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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Avoiding the Deficit Trap

Avoiding the Deficit Trap

by Betty Cracker|  April 23, 20202:31 pm| 128 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics, Open Threads, Politics, Republican Stupidity

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Brian Beutler has an interesting piece up at the Crooked site about the trap Republicans will undoubtedly try to spring on Democrats if (when!) we dislodge Trump in November and are charged with once again cleaning up a gigantic mess left behind by a feckless GOP administration. Beutler notes that the astroturfed “reopen” protests echo the equally ersatz tea party bullshit that arose the last time Republicans needed to rebrand after an economic calamity. He also correctly notes that the media is falling into the same trap they fell into last time: amplifying these fringe actors to create a snowball effect.

Beutler says the House Dems should use their leverage to put long-term economic recovery relief efforts in place — programs expressly designed to continue beyond Trump’s first and please-FSM only term. That would help us avoid some of what happened in 2009, i.e., Republicans shoveling money to bail out the economy as long as Bush was in the White House and shutting off the cash spigot (causing untold suffering and long-term damage for countless Americans) under the cover of deficit concern trolling the minute President Obama was sworn in.

I agree that would be ideal but am unsure just how much leverage the Democrats have. My understanding is Pelosi & Co. are working on their own relief bill right now. That seems like the smart play — it can form the basis of the next round of negotiations, which will definitely happen even though McConnell is starting to make faint, querulous noises about the deficit now. Trump wants to get reelected, and the economy is crashing around his ears, so he and Mnuchin will almost certainly be willing to make the money machine go whirrrr, McConnell be damned.

I do like what Beutler has to say about how Biden could approach Republicans’ bad-faith deficit framing:

Biden will eventually be tempted to throw Republicans’ fiscal vandalism back in their faces, and remind voters that this is an established pattern of GOP governance. It’s an easy and effective political hit, but it also runs the risk of validating the bullshit premise underlying fake-deficit hysteria: that the debt must be urgently addressed. After all, if it’s a problem that Republicans, once again, blew up the debt, shouldn’t a responsible party make a priority of balancing the books?

The only way to square the circle is make clear at the outset that if deficit reduction is to be a priority, it will be coming out of the collective hide of Trump and his loyalists. The country’s fiscal and economic situation is the consequence of the richest, greediest people in the country taking a gamble on empowering an incompetent crook who promised to make them richer, and they—not workers or pensioners or poor people—will be the ones who pay for the devastating consequences of their actions.

I like the idea, but I don’t know how realistic that is either. The depth of the economic abyss we’re in isn’t altogether clear to everyone yet. I can hardly bear to think about it and have no credentials to speculate, but I suspect it’s going to be exponentially more devastating than the Great Recession. We can and should soak the greedy bastards who were responsible for inflicting the incompetent and criminal shitgibbon on us, but it won’t be enough, even if such a thing were politically possible.

Still, it’s a good rhetorical strategy, which is what Beutler intended. If the deficit is so goddamned important, let’s claw back the trillion-dollar tax cut the “job creators” spent on stock buy backs first. It won’t happen, but it’s the right clap-back when Republican ghouls start coming for social programs. The framing will be important, so I hope we get it right.

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Reader Interactions

128Comments

  1. 1.

    Mallard Filmore

    April 23, 2020 at 2:37 pm

    “Worried about the deficit? Me too! Let’s put together a tax increase package to address that.”

  2. 2.

    Yutsano

    April 23, 2020 at 2:38 pm

    He also correctly notes that the media is falling into the same trap they fell into last time: amplifying these fringe actors to create a snowball effect.

    This is bullshit, and Beutler should know better. The media is performing the exact same trick they did last time when their paymasters demanded it: deficit scolding to get Social Security and Medicare cut to the point of elimination. The 0.01% want EVERYTHING, and they want the rest of the population to be mindless serfs working for enriching their wallets even more. We need to really stop framing the debate on their terms. If the überwealthy want the backing of a strong dollar, they can start kicking more in. Otherwise their legal protections won’t survive the tumbrels and pitchforks brigades.

  3. 3.

    Zelma

    April 23, 2020 at 2:41 pm

    A significant wealth tax is looking better and better to me.  And I like the idea of Denmark and some other country to refuse funds to companies that have off-shored their headquarters to escape taxes.  And I like the idea of ending the cap on income for social security taxes.  And I like the idea of taking an ownership position in firms that receive a bailout and have engaged in stock buy backs.  And I like raising income taxes on those making over $250,000 back to at least 50%.  And I like reducing the limit on estate taxes to $5 million.  And I like ending the ability to avoid those taxes.

    In other words, sock it to ’em.

  4. 4.

    trollhattan

    April 23, 2020 at 2:42 pm

    January Republicans everywhere: “Only one thing will whittle away at the historic national debt: Tax Cuts! ™ Stop the Tax-and-Spend Democrat Party ™ today!”

    If only I thought I was kidding.

  5. 5.

    moops

    April 23, 2020 at 2:43 pm

    All taxes are going to have to go up after this.  By a lot.   We have several new social services that need to be nationalized and picked up for the good of everyone.  Contract tracing and testing need to be done nationally and the federal taxes should pay for it.   We will also need to pick up a lot of hopeless and broke and bankrupt people for the next several years and that should be coming from our taxes.   You should be grateful you have an income that can even BE taxed in the coming year or two.

  6. 6.

    trollhattan

    April 23, 2020 at 2:46 pm

    Too slow on the draw, but eventually they make the correct decision.

    Following Monday’s protest at the state Capitol where demonstrators defied Gov. Gavin Newsom’s orders banning large gatherings, the California Highway Patrol says it will no longer issue permits for events at any state properties, including the Capitol.

    “Permits are issued to provide safe environments for demonstrators to express their views,” the CHP said in a statement. “In this case, the permit for the convoy was issued with the understanding that the protest would be conducted in a manner consistent with the state’s public health guidance.

    “That is not what occurred, and CHP will take this experience into account when considering permits for this or any other group.”
    https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article242198781.html#storylink=cpy

    Idaho’s an easy day’s drive if y’all want to go wave signs at a state capital. Be gone, ya pests.

  7. 7.

    PenAndKey

    April 23, 2020 at 2:49 pm

    @moops:  You should be grateful you have an income that can even BE taxed in the coming year or two.

    If you want to ensure that the working class instantly boots you out of office go ahead and use rhetoric like that. Telling someone that’s struggling to make ends meet that they should be grateful to pay more because their neighbor is doing worse doesn’t work. It never has. All it does is stoke resentment and lead to slashed social services.

    Do taxes need to be raised? Yes, but not across the board. Increasing the income tax for families making under $100k/yr isn’t going to do anything but put the GOP right back into power. It wouldn’t even net much tax revenue anyway compared to all the other sources, since the top 0.1% holds most of that anyway. We can start by rolling back the post 9/11 tax cuts and increase the top income brackets back to historic levels. The only people that pisses off is the 0.1%, their mouthpiece “news” employees, and the rubes who listen to them, in that order.

    @trollhattan: Does anyone honestly think a protest is going to not happen because they failed to get a permit? Honestly, the whole concept of asking permission to protest the government, as sound a logic as it may be from a public health perspective, has always struck me as an exercise in hypocrisy by all parties involved. And this is a crowd willing to waive around firearms and scream at hospital staff blocking their path. They’re not going to listen to a government official telling them they can’t do so.

  8. 8.

    Feathers

    April 23, 2020 at 2:50 pm

    Yeah, Biden should just say “I’ve got an answer for the deficit – we’ll be repealing the Trump tax cuts and setting the rates a bit higher than they were to claw back the money that they haven’t been paying. Then we can go for a Iraq War surcharge for the 1% and claw back the Bush II tax cuts while we’re at it.”

  9. 9.

    Betty Cracker

    April 23, 2020 at 2:50 pm

    @Yutsano: Don’t know if you clicked through and read Beutler’s description or not, but I suspect the fault lies with my paraphrase rather than his original prose. I said it was a “trap,” not he, so it was my implication that media outlets are/were unwitting victims. I take your point about their owners’ agenda; it’s definitely conscious.

  10. 10.

    rikyrah

    April 23, 2020 at 2:50 pm

    These clowns. Just tax the wealthy for the 1.3 trillion that they got thru the GOP TAX SCAM??

  11. 11.

    Uncle Cosmo

    April 23, 2020 at 2:53 pm

    …McConnell is starting to make faint, querulous noises about the deficit…

    The only “faint, querulous noises” I’d care to hear coming out of Senator Yertle’s pie hole are those resulting from someone shoving a heavy air-non-permeable pillow very firmly down on his pseudotestudinal mug.

  12. 12.

    Chyron HR

    April 23, 2020 at 2:56 pm

    @PenAndKey:

    Telling someone that’s struggling to make ends meet that they should be grateful to pay more because their neighbor is doing worse doesn’t work. It never has. All it does is stoke resentment and lead to slashed social services.

    Yeah, and it’s not politically prudent to tell the poww widdle coal miners, “Fuck you, nobody wants to pay you to poison the air, water, and yourselves anymore, deal with it.” either.  But it’s still true.

  13. 13.

    Major Major Major Major

    April 23, 2020 at 2:57 pm

    Trump tax cuts gotta go. Yes, even the ones that aren’t for rich people. Or we could do the One Weird Trick where we repeal all the permanent tax cuts and let the rest auto-expire after the reconciliation window.

    Also, open thread, wanted to repost this from below, because zowie:

    Regional test results fascinating: 21% of NYC tested positive for antibodies pic.twitter.com/fVzB7NHc06

    — Kate Hinds (@katehinds) April 23, 2020

  14. 14.

    moops

    April 23, 2020 at 2:59 pm

    If you want to ensure that the working class instantly boots you out of office go ahead and use rhetoric like that.

    @PenAndKey:

     

    This can only happen if Dems take all three houses, which is possible.  In that case, with an economy in the pits people will be grim all around.    It will take two years before anyone gets booted from office, which is plenty of time to start the upside of a U-shaped recovery and hand out new tax breaks for every human American going into the next elections.

  15. 15.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    April 23, 2020 at 3:02 pm

    @PenAndKey:

    They’re not going to listen to a government official telling them they can’t do so.

    They will when that official is armed and on a fucking big horse

    ETA: I was surprised when I visited SacTown that the CHP that patrol  the Capitol here in California are indeed mounted.

  16. 16.

    Jeffro

    April 23, 2020 at 3:04 pm

    Hell yes to rolling back the trumpov and W tax cuts on the wealthy and big corporations.  That’s just a no-brainer.  It should be the first bill President Biden, Speaker Pelosi, and Majority Leader Schumer sign.

    For the second, I’m good with a 5% wealth tax on the wealthiest Americans – there was a nice op-ed in the NYT a day or two ago about it.  And they’d better not even think about whining out loud about it.  They should feel lucky that they’re keeping 95% of their massive piles of wealth.

    And as a third: state/local government deficits should be added to the nation’s frickin’ credit card.  Cutting those services will HURT and if we can bail out big corporations and the super-rich, we sure as heck can cut checks to the states to keep all of those services running as usual.

    It’s all about thinking big, ensuring fairness, ensuring essential services for our communities, and demanding better.  We decide, not the Walton, Koch, and De Vos families.

  17. 17.

    PenAndKey

    April 23, 2020 at 3:05 pm

    @Chyron HR: Yeah, and it’s not politically prudent to tell the poww widdle coal miners, “Fuck you, nobody wants to pay you to poison the air, water, and yourselves anymore, deal with it.” either.

    Not even close to the same thing. Ending coal mining is going to happen no matter what. The tech is reaching the end of it’s lifespan and the coal is running out. The workers are desperately entrenched but subsidies or not they’re going to lose their job. Pointing that out, and in language like that, is the verbal equivalent of kicking a downed horse.

    There is absolutely no reason we cannot meet projected government expenses by repealing existing top level tax breaks. There’s equally no compelling reason why we should even be talking about working class tax increases until we bother addressing the gold plated elephant in the room. You want to continue to lose elections because you’re willing to tell people struggling to make their mortgage they should be happy for their struggles? Make damn sure that you’re letting them know that their bosses are doing the same. If you can’t convince them of that all the talk about “shared sacrifice” on the planet isn’t going to prevent them from blaming you when they have to start unscrewing lighbulbs to keep the rest of the lights on.

    That basic fact has, literally, been the defining feature of US politics my entire life. The Democrats fix problems, but because they rarely actually make the rich pay for those fixes the GOP capitalizes and brazenly blames the Democrats. Yeah the GOP caused those problems in the first place, but we aren’t exactly helping our cause when we instantly default to “well, you need to pay more too” to people who have been steadily getting more and more screwed for decades. Not when Wall Street gets to act like the government is an open tap.

  18. 18.

    Jeffro

    April 23, 2020 at 3:05 pm

    @Zelma: love ALL these ideas

  19. 19.

    rikyrah

    April 23, 2020 at 3:05 pm

    Miami-Dade’s emergency arm was close to taking possession of 1 million N95 masks last week, but the shipment was “taken” by the federal government, WLRN reported. Miami-Dade’s emergency director described the shipment as “hijacked” by the feds. https://t.co/CfEDaBi210— Miami Herald (@MiamiHerald) April 23, 2020

  20. 20.

    Omnes Omnibus

    April 23, 2020 at 3:06 pm

    @Feathers: I agree with this.  Pitchfork and torches rhetoric isn’t going to win the election.  “The Trump tax cut was a bad plan and needs to be reversed” sounds sensible and responsible.  I think sensible and responsible will resonate with the voting public.

  21. 21.

    Mayur

    April 23, 2020 at 3:06 pm

    @moops: I still don’t agree.

    A lot of people are chewing up any savings they have right now to get through periodic unemployment; plenty of folks get furloughed or simply can’t work. Those people WILL be going back to work and struggling to get current on their debt and ideally replenish their savings and hitting them with higher taxes simply does not help. Folks earning >$250k? Sure. That’s where the money is anyway.

  22. 22.

    The Moar You Know

    April 23, 2020 at 3:09 pm

    One thing I like about the current method of governing via thuggery; McConnell has already gotten a phone call, probably a few, from DJT and his useful idiots, telling him that if Moscow Mitch continues to say the quiet part out loud regarding the plan to bankrupt the states, or starts giving aid and comfort to the GOP deficit hawk wing BEFORE the election, Trump will be more than happy to make damn sure he goes down with him in November.

    If there’s one thing about Trump I have absolute faith in, it’s that he will fuck over everyone he can on the way out.

  23. 23.

    Betty Cracker

    April 23, 2020 at 3:10 pm

    Speaking of taxes, it’s going to be fascinating in an “owww, will you look at the teeth on this alligator that is biting my leg off” kinda way to see what happens here in Florida over the next year or 10. There’s no state tax here; all revenue is raised by fleecing tourists. No tourists, no revenue. After decades of Republican rule, I’m pretty sure the state pays corporations rather than the other way around.

  24. 24.

    Betty

    April 23, 2020 at 3:10 pm

    OT: For anyone who is interested, I answered some of your questions below about today’s On The Road photo of a place in Dominica.

  25. 25.

    Uncle Cosmo

    April 23, 2020 at 3:11 pm

    @Yutsano: The 0.01% want EVERYTHING, and they want the rest of the population to be mindless serfs working for enriching their wallets even more.

    Bangalore! That in a nutshell is the aspirational end-state of the Global Oligarchy Project. Governments Central authorities everywhere that squeeze every cent out of the citizenry so they can act as an ATM for the bazillionaires. BIgoted, racist, evilangelical laws with draconian punishments that the “little people” cannot evade, while the bazillionaires buy their way out with the lint in their change pocket.

    Tl;dr version: Imagine a diamond-encrusted crocodile-leather boot stamping on a starving human face – forever.

  26. 26.

    PenAndKey

    April 23, 2020 at 3:12 pm

    @Mayur: Exactly. We’re facing unprecedented unemployment right now, and even those people who are still working are likely doing it on half incomes because their spouse isn’t. We need to focus our energies on the low hanging fruit. And right now? Right now that’s the Trump and Bush tax cuts.

  27. 27.

    Archon

    April 23, 2020 at 3:15 pm

    @PenAndKey:

    Unless this pandemic causes an enormous drop in the cost of living (housing, health care, education), which massively increases peoples disposable income then asking those very same working class people to pay more taxes because they are “lucky” to have a job is politically INSANE.

  28. 28.

    jl

    April 23, 2020 at 3:17 pm

    What I keep thinking is that Trumpster/GOP is one same thing now. Along with ridicule and outrage, we need contempt for their corruption and complete incompetence. Josh Marshall at TPM, I think, has emphasized how authoritarian corruption and incompetence go together.

    Not sure if that is a good message, but I think the truth. Trumpster/GOP complex is a mass of swindlers, a rotting fly blown carcass of con people who can’t do one damn thing except grab any money that isn’t nailed down and protected by a moat on fire with flying radioactive alligators. They can’t do one damn thing to keep you from getting killed from a plague, a storm, a corrupt criminal and blunderous war, climate change, next financial panic their economic incompetence will turn into the the next Great Recession or worse, a hangnail epidemic, anything.

  29. 29.

    West of the Rockies

    April 23, 2020 at 3:18 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    So does this info bode well in terms of our acquiring herd immunity a tad faster than supposed?

  30. 30.

    PenAndKey

    April 23, 2020 at 3:19 pm

    @jl: If it comes to a vote, I vote for the flying radioactive alligators.

  31. 31.

    rikyrah

    April 23, 2020 at 3:20 pm

    Great ad

    February 7 changed everything. Watch the latest video from @barubin and @Timodc https://t.co/U9Cl95NWpg pic.twitter.com/kw1RPkfY13— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) April 23, 2020

  32. 32.

    azlib

    April 23, 2020 at 3:22 pm

    Given the real 10 year T-Bill rate is negative, there should be no reason to worry about the deficit. Basically, we can borrow free money. We are literally in a place where spending now and paying back less tomorrow makes a great deal of financial sense.

  33. 33.

    West of the Rockies

    April 23, 2020 at 3:22 pm

    @rikyrah:

    I wish this story would be front and center and shoved in Trump’s fat orange face.  The media also needs to shit-can any more stories about the angry lil- protesters and their pathogen-friendly rallies.

  34. 34.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    April 23, 2020 at 3:23 pm

    Since I was late to the morning thread, had to go to Costco for old folk hour, I wanted to respond to comments made about the age of our President relative to other world leaders in a thread that’s not dead and buried.  While the current occupant of the Oval is indeed old and regardless of the outcome of the November election, the next occupant will be old, that has not always been the case and it varies between our two political parties(no Bothsiderism).  Over the past 60 years(my lifetime, from Ike to Trump) the average age of the President taking office for Republicans has been 63(Trump being the oldest and GW Bush being the youngest), for Democrats the average has been 49(JFK being the youngest and LBJ being the oldest).  Their youngest GW Bush as only about a year younger than our oldest, LBJ.

  35. 35.

    Xavier

    April 23, 2020 at 3:23 pm

    The deficit is a red herring. Let me repeat that, a red herring. See this article: https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/17/coronavirus-deficit-american-economy. Every person should have this paragraph tattooed on their forehead: “The Covid-19 crisis has clearly demonstrated what should have been obvious already: provisioning society – whether with food, disinfecting wipes, toilet paper or medical supplies – is not a financial issue. If we can’t produce enough masks, ventilators or food, finance will not help. Society’s capacity to produce real output is what limits its ability to provision itself. And this is precisely what the virus threatens, as workers stay home, supply chains break down and businesses shut their doors.”

    Let me just add one thing to that: The purpose of the economy is to provision society. It is not a golden calf we need to worship and sacrifice to.

  36. 36.

    Major Major Major Major

    April 23, 2020 at 3:24 pm

    @West of the Rockies: herd immunity threshold is 1/R0, R0 being the number of new infections caused by one infection. For a big dense reopened city, R0 is going to be between 2 and 3 unless you do something like universal mask-wearing. So 50-66%. And that’s assuming herd immunity would even manifest, or last long, for this particular virus. I don’t really want to stake another 25,000 lives on it.

  37. 37.

    Kent

    April 23, 2020 at 3:24 pm

    None of this is going to happen unless:

    1.  The Democrats re-take the Senate
    2. The Senate votes to kill the filibuster
    3. Moderate Democrats from the 1% grow a spine and agree to defy the interests that funded their campaigns.

    I’m more hopeful about #1 than #2 or #3.   But maybe the political winds in 2021 will be in favor of increased corporate income taxes and increased taxes on the wealthy.  Repealing the Trump tax cuts would be a start. But frankly there was much egregious abuse in the 2016 tax code as as well from carried interest to favorable treatment of investment income to abusive deductions for real estate and other businesses.

    There are other related policy objectives as well.  Such as repealing the income cap on social security taxes, funding health care, that sort of thing.

    And no the State’s aren’t ever going to go bankrupt as long as they have taxing authority, which they do.

  38. 38.

    Spanky

    April 23, 2020 at 3:24 pm

    @rikyrah: On the other end of the scale, I’m a member of a local makerspace, and a few weeks ago the whizzes at 3D printing and laser cutting started making mask and face shield parts for the local hospital and first responders. It didn’t take too long before our supply and local suppliers ran out of 3D print filament, so we ordered some direct from the printer manufacturer, Prusa, in the Czech Republic.

    Yesterday, the guy who ordered it got a phone call from Customs, asking for a lot of info on Prusa and what we were doing, and gave an email address which autoreplies that the recipient is out of the office with no access to email.

    So Customs has our raw material for printing masks and shields.

  39. 39.

    Doc Sardonic

    April 23, 2020 at 3:27 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Yep, it is going to be incredibly painful and very difficult.  What is going to compound the difficulty is the fact that most of the really damaging tax “reforms” were done in the form of amendments to our constitution rather than by legislative action.

    Regarding the original post, another Republican trope that needs to be reframed is the old saw about “entitlement” programs ie SS and Medicare. Someone needs to stand up and say “ you’re goddamn right it’s an entitlement. Workers have paid into  this since they took their first partime job and continue to pay into after they retired. So yes it’s their money and they are damn well entitled to collect it.”

  40. 40.

    Uncle Cosmo

    April 23, 2020 at 3:27 pm

    @PenAndKey: FFS, the coal is not “running out.” For example, if we needed (& had the technology) to construct vast space arks out of graphene to move vast numbers of Homo saps off-planet before Bronson Alpha pulverizes it, the stuff could readily be dug up in humongous quantities for the carbon.

    However, the coal that was once profitably mined by skilled human operators** who were paid very well for their labor*** has long since run out. What’s left is most profitably recoverable by highly automated, environmentally obscene methods (mountaintop removal, strip mining) that provide very few jobs (at minimal wages) for the mountaineers like my mother’s family who once lived on them. Good riddance to all that.

     

    ** Like my late lamented uncle & godfather, who died when Consol Number 9 near Farmington WV went up like a fucking Roman candle in the early morning of 20 November 1968.

    *** Thanks largely to decades of dedicated and personally dangerous organizing by the United Mine Workers. Union fuck YEAH!

  41. 41.

    West of the Rockies

    April 23, 2020 at 3:28 pm

    @rikyrah:

    Wouldn’t it be great if Bloomberg or Zuckerberg paid for that ad to run on Fox 24 hourly for 30 days?

  42. 42.

    chopper

    April 23, 2020 at 3:28 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    how accurate is the test? cause if they’re testing randos it better be real bloody accurate.

  43. 43.

    Major Major Major Major

    April 23, 2020 at 3:32 pm

    @chopper: you’re not going to get population-wide stats without testing random people, so I don’t really get the complaint there. Errors are very easy to control for if the rates are known. I don’t happen to know which tests they used, but the minimum sensitivity I’ve seen is 95% (ETA for FDA approved tests), so this is far, far beyond the worst-case null hypothesis. But obviously IANAE

  44. 44.

    catclub

    April 23, 2020 at 3:32 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: I really want to know the false positive and false negative rates on this test, then.  Only Important if those are really low.

  45. 45.

    Searcher

    April 23, 2020 at 3:35 pm

    @rikyrah: Do we know where the stolen masks end up yet?

  46. 46.

    Felanius Kootea

    April 23, 2020 at 3:35 pm

    None of this will happen until the rest of us figure out how to neutralize Fox News.  That’s where the propaganda is spread and if they decide to talk about how the deficit is going to kill your grandma, from the second a Democrat is sworn in, the rest of the media will follow suit and help frame it on their terms.

    As crazy as Boris Johnson is, there is no equivalent conservative movement in the middle of a pandemic to “open up” the UK because the Murdoch owned tabloids don’t quite have the power of Fox News. (Yes there are nutjobs in the UK setting fire to 5G towers as the source of the coronavirus, but they aren’t trying to “reopen the economy.”)

    I’ve been hearing people talk about a class action lawsuit against Fox on behalf of conservatives who have died from the virus in part my trusting their misinformation.  Don’t even know how that would work but that network needs to be gone.  OANN doesn’t have the same reach.  Sinclair is another worry, but they aren’t 24-7 news.

  47. 47.

    Major Major Major Major

    April 23, 2020 at 3:38 pm

    @catclub: I’m sure that will be out soon enough. Waiting to see what expert twitter says.

  48. 48.

    Betty Cracker

    April 23, 2020 at 3:41 pm

    @Doc Sardonic: Amen to that. Any politician sneering about “entitlements” or deficit-scolding by comparing the federal budget to a household budget should have their tongue pulled out long enough to tie in a knot.

  49. 49.

    Searcher

    April 23, 2020 at 3:41 pm

    @West of the Rockies: Basically this means that NYC is somewhere around 1/4 to 1/3 of the way to herd immunity.  The latest evidence is that you need around 0.8% of your population to die to reach herd immunity the old fashioned way; NYC is currently at around 0.2%.

  50. 50.

    rikyrah

    April 23, 2020 at 3:42 pm

     

     

    Illinois stay-at-home extended until end of May

  51. 51.

    Hoodie

    April 23, 2020 at 3:43 pm

    I suspect the only way you can reframe this debate is to change the moral foundation beneath it.  The GOP takes advantage of the premise that someone is entitled to the fruits of their labor, even if the fruits of that mainly come from sitting on essentially passive investments in assets, not actual work.  In contrast, as recent as the 1930s, it was not considered fringe to call for a maximum income level above which the marginal rate would be 100%.  We have to find a way to swing back towards that kind of cultural context.

    I’m not sure how, but you would think an event like this would create an opportunity.  These “Open Up” protesters might provide an opportunity because, as Cuomo demonstrated, you can characterize them as selfish assholes who really just want others to do the dangerous essential work, and we are really finding out what is truly essential now.  Instead of talking about undoing tax cuts, maybe the key is simple, highly negative Gingrich-like messaging that wealth like that is simply illegitimate, e.g., “no one earns above X million dollars a year; they either luck into it or steal it.”  That might undermine the whole premise, but Democrats have been reluctant to engage in that kind of rhetoric.

  52. 52.

    rikyrah

    April 23, 2020 at 3:43 pm

    @Searcher:

     

    No…and, I want that answer too???

  53. 53.

    Uninvited Guest

    April 23, 2020 at 3:45 pm

    OT but Elizabeth Warren’s eldest brother has apparently died due to the coronavirus.

  54. 54.

    Immanentize

    April 23, 2020 at 3:46 pm

    @catclub: BUT.  What is the scientific evidence that:
    1. Antibodies are capable of staving off the virus
    2. Corona antibodies last for any appreciable time and
    3. That once having the virus and antibodies, you are not more likely to get grievously ill the second time around?

    To my studied but definitely incomplete knowledge — none, none and none.

    Anyone? Beuhler?

  55. 55.

    Mnemosyne

    April 23, 2020 at 3:47 pm

    Since journalists absolutely love to compare government budgets to home budgets, I wonder why they never manage to land on the metaphor that actually makes sense: when you have a lot of bills to pay, what you need is MORE INCOME, so people take second jobs or take out loans that they can pay back later when their job situation improves. They raise money, just like the government does when they raise taxes.

    Somehow, this never occurs to the people who think we can cut our way to prosperity. ?

  56. 56.

    Immanentize

    April 23, 2020 at 3:48 pm

    @Searcher: A warehouse in Florida near the Miami airport?  Formerly called Doral Country Club and Resort?

  57. 57.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    April 23, 2020 at 3:51 pm

    @Uninvited Guest: Maxine Waters says her sister is “dying” of it in Missouri.

  58. 58.

    Nicole

    April 23, 2020 at 3:52 pm

    @Immanentize: Yeah, that’s the issue- we’re guessing, based on how other coronaviruses behave, what having antibodies means for Covid-19 and future risk of being reinfected, but unfortunately, only time is going to provide real answers.

  59. 59.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    April 23, 2020 at 3:53 pm

    @rikyrah:

    Oh god. That’s a long time.

  60. 60.

    Mnemosyne

    April 23, 2020 at 3:53 pm

    @rikyrah:

    Slightly OT, but since you follow the KHive on Twitter, I’m assuming you saw the impromptu cooking lesson that Kamala gave to Mark Warner? I was literally ROFL for the whole video! ?

  61. 61.

    Jay

    April 23, 2020 at 3:53 pm

    Found a place where y’all can probably claw some Fed money back from, and spend on better things like UBI,

    The company that took U.S. money to develop a cheap ventilator, then did not deliver a single one to the national stockpile, has just inked ANOTHER contract with the government. This time, it is selling ventilators for quadruple the price. https://t.co/V84dVRtSrp— ProPublica (@propublica) April 23, 2020

  62. 62.

    Another Scott

    April 23, 2020 at 3:53 pm

    Ultimately, people are policy.  We, as a country, have to elect sensible people or all bets are off.

    Future congresses cannot be constrained by past ones – new laws can always be written.  So, while passing some 10 year National Rebalancing and Recovery Act (or something) is sensible and sounds great, there’s nothing to prevent a future congress from changing it.  We can’t ever forget that progress is fragile.

    I’m old enough to remember the early 1970s “Windfall Profits Taxes” on oil companies.  If a Wealth Tax is verboten or too hard to implement without changing the Constitution, maybe something like that could be used for the same effect.  Some mechanism must be found to claw back that wealth.

    We’re a rich country, and government has been strangled for too long.  The problem isn’t that poor people have too much money, it’s that those who have overwhelmingly benefitted from the economy over the last 40 years pay too little to support society.  The framing of OMG TEH TAXES is wrong.  We need better memes.

    Rich countries naturally have large governments and those governments are a large fraction of the economy.  Why?  Because when you’re a hunter-gatherer, you don’t worry about whether the sewage treatment plant is going to poison you; you don’t worry about whether your next airplane trip is going to kill you; you don’t worry about whether your $800 phone is going to be jammed by your next-door neighbor with his 10kW HAM radio transmitter; you don’t worry about whether there’s a legal system to protect you if your other neighbor tries to pave over your backyard; etc.  Those things cost money, and the people who do that work get paid, and pay taxes.  And we all benefit.  And none of us can do all of those things on our own.

    We all know these things, of course.  We need to quit fighting the same old battles using the GOP framing.  They’ve for too long had the ability to set the terms of the debate, and they’ve ruined the country in the process.  Enough!!

    Grrr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  63. 63.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    April 23, 2020 at 3:54 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Also in the Republican analogy, nobody has a mortgage greater than their annual income.

  64. 64.

    terraformer

    April 23, 2020 at 3:56 pm

    @Jeffro:

    It’s all about thinking big, ensuring fairness, ensuring essential services for our communities, and demanding better. 

    Right. Most of these comments sound just like what Warren was proposing to do, big, structural change.

  65. 65.

    Jay

    April 23, 2020 at 3:58 pm

    These guys LIVED AT WORK FOR A MONTH to keep you safe, but you don’t want to give up haircuts and golf. JFC. https://t.co/nOGrljddPA— Wash Your Hands and Turn the Senate Blue (@SwissMissabeth) April 22, 2020

  66. 66.

    bemused

    April 23, 2020 at 3:58 pm

    @rikyrah:

    I want to know where it all went.

  67. 67.

    Nicole

    April 23, 2020 at 3:58 pm

    I watched Cuomo’s briefing today, and he lit into McConnell.  Lit. Into. Him.   And then took an opportunity to circle  back and go at him again later.  And followed up on his Twitter feed.

    I cannot wrap my head around all this actual Democratting our NY guv is doing; I hope it’s a real sea change in him. It was so nice to hear an elected politician point out that “blue” NY pays a hell of a lot more into the federal coffers than “red” KY and gets a hell of a lot less back out.  As he put it, “Who’s bailing out who?”

  68. 68.

    Jay

    April 23, 2020 at 4:00 pm

    @Another Scott:

    no American Politician or Pundit has ever mused aloud on where the US Government can find the money for more bombs.

  69. 69.

    Major Major Major Major

    April 23, 2020 at 4:01 pm

    @Nicole: what you list is, of course, scientific evidence… but yeah, some guesswork. Trevor Bedford, a viral geneticist who’s been doing great work, thinks the antibodies will be effective at detecting the virus for 12–18 months, based on the rate of mutation and the way the spike protein manifests. And based on how (every?) other Coronavirus behaves, this ought to confer immunity.

    Alas I fear the instinct for thinking things must be worse than the experts are saying is just as strong as the instinct for thinking things must be better.

  70. 70.

    Jeffro

    April 23, 2020 at 4:04 pm

    @terraformer: I’m good with our nominee working to implement most all of her plans, and I bet he is fine with 99% of them, too.

  71. 71.

    Yutsano

    April 23, 2020 at 4:06 pm

    @Betty Cracker: You’re right in that provoked my initial reaction, but Beutler seems to remove any agency from the media. He treats them more like led sheep as opposed to humans who have agency to cover the upcoming rhetoric as the bullshit it will be. Maybe that’s just my reading, but my broader point stands.

  72. 72.

    Jeffro

    April 23, 2020 at 4:06 pm

    @Nicole: The Ds could do a lot worse than siccing Andrew Cuomo on trumpov, McConnell (hey Kevin McCarthy, you wanna try?  didn’t think so) all spring and summer and fall.

    Cuomo goes right after them, daily, in plain language.  Take note, national Dems!

  73. 73.

    Miss Bianca

    April 23, 2020 at 4:06 pm

    So, serious question here: if Democrats (Dog willing!) do manage to take the WH and the Senate this fall *and* keep the House, why *couldn’t* we claw back that tax break for the wealthy?

  74. 74.

    Jay

    April 23, 2020 at 4:08 pm

    The contagion that has infected America, killed its citizens, and destroyed its economy is set to return for a second wave that will be even more deadly than the first.

    Unless it is voted out of the White House.— Middle Age Riot (@middleageriot) April 22, 2020

  75. 75.

    Major Major Major Major

    April 23, 2020 at 4:10 pm

    @Miss Bianca: because Kevin McCarthy?

    ETA: never mind, for some reason I misread that as ‘lose the house’

  76. 76.

    evodevo

    April 23, 2020 at 4:11 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:   Yes. This.  I keep saying, when Repubs come up with their bogus “kitchen table budget” arguments, you have to clap back with a suitable meme that the hoi polloi can understand, i.e., do you have a mortgage? car loan? credit card debt?  Then according to the GOPer propaganda, YOU ARE BANKRUPT..because you owe WAY more right now than your yearly income…BUT YOU AREN’T, are you…your current income allows you to pay these debts off over time AND SO DOES THE GUBMINT.  Most people don’t get this at all, so if you can pound on it over and over, it might overcome the incessant cascade of GOPer propaganda…

  77. 77.

    NCSteve

    April 23, 2020 at 4:13 pm

    At some point, we’re going to have to teach people, and, to the limited extent possible, the media boneheads, that if you borrow money at zero percent and grow the economy at >0 percent and have inflation of > zero percent, you don’t have a problem.

  78. 78.

    Ruckus

    April 23, 2020 at 4:13 pm

    @Zelma:

    I’d also like to see SS income not be taxable. CA for example does not tax SS.

    If you have to work, even part time, to make living possible, and you get taxed on SS and your pay, it just puts you back to having to work longer. It might actually be nice to work for nearly 60yrs and still be able enjoy retirement

  79. 79.

    PenAndKey

    April 23, 2020 at 4:14 pm

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    “FFS, the coal is not “running out.” ” […] “However, the coal that was once profitably mined by skilled human operators** who were paid very well for their labor*** has long since run out. What’s left is most profitably recoverable by highly automated, environmentally obscene methods (mountaintop removal, strip mining) that provide very few jobs (at minimal wages) for the mountaineers like my mother’s family who once lived on them.”

    If a resource cannot be extracted or generated in a profitable manner that society is willing to do it has, functionally, “run out”. And when it comes to coal, the remaining sources simply aren’t economical compared to the alternative sources of energy that humanity can access. My only issue here is policy narrative. We need to do major changes to the way this country is run. We cannot do that if we needlessly piss people off by raising their taxes when they were already struggling to make ends meet and drowning in debt.

    We shouldn’t even be entertaining the idea of increased taxes on the working class right now given that they’re not even the ones who have the money. And we sure as hell shouldn’t be doing things like telling them to “be grateful you have a job” as some propose. I don’t know about you, but I get enough of that from my GOP bosses and neighbors when they’re ranting about things like “workers rights” and “moochers”, thanks.

    @NCSteve: At some point, we’re going to have to teach people, and, to the limited extent possible, the media boneheads, that if you borrow money at zero percent and grow the economy at >0 percent and have inflation of > zero percent, you don’t have a problem.

    And therein runs the problem with people insisting the government is just a big household that has a checkbook to be balanced.

  80. 80.

    John Revolta

    April 23, 2020 at 4:15 pm

    This whole thread needs to be printed out and dropped on President Biden’s desk next January.

  81. 81.

    A Ghost to Most

    April 23, 2020 at 4:19 pm

    @Uncle Cosmo: Ditto. There’s plenty of coal left. Big Coal is being killed by Big Solar and Wind. The buggywhip makers can stomp their feet all they want; solar and wind is cheaper.

  82. 82.

    Ruckus

    April 23, 2020 at 4:20 pm

    @moops:

    It isn’t that taxes may need to be raised, it’s how, and on whom they get raised on. We hav to recognize that the super wealthy don’t pay close to enough and they suck everything out of the economy, while returning doodle squat.

  83. 83.

    Major Major Major Major

    April 23, 2020 at 4:22 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    And here is viral geneticist Trevor Bedford on how the NYC ~21% infection rate study smells right:

    Thoughts on seroprevalence in NYC. I'm not at all surprised by an estimate of 21% seropositive in NYC as discussed by @NYGovCuomo today (https://t.co/Bo9SwgdEmR). 1/6

    — Trevor Bedford (@trvrb) April 23, 2020

  84. 84.

    evodevo

    April 23, 2020 at 4:23 pm

    @A Ghost to Most: The ones here in Ky were killed by natty gas…much cheaper to burn and transport (pipelines), but Moscow Mitch never seems to mention that…

  85. 85.

    PenAndKey

    April 23, 2020 at 4:23 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: So, basically, not enough for herd immunity even if every seropositive individual is immune. Lovely.

  86. 86.

    TriassicSands

    April 23, 2020 at 4:25 pm

     I can hardly bear to think about it and have no credentials to speculate…

    Betty, go ahead and speculate. I know you’re not a very stable super genius like the president, but you are obviously smarter and more thoughtful than that idiot and anyone in his cabinet. And if you were to speculate, it would be based on rational thought about what is good for the country. On the other hand, we know that all Trump thinks about — the alpha and omega of every issue for Trump — are his re-election and his own personal “bank account.” Oh, and getting even; we must never forget vengeance.

    A brief thought about constitutional rights and “reopening the country.” Citizens of this country have two important considerations as Americans and they are often in conflict: 1) rights and 2) responsibilities. Republicans, allergic to responsibilities, always focus on their rights. But in a pandemic, my responsibilities to act safely and to protect both myself and others far outweigh my rights. The balance now will change as circumstances change, but right now and in the foreseeable future, my individual rights have to take a backseat until the pandemic is much less of a threat.

    The day my rights trump my responsibilities in a pandemic is the day we may as well burn the Constitution and Bill of Rights. One great irony here is that the Republcans are always whining about the Constitution not being a “suicide pact” regarding terrorism. However, in current circumstances, they want it to be not only a “suicide pact,” but also license to commit murder.

    Note: Naturally, the government also has to balance the two and not use a crisis to restrict rights for illicit purposes that do nothing to make people safer. If we didn’t have a narcissistic fascist in the White House this wouldn’t be a great concern.

  87. 87.

    MoCA Ace

    April 23, 2020 at 4:34 pm

    @Jay:

    Shut down tubes for the day… Middle Age Riot for the win!!!

  88. 88.

    WaterGirl

    April 23, 2020 at 4:37 pm

    @rikyrah: That is great.  I had goosebumps by the end.

    I really like that the narrator had a normal voice, not the DEEP SCARY BE VERY AFRAID voice we get on a lot of these ads.

  89. 89.

    Another Scott

    April 23, 2020 at 4:38 pm

    @Jay: The rationale that Defense, and anything that the Defense Department needs, comes first comes from the Preamble to the Constitution:

    We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

    It’s right there in black and white.  The federal government is only about Defense first and always.  How dare you question it??!!?

    (sigh)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  90. 90.

    JPL

    April 23, 2020 at 4:38 pm

    @Betty: I’m going to look now..   thanks.

  91. 91.

    Major Major Major Major

    April 23, 2020 at 4:38 pm

    This of course has the benefit of potentially being very helpful to New York and New Yorkers, while also helping Cuomo troll Bill de Blasio.

    — Ben Max (@TweetBenMax) April 22, 2020

  92. 92.

    rikyrah

    April 23, 2020 at 4:39 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

     

    It was absolutely hilarious.

     

    That’s something that twitter was made for :)

  93. 93.

    trollhattan

    April 23, 2020 at 4:40 pm

    @Uninvited Guest:

    Oh no. That’s terrible.

  94. 94.

    Zzyzx

    April 23, 2020 at 4:48 pm

    @PenAndKey: Did anyone expect us to be at herd immunity in mid April?

    It’s still a much better number than the test results and we’re getting close to the point where future infections will slow down because targets won’t be as vulnerable. We’ll get a free slowing of the spread which will make it easier to control future outbreaks.

    What’s terrifying me is if we come out of this wave in June and we find that 6% of the population has immunity. That means that we haven’t even scratched the surface. If we’re at 30-40% in the places that have had the big outbreaks, it’s a much better picture in the long run.

    Mind you I’m very worried about the west coast because it’s not spreading here at all really, which is very good for right now but makes me wonder about how vulnerable we’ll be for later waves.

  95. 95.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    April 23, 2020 at 4:49 pm

    @Another Scott: He’s Canadian. //

  96. 96.

    Jay

    April 23, 2020 at 4:50 pm

    @Another Scott:

    it’s always funny how the “Richest Country in the Word”, (probably ever),

    can’t ever “afford” basic social supports the citizens of all other “Western” Nations take for granted,

    But never ask’s the “can we afford it” question when it comes to the Military Industrial Complex Welfare State or overnight air delivery of very expensive, state of the art, things that go boom onto the heads of brown people half a world away.

    In theory, this Pandemic is showing how our world “does not work”, from lean supply chains, through “the nature of work”, to revealing the real “essential workers”, that should lead to a careful reconsideration of many tropes and falsities, and a careful restructuring of society,

     

    but it won’t.

  97. 97.

    Jay

    April 23, 2020 at 4:55 pm

    Are you better off than you were four years ago? pic.twitter.com/8ptYMnpRvI— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) April 23, 2020

  98. 98.

    Jay

    April 23, 2020 at 4:58 pm

    So I just received an actual phone call from a real person volunteering for @AOC 's office, asking if I NEEDED ANYTHING–groceries, medication, etc. They are calling all constituents. I almost cried on the phone. Thankfully we are all set, but this is such a wonderful outreach.❤️— Nicole Schuman? (@Buffalogal) April 23, 2020

  99. 99.

    Another Scott

    April 23, 2020 at 5:02 pm

    @Jay: Seriously, though, there are things that even the mighty US DoD cannot afford.  E.g. the F-22.  And as much as the US spends on defense, it’s not enough for all of the commitments that have been made around the world over the decades.  E.g. the Navy ships colliding in the Far East because the short-manned crews were over-worked.

    Your larger point, that we can find the money if we want and we should do so for worthwhile things, is a good one.  It’s always an issue of politics, not the ability of the economy to do so.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  100. 100.

    trollhattan

    April 23, 2020 at 5:03 pm

    @rikyrah:

    Agree, very effective, very on the nose, very easy to understand the reality/unreality. 2.5 months ago seems like a lifetime in Trump Years.

  101. 101.

    WaterGirl

    April 23, 2020 at 5:04 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Are you surprised? I am not.  I won’t be surprised if it’s extended into June, but there was no way he was going to say a June date today.

  102. 102.

    Miss Bianca

    April 23, 2020 at 5:11 pm

    @WaterGirl: Meanwhile, probably because of pressure from our red goobers, Gov. Polis has committed to a “phased re-opening” starting as soon as April 27.

    Not sure this is going to go well. We’ll see. : (

  103. 103.

    raven

    April 23, 2020 at 5:12 pm

    Think asshole will have some racist shit to say about Warren’s brother?

    Mr. Herring was born on June 11, 1933, to Donald Herring and Pauline Reed Herring, Ms. Warren’s office said. He was a career officer in the Air Force, reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel, and flew combat missions in Vietnam before retiring from the military in 1973 and starting an auto-detailing business.

  104. 104.

    Mary G

    April 23, 2020 at 5:14 pm

    He’s lost 4% of the crazies:

    NEW @AP poll: only 23% of Americans say they have high levels of trust in what the president is telling the public.And only about half of Republicans say they have a lot of trust in Trump’s information on the pandemic https://t.co/myouGth6ke— Jonathan Lemire (@JonLemire) April 23, 2020

  105. 105.

    Nicole

    April 23, 2020 at 5:14 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: Absolutely, and I keep telling my 9-year-old when he questions about vaccines and immunity, “Well, if it works the way every other coronavirus works…” but any way you look at it, we’ll know more in two years than we do now.

    I hope it continues to hold that it doesn’t mutate as fast as the  common cold ones do.

  106. 106.

    Zzyzx

    April 23, 2020 at 5:20 pm

    @Nicole: Yeah I’m waiting until there’s a reason to believe that it’s not going to work the normal way to fear that. This is really bad. We don’t need to whip up scenarios about, “What if it’s even worse!?!?” to keep me focused.

  107. 107.

    Uncle Cosmo

    April 23, 2020 at 5:21 pm

    @PenAndKey:

    @Major Major Major Major: So, basically, not enough for herd immunity even if every seropositive individual is immune. Lovely.

    Probably because a lot of New Yorkers took “physical distancing” seriously, which limited the spread of the virus – the other 79% haven’t yet caught a snootful of SARS-CoV-2 to develop antibodies (and gotten more or less sick in the process). This is a good thing, not a bad thing. But it does suggest we’re going to have to wait for a vaccine (whose whole point is to train the immune system to produce antibodies against the virus without having to expose someone to it & risk them getting sick) before we can burn this shit out.

  108. 108.

    Nicole

    April 23, 2020 at 5:21 pm

    @Jeffro: And then Charlie Pierce, of all people, concern trolled Cuomo today in Esquire, saying he made Gov. Beshear’s job harder.

    Fortunately, Pierce’s followers pushed back, pointing out that playing nice hasn’t done Cuomo a lick of good, and that, frankly, it’s not his job to make the Governor of Kentucky’s job easier.

    I think it’s about time the blue states point out they pay more in taxes than the red states do and that the red states will also get f*cked if the blue states are left to starve.

  109. 109.

    Jay

    April 23, 2020 at 5:21 pm

    @Another Scott:

    it’s also a political question that is never asked.

    it is an “accepted” discourse on how one must consider starving Granny to bring down the deficit,

    never on how perhaps fewer wars of choice might reduce the deficit.

    China can afford high speed rail, universal medical care, building housing and infrastructure ahead of the demand, etc, with out printing money,

    But since Carter, the biggest and most valued money printer in the World, can’t fund even “the basics”, relying instead on GoFundMe’s or Corporate Profit P2P’s for the few, rare, nice things or needed things.

    Why is everything other than Wall Street, The Pentagon, The White House, The House and Senate and the Plutocrats, simply just another needy charity case?

  110. 110.

    Major Major Major Major

    April 23, 2020 at 5:22 pm

    @Miss Bianca: Ugh, what the hell. Although reading up on it a bit it looks like it’s the sort of phase-in experts suggest, sector by sector and with distancing and mask mandates, and based on scientific projections. So there’s that at least. Still seems premature and weird. But the big city mayors can still do stricter stuff.

  111. 111.

    Recall

    April 23, 2020 at 5:23 pm

    It’s worth noting that there are a shit load of coal mine fires that still need to be put out. Maybe we could pay people to do that?

  112. 112.

    trollhattan

    April 23, 2020 at 5:25 pm

    @raven:

    Warren has charming anecdotes about debating politics with her Republican brothers. Yeah, I don’t see the orange one threading that needle. (Her dad was an AAF flight instructor in WWII, while Fred Trump was probably still attending Klan rallies.)

  113. 113.

    Another Scott

    April 23, 2020 at 5:28 pm

    @Jay: There’s a difference between the noisy editorial pages and what actual politics is like.  W tried to privatize Social Security when he held all 3 branches of government and failed.  Don’t confuse what well-paid pundits from think tanks say is required with what even seemingly disinterested voters think is required.

    tl;dr – Don’t believe the hype!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  114. 114.

    Jay

    April 23, 2020 at 5:29 pm

    I met Joe Biden last year. He was kind, thoughtful, and completely engaged. When I brought up trans rights, he got very serious. He leaned in and with a finger pointed my way, said: “I am in this fight with you. Trans rights are human rights.”

    I believe him. #Biden2020 pic.twitter.com/Ike1jDVxIU
    — Charlotte Clymer ?️‍? (@cmclymer) April 13, 2020

  115. 115.

    WaterGirl

    April 23, 2020 at 5:32 pm

    @Miss Bianca: He was so smart early on.  Oh, this is very foolish.

  116. 116.

    Yutsano

    April 23, 2020 at 5:34 pm

    @Jay:

     

    universal medical care

    Back up there chief. China does not have universal health care.

  117. 117.

    WaterGirl

    April 23, 2020 at 5:34 pm

    @Mary G: He’s kept half the republicans!  I can’t help but think of everyone who still has faith in Trump as lemmings marching into the sea.  Or off a cliff.

    edit: so he must in the basement with Dems and (so called) Independents?

  118. 118.

    Jay

    April 23, 2020 at 5:38 pm

    @Yutsano:

    https://international.commonwealthfund.org/countries/china/

  119. 119.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    April 23, 2020 at 5:49 pm

    @Jay:  It make such a difference. I get DAILY emails from my congressman, David Trone, of Maryland’s 6th. Offers of help and links to small business loans, understanding what’s happening with COVID-19, unemployment. He was not very communicative when he first achieved office, but he’s been on point since.

  120. 120.

    Jay

    April 23, 2020 at 6:06 pm

    @Another Scott:

    unfortunately, the “how can we afford it” non-question is often a comment here on threads/comments about the social safety net,

    so the “hype”, the false discourse has been deeply embedded in the American psyche.

    BTW, with 65 million unemployed, how’s that whole “if you like your employer based healthcare, you can keep it,” thing going in a time of Covid?

     

    I guess there is always GoFundMe.

  121. 121.

    Ruckus

    April 23, 2020 at 6:18 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Those people think we can cut our way to THEIR prosperity, not our prosperity.

  122. 122.

    rikyrah

    April 23, 2020 at 6:22 pm

    @Mary G:

     

    23% is BELOW THE CRAZYFICATION FACTOR!

  123. 123.

    Bill Arnold

    April 23, 2020 at 8:09 pm

    @Jeffro:

    They should feel lucky that they’re keeping 95% of their massive piles of wealth.

    They, collectively, helped elect Trump. Who fucked up the COVID-19 response by pissing away 2 months treating COVID-19 as a PR problem while the pandemic became thoroughly established in the US, with grossly inadequate testing making a economic shutdown the only viable alternative if one excludes massive piles of skulls of human sacrifices. So they indirectly caused this fiscal catastrophe, and mass death, and they can pay for it with some of their loot-piles, and should be happy to pay for it. (There are alternatives; they might not like them.)

  124. 124.

    TriassicSands

    April 23, 2020 at 8:22 pm

    @Searcher:

    Basically this means that NYC is somewhere around 1/4 to 1/3 of the way to herd immunity.

    I don’t believe they have any proof yet that humans develop meaningful immunity to COVID-19 or, similarly, that herd immunity is achievable. There was an article in the NY Times recently that simply assumed we will be immune after infection, but far down the page they admitted that we don’t actually know whether we will develop immunity, or if we do how complete it would be or how long-lasting.

    People seem desperate to assume favorable things about this virus and disease but we have to wait for the answers to these important questions. Likewise, there is no guarantee we will develop an effective vaccine. We’ve never managed a vaccine for some other coronaviruses and our vaccines for influenza are only partially protective.

  125. 125.

    Bill Arnold

    April 23, 2020 at 8:40 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    For a big dense reopened city, R0 is going to be between 2 and 3 unless you do something like universal mask-wearing. So 50-66%.

    If these new antibodies numbers are correct, then R0 is a bit higher, so the herd immunity threshold would be higher. (Also, it is not clear what R0 is; early estimates out of China were between 2 and 3 but there has been debate and there was a substantial level of public mask wearing after a bit. I haven’t been tracking, but e.g. [1])
    Still, interesting and good news, if the false positive rate is low and the positives indicate an actual immune response to future infection and sampling wasn’t botched.
    Also, supermarkets are now requiring masks (Gov’s orders) to enter the store in my area (fringe northern NYC suburb). At least the two that I checked/verified were.

    [1]High Contagiousness and Rapid Spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (April 7, 2020)
    “Results show that the doubling time early in the epidemic in Wuhan was 2.3–3.3 days. Assuming a serial interval of 6–9 days, we calculated a median R0 value of 5.7 (95% CI 3.8–8.9). We further show that active surveillance, contact tracing, quarantine, and early strong social distancing efforts are needed to stop transmission of the virus.”

  126. 126.

    The Pale Scot

    April 23, 2020 at 9:35 pm

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    Richard Burton on mining.

  127. 127.

    The Pale Scot

    April 23, 2020 at 9:45 pm

    @catclub:

    IIRC; The Abbot test came in at 85%. Abbot says that’s because the samples were stored in medium during delivery, results would be much better when the sample is collected and put directly into the machine. Every facility will have to have their own machine on site. Sweet for Abbot. The CDC and EU tests are 95%+, some French kit came in at 88%.

  128. 128.

    Procopius

    April 23, 2020 at 11:45 pm

    @Zelma: I liked the idea I saw somebody propose: Limit the amount of the “loan” to any company to the amount of taxes they paid over the last ten years. Didn’t pay any taxes? OK, company not profitable, burden on the economy, does not deserve more help. From that base amount, subtract the CEO’s salary for that period plus any money spent on stock buybacks in that same period.

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