The coronavirus outbreak brings into sharp focus all that is misguided with Trump, the Trump Administration, immigration policy, labor, economic and fiscal policy; and foreign policy and most of all the dysfunctional health care system. It reveals that health care isn’t just about access to life-saving care for an individual or family, but is about public health. Public health is the workforce. Public health is foundational to a healthy economy.
Public health requires a functioning government. It shows the impotence of slashing interest rates and cutting off taxes when the government needs resources to conduct tests, monitor the spread, purchase supplies, and set up the infrastructure to accommodate millions – not hundreds or thousands – of the most vulnerable people. It should be a time when a competent leader looks ahead to the impacts of people missing work, losing jobs, not able to pay credit card debt, rent, mortgage, health insurance premiums or copays and when they lose their jobs, lose access altogether to health care. While 40 families have more wealth than half of all Americans, half of all Americans don’t have $400 handy to cover an emergency.
Instead, Trump, meeting solely with Republicans rather than trying to devise solutions that would deserve consensus support, is using this health crisis to get through pet projects – shutting the border, tax cuts, cheering that foreign supply chains are being cut off to goose U.S. manufacturing.
The administration had to be taunted by Governor Cuomo into allowing state and private labs to conduct their own tests, and as of this writing, still has not authorized the use of automated testing using state-of-the-art equipment such as at Northwell Lab in Lake Success, which could do 1000 tests a day, versus 75 manually.
And what about making Green Card holders too afraid to access health care for fear they will be blacklisted (public charge!) from ever becoming a naturalized citizen? They will be too fearful to go to a doctor, and may then spread the disease. Or undocumented immigrants too afraid to be exposed and promptly deported by ICE. Think Typhoid Mary.
The Trump Draconian policies that shredded the social safety net – cutting off food stamps, Medicaid to millions – might have squeaked through when the economy was booming and unemployment was at historic lows, but will not only increase and expand suffering as the economy sours.
Instead of offering a tax credit to companies if they provide sick leave to ensure anyone who is sick stays can afford to stay home so not to spread the disease or expand unemployment benefits to contract and gig workers, his big idea is to cut payroll taxes to stimulate the economy – that is, consumer spending which is two-thirds of economic activity. But people don’t want to go out and shop, and they are rightly more concerned about saving money in the event their jobs disappear.
Instead of further starving the federal government of resources (he is already running a $1 trillion deficit, and that is in a strong economy), he should be bolstering the health care system to slow the spread of the disease so hospitals and health workers are not overrun so that the most vulnerable are not exposed to potentially fatal illness.
He should be using federal resources to support state and local efforts which are the crucial lines of defense (New York State has allocated $40 million toward the crisis) – paying for the testing, subsidizing the masks and sanitizer that Gov. Cuomo has said he wants to provide for free to stop price gouging, helping counties like Nassau effect new protocols for public transportation. Who is paying to wipe down all the surfaces in the MTA system and at the airports?
The federal government could make up the difference if cities and counties give tax relief to businesses hurt.
His meeting with bankers should be to press them to lower interest rates on credit card debt (after all, the Fed lowered their interest rate), to forgive late payments, to extend low-interest business loans, to delay foreclosures. That will do more to stabilize the economy than a payroll tax cut or more cuts to corporate taxes without compelling any social benefit.
The federal government should do what Obama did during the housing crisis and help families withstand foreclosure, credit card, and medical debt.
He could relieve some of the fees and taxes imposed on the hardest-hit industry of all: travel, tourism, and transportation. The $2.5 trillion travel industry supports 15.7 million jobs (one in every 10). The $45 billion cruise industry is being decimated (“Above all, don’t get on a cruise ship,” warned Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s foremost expert on contagious diseases), as is the conventions and conference industry and all the ancillary businesses. Every $1 spent in travel produces $4 of economic activity; a depressed travel industry will ripple through the economy.
Trump is shooting all his bullets on the remedies that will be needed to recover after the recession – interest rates won’t be able to be cut further; payroll taxes won’t be cut to stimulate consumer spending, and he would have robbed the Treasury of the resources it will need to recover with judicious use of stimulus spending that can finally address the $2 trillion shortfalls in infrastructure improvements and produce long-term gains for society and the economy.
Democrats have demonstrated that universal health care is their number one priority going into the 2020 election (that is, after defeating Trump); Republicans have indicated that the economy is their number one issue. But the coronavirus pandemic, triggering global recession from which the United States is not immune, joins the two in an economic ecosystem.
