lending Program …
Update 460: 2Q20 GDP 9.5% Drop ShocksAs Congress Faces Macroeconomic Crisis Today, the statistics. Tomorrow, the screams. The day after learning of the worst quarterly GDP contraction on record, Congressional Republicans made no effort to restore the lifeline Corona unemployment benefits to over 30 million Americans, expiring today. Instead, the GOP proposed cutting them by …
