Last night, House Democrats introduced the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which includes:
Free coronavirus testing for everyone who needs a test, including the uninsured;
Paid emergency leave with both 14 days of paid sick leave and up to three months of paid family and medical leave;
Enhanced Unemployment Insurance, a first step that will extend protections to furloughed workers;
Strengthened food security initiatives, including SNAP, student meals, seniors nutrition and food banks;
Clear protections for frontline workers, including health care workers and other workers who are in contact with those who have been exposed or are responsible for cleaning at-risk places;
Increased federal funds for Medicaid, as states face increased costs.
According to USA Today, Republicans objected to the Democrats’ proposal:
The Families First Coronavirus Response Act is being brought to the floor less than 24 hours after Democratic leaders unveiled the legislation, a stunningly swift turnaround that indicates Congress’ alarm about an emergency that has so far claimed 38 lives in the U.S., roiled the stock market, prompted a ban on travel from Europe and forced the suspension of the NBA season.
It does not include a payroll tax break that President Donald Trump is calling for. And GOP House leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Calif., said the Democratic package “comes up short.”
One of his criticisms is that the way the bill ensures paid sick leave would take months to administer, long after the relief is needed.
Even if it passes the House Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell signaled his opposition to the Families First measure.
“Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi’s first draft from late last night was off-base,” the Kentucky Republican tweeted. “It does not focus immediate relief on affected Americans. It proposes new bureaucracy that would only delay assistance. It wanders into policy areas that are not related to the pressing issues at hand.”
Trump said Thursday he opposes the bill as well, partly because it doesn’t have the payroll tax cut but also because it includes “goodies” he said Democrats have been trying to get approved for years.
Doesn’t the Bible tell us to feed the hungry and help the sick? Is there anything in the Bible about tax cuts?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
aggggh!
As more people fall victim to COVID-19, the survivors, family’s and friends, will remember what Trump and the GOP did as they fiddled and the U.S. burned.
It is possible that the death rate from COVID-19 will reach into the millions before the pandemic runs its course.
Trump and the GOP only think as far as tax cuts. How about actually HELPING people? No. Can’t do that…too expensive and too much bureaucracy. Better to let people struggle and end up on the streets.
MAGA
They believe in rugged individualism. If you are poor, it is your own fault. They think they all earned whatever they have and everyone else should emulate that and not expect any government aid. Let them eat cake. Or starve. Or die in the gutter.
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19)
Mike Pence squirms when confronted with damning coronavirus testing numbers
Mike Pence should squirm. According to the Centers for Disease Control, eight Americans were tested for coronavirus on March 11.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/testing-in-us.html
On the same day in South Korea, 10,000 people were tested for the virus.
This country is in TERRIBLE shape. I just read this fact in the Chicago Tribune:
Struggling to afford basic needs: 24% of Illinois households are above the poverty line but can’t afford the cost of living
FRIDAY, MAR 13
Many families in Chicago live above the federal poverty line, but below the basic cost of living in Illinois. Findings from a recent financial hardship study by the United Way show that of Illinois’ 4.8 million households, 36% of households cannot afford their basic needs. That number is 43% in Chicago.
Dump and his gang are pulling off the BIGGEST HEIST of America.
And this…
Trump’s travel ban sidesteps his own European resorts
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/12/trump-coronavirus-travel-europe-resorts-126808
Trump should face IMPEACHMENT hearings for his CRIMES against America re: the Coronavirus.
Here’s Bernie addressing the Nation about Covid19:
https://berniesanders.com/bernie-addresses-nation-health-and-economic-crisis/
Go Bernie.
His payroll tax cut is designed to undermine Social Security.https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/10/stealth-attack-social-security-trump-condemned-exploiting-coronavirus-crisis-push
Leave it up to the physicians to determine who needs to be tested. If a person is asymptomatic without contacts why would you test to get a negative result?. There are limited kits …at the moment. Companies are making them that did not prior to this pandemic. Original kits were made in Germany and Spain and are given out as they can but they have their own problems in Europe.. Incidently, a kit holds around 800 diagnostic sets. The states are responsible to set up protocols and do testing and quarantines. Cities will contact the state health departments first. for kits and diagnostics. Some states may be inadequate in funding the HDs The CDC cannot be expected to test the whole US.
This kind of conversation causes panic. Some of these bills will take a very long time to enact. Trump has moved things at a terrific speed. The government had done an amazing job responding to this situation and that is because calmer heads have prevailed. I have never seen such a gathering of experts. To blame one person for this or expect him to solve the ills of the world is ridiculous. You are probably well educated teachers but not the experts here. I was appalled when I read the childish comments regarding the presidents speech. This is a time to work together and solve this…and we can, if you put politics aside.
Trump has done nothing except to close borders. The virus is already here, and the CDC says we are not moving fast enough to test people. On March 11, 8 people in the nation were tested. South Korea tested 10,000 people on the same day. Trump is an incompetent buffoon.
April,
Trump fired the global pandemic team in 2018 and never replaced them. He now wants to cut the budget of the CDC.
Look at the number of people tested in this country on March 11: 8 people. Eight people tested on March 11. These are government data:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/testing-in-us.html
On the same day in South Korea, 10,000 people were tested for the virus.
I’m sorry but your post is just silly. What in particular has Trump moved at a “terrific speed”? Have I missed something? The only things I’ve noticed are a couple of half-assed travel bans, the latest of which actually allows US citizens to freely go to Europe & return [perhaps carrying virus picked up there]– & to accomplish that, he had to pull our govt-apptd experts out of Congressional hearings yesterday– whose input was crucial to formulating legislation– for the entire afternoon, setting us back another day.
We’re two months into this thing: S Korea is testing 10k/ day while we have yet to test 10k total. Explain how that, & our current belated floundering to scale up testing is anything but a failure. Related: another great Trump move done at “terrific speed”: in 2018 his admin made a series of cost-cutting decisions that gutted the nation’s infectious disease defense infrastructure, including ousting officials tasked with directing a national response to a pandemic. In Congressional hearings today, both Redfield and Fauci acknowledged that was a serious problem & that pandemic response team should be reinstated immediately.
The current Trump budget cuts funding for the CDC in the midst of this global pandemic.
April Featherkile :“Trump has moved things at a terrific speed. The government had done an amazing job responding to this situation and that is because calmer heads have prevailed.”
You obviously don’t get the same news that I get. Trump is trying to ‘make this go away’ by saying lies and is working to suppress the facts from getting out. For the first time, he has a problem that he can’t call a nasty name or sue. It is totally out of his league.
The thought occurred that this administration is not speeding up the testing because they want to keep the reported numbers low. Low numbers, declare success. But people with the virus don’t get tested, don’t get treated, spread the disease, death rate rises.
Didn’t Rush Limbaugh say the virus was just “the common cold”?
I have read on Forbes and elsewhere that a number of economic experts are recommending immediate cash outlays to citizens– perhaps on the order of $1500/ head– as a more efficient & sensible stimulus than payroll tax cut, to mitigate against instant deep recession. The thinking seems to be, that would at least patch us through the next month or two, as work suddenly disappears for massive nos of gig/ wkg-midclass workers serving those who are suddenly staying home from regular & special activities, & also for health-wkrs who need childcare for kids home from closed schools.
No comment on what I think should happen.
nytimes.com
BREAKING NEWS
An Australian official who met with Attorney General William Barr and Ivanka Trump in Washington last week tested positive for coronavirus.
Friday, March 13, 2020 5:50 AM EST
Peter Dutton, a hard-line conservative and former police officer who has beenrelatively quiet in the midst of the outbreak, said on Twitter that he had tested positive for the virus that causes Covid-19. “I feel fine and willprovide an update in due course,” he wrote.
The US ‘can’t afford’ to help provide food, free testing, healthcare, extend unemployment insurance or any type of help for the needy. What this country really needs is another phucking tax break!! That will definitely help.
At least 6 states will close all schools, affecting millions.
At least six states and several large school districts moved on Thursday to close schools for at least two weeks, extreme measures that they hope will stem the spread of the coronavirus, but which come at the cost of upending the daily lives of 6 million schoolchildren and their parents.
All public schools, and many if not all private schools, in Oregon, Ohio, Michigan, Maryland, Kentucky and New Mexico were told to close beginning next week, and the governor of Washington State ordered all schools shut in three counties near Seattle. The Houston Independent School District, the largest school district in Texas, also said it was closing for two weeks.
The actions came as the number of people who have been infected with the coronavirus in the United States jumped by nearly 400 on Thursday. The virus has been diagnosed in more than 1,650 people in 46 states and has killed at least 41 people, according to a New York Times database. The closings could have a severe effect on parents who will need to find child care, and on the many students who depend on the cafeteria for food and the school for shelter.
In Kentucky, for example, 75 percent of public school students are eligible for free or reduced-price meals. In Ohio, there are more than 25,000 students who are defined as homeless.
From The Hill:
Canada’s prime minister, professional basketball players, and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) were among the VIPs on Thursday who found themselves waiting for coronavirus test results because of concerns they could be infected, and potentially pose risks to others.
Trump shrugged off the possibility that he, too, might be in that category after being in close proximity at Mar-a-Lago last weekend with an aide to Brazil’s president who tested positive for the virus (Reuters).
On Capitol Hill, Anthony Fauci, the administration’s top expert on infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health, told Congress that weeks of difficulty distributing enough coronavirus test kits around the country allowed the respiratory virus to defeat the nation’s containment efforts. He called the public’s often futile efforts to get tested a federal “failing.”
“The system is not really geared to what we need right now — what you are asking for,” he told a lawmaker at a hearing on Thursday. “That is a failing. It is a failing. Let’s admit it,” he said (The Hill).
President Trump tried to cast the global outbreak of the coronavirus as a liberal conspiracy intended to undermine his first term, lumping it alongside impeachment and the Mueller investigation.
Looks like the Orange Blob is learning, very slowly learning. Is it still going away by April?
……………………………………..
The Hill:
But as the seriousness of the situation set in across the country and the number of confirmed cases surpassed 1,000, the White House cancelled a planned trip by Trump to Nevada and Colorado this weekend.
Trump’s presidential campaign on Wednesday also postponed an event next week in Milwaukee, Wis., where Trump was to speak. It had been announced the previous day.
On Thursday, a morning after delivering a sober address on the virus from the Oval Office, Trump signaled he is likely to cancel plans to hold a rally in Tampa, Fla., that hasn’t yet been formally announced by his campaign, saying he didn’t want backlash and that people needed a “little separation” until the coronavirus outbreak subsides.
The day before Trump canceled his trips, he boasted that he was going to Nevada to show that nothing would deter him.
It NEVER ends. Trump doesn’t want to lose face by declaring a national emergency and is waiting for Jared to ‘talk to relevant parties’ and present his findings. OMG! The IDIOTS are running this country!!
…………….
Part of Trump’s hesitation to declare a national emergency has seemed to be about saving face. Just last week, for example, he said it would be unnecessary. “I don’t think you’ll need that because I really think we’re in extremely good shape,” he said. Declaring an emergency after making comments like that would put in stark relief the flat-footed nature of his initial reaction.
“Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar is pushing for the designation. But Vice President Mike Pence, who Trump tapped to lead the administration’s coronavirus response, is wary it could trigger an economic tailspin,” Politico’s Anita Kumar reported on Wednesday. “There’s no deadline for a decision, but one of the people familiar with the talks said Trump’s aides will not give the president a final verdict until Jared Kushner, the president’s senior adviser and son-in-law, talks to relevant parties and presents his findings to the president.” The story quotes an unnamed “Republican who speaks to Trump” saying: “The president isn’t persuaded because [an emergency declaration] contradicts his message that this is the flu.”
Starving people always makes them look for jobs. How many low paying jobs are now available, esp? Trump is PURE EVIL!!!
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION WON’T POSTPONE FOOD BENEFIT CUT
Since last week, Democrats have called on President Donald Trump’s administration to delay a planned food benefit cut because of the rapidly expanding coronavirus outbreak, but administration officials have said no. Starting next month, rules will tighten for unemployed adults who don’t have minor children or disabilities, a policy that will shrink food benefit enrollment by 700,000, or about 2% annually. [HuffPost]
One of my friends put it best the other day: monetary solutions to an economic crisis caused by a public health crisis just doesn’t make sense. In order to deal with an economic crisis caused by a public health crisis, you try and improve the situation with public health.
I feel sorry for the people who have to work at Trump’s resort. How widely has coronavirus spread at Mar-a-Lago? I feel sorry for security people who have to constantly protect the Orange Blob. He lives for having 100’s of pictures taken.
…………………….
Second Mar-a-Lago guest tests positive for coronavirus
BY TAL AXELROD
A second person who was with President Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida this past weekend has tested positive for COVID-19, the diseased caused by the novel coronavirus.
Trump has sought to downplay the interaction with the press aide to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, even after photographs emerged of the two in close proximity to each other and shaking hands.
“That night, I was taking hundreds of pictures,” Trump said during an earlier exchange with a reporter about the matter.
However, Trump reversed course during remarks at the White House Friday, saying he would be tested…
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/487550-second-mar-a-lago-guest-tests-positive-for-coronavirus
Why Trump declared COVID-19 a national emergency — and what he denied responsibility for…PBS News Hour
Friday was another day of mass closings and cancelations as schools, sports and travel shut down amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. President Trump also declared a national emergency to increase funding for a federal response, and he appears to have a deal with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for related legislation. Amna Nawaz reports and Lisa Desjardins and Yamiche Alcindor join Judy Woodruff.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-trump-declared-covid-19-a-national-emergency-and-what-he-denied-responsibility-for
Trump denied responsibility for firing the entire unit in charge of global pandemics in 2018. Of course, he didn’t personally do it. Some rightwing, anti-science nut he appointed did it.