David Dayen writes the blog “Unsanitized” for the American Prospect. In this post, he explains what Trump’s executive orders really do. Please open the links to see the many embedded links.
After weeks of unproductive talks with Democrats bending but the White House unyielding, over the weekend Donald Trump issued three memoranda and an executive order that, at this moment, reflect the only additional relief to the American people at a time when fiscal policy was the only thing preventing the economy from ruin.
We’ll get to what’s in these in a minute, but it’s worth noting what’s not there. The Heroes Act, House Democrats’ kitchen sink policy, added up to $3.4 trillion. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, who get the vapors at the sight of a deficit so they ought to know, the Trump orders would provide at best $225 billion in near-term funds, and on net, just $13 billion, tops, in new budgetary outlays. Everything in the orders either shuffles existing money around or kicks payments down the road; the new spending just assumes some missed collections.
I’ve read all four documents (here, here, here, and here) and I’d say CRFB is being amazingly generous assuming that anything close to even the meager funding it outlines will actually materialize. Let’s dive in.
Unemployment: the Trump action, if it actually worked, would give unemployed Americans an $400 extra per week retroactive to August 1, down from the $600 that expired in July. Of that sum, $300 would come from a FEMA disaster relief fund, and another $100 would have to be supplied by the states, using relief funds appropriated in the CARES Act. However most of that CARES Act money is already spoken for, and cash-strapped states don’t have a lot of extra money available to contribute. So I’d say it’s unlikely the state share will be included in a majority of states. Unemployed workers themselves will get half of what they previously got.
In addition, there’s only $44 billion available from the FEMA fund for the federal share. About $50 billion was spent on the $600 enhancement in the first two weeks of July, with nearly 30 million people receiving benefits. This is half that and maybe fewer recipients as hiring increases. But at most, this gets you another 5 weeks of support; by the end of August it’ll be done, even though it’s supposed to last until December.
When recipients will actually get anything is unclear; states would have to create an entirely new program through their antiquated unemployment insurance systems. It’s first-come first-served, so early states might get a little more for their residents while states that take months to figure things out could be shut out at the window entirely. And while the unemployed endure the wait, rent and other bills are still due.
Besides all that, it’s plainly unconstitutional, as David Super explains. The Disaster Relief Program being used isn’t intended for this purpose and its ability to deliver unemployment benefits is severely limited. Violating the Anti-Deficiency Act, which this does, carries criminal penalties. But while many will grumble, who exactly will sue to block the unemployed from getting even meager benefits? Treasury Secretary Mnuchin taunted Democrats with exactly this rationale on Sunday.
Payroll taxes: Set aside that people working need far less support than those who don’t. The president cannot change tax law to cancel taxes; he can defer payments. That’s what’s being done here. Any worker making less than $104,000 per year would have payroll taxes deferred from September 1 to the end of the year. They’ll still owe the taxes; they just won’t have to pay them until January.
This is a bureaucratic nightmare for employers, many of whom will likely opt to either keep paying them, or put them in an escrow account. Otherwise, they’d have to garnish a worker’s entire paycheck in January to cover back payroll taxes. My expectation is that this has next to no stimulative effect at all.
Trump says he wants to “terminate” these taxes if re-elected; he would need Congress to agree. It’s a political ploy to bribe the electorate, but if businesses just hang onto the money to avoid future fallout it won’t even work as a bribe. And Democrats are screaming that these taxes fund Social Security and Medicare and cancelling them would hasten a crisis (of course Congress could just, you know, fund Social Security and Medicare, and crisis solved.)
Evictions: This is just vaporware, the order just says that health officials should consider an eviction ban and that the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Treasury Department should see what they can do about helping renters and mortgage borrowers with funds to stay in their homes. That’s it. The federal moratorium only covered a handful of cases anyway; this is more useless than that.
Student loans: Of the four orders this is the most useful, as it extends an existing forbearance for federal student loans. Again, borrowers would still owe the money eventually, but it’s somewhat useful to be relieved of the burden now. What this shows is that the Education Department has a lot of discretion to let these loans go uncollected indefinitely, if they choose, to say nothing of the authority to cancel student loans. Trump is proving the concept.
It was a grave error to hold off on critical priorities until “the next bill,” after all the leverage was squandered. These Pelosi hagiographies are embarrassing in the context of her blowing the chance to secure ongoing relief throughout the pandemic. Whoever replaces Pelosi when she leaves doesn’t have to repeat these mistakes, as long as they learn from them.
I was on Democracy Now today talking about these orders as well as the war on the postal service, and you can watch that at their website.
I was in the middle of research on Trump’s Executive Orders (EO’s). He has so far issued more than any president dating back to Jimmy Carter, who issued two.
My research is focussed on Trumps’ EO’s bearing two issues: voting and his “law and order” operations, authorizing quasi-military activity to address protests but targeting individuals who are part of “mobs” and gangs in cities with mayors who are democrats.
I have not recently looked into the stalemates that have led to Trump’s absurd and probably illegal EO’s purporting to offer help to people who are not among his super-rich friends.
I did look in detail at the HEROES act, passed in June by the House of Representatives and likely a useless exercise, given the “you deserve nothing” ethos of the Mitch, the Trump, and his enablers.
The HEROES bill, is/was a multilayered rescue operation, with K-12 education a small part of the whole. If it had passed, those funds would have been available until September 30, 2022, and they were supposed to be used only “to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus.”
Here are a few of the provisions.
—The Child Nutrition Programs –$3 billion in emergency financial relief to school meal providers and USDA’s Child and Adult Care Food Program.
—Institute for Museum and Library Services – $5 million in operating support and technology for costs and expenses associated with coronavirus.
—Federal Communications Commission (FCC) – $5.5 billion with $1.5 billion for an Emergency Connectivity Fund offering expanded E-rate internet services and internet-connected devices to schools and libraries, including Wi-Fi hotspots and connected devices.
—Add to the above $4 billion for a new Emergency Broadband Connectivity Fund to reimburse Internet service providers (ISPs) for providing low income households with monthly discounts and up to $100 for connected devices.
—Department of Education. $90 billion for a State Fiscal Stabilization Fund. This provides grants to Governors for statewide and local funding for elementary and secondary schools and public postsecondary institutions. I report here only on support for K-12 education.
***costs associated with making up instructional time, including teacher, school leader, and classified school employee personnel costs;
***providing school-based supports for impacted students, families, and staff, including counseling, mental health services, family engagement efforts, and the coordination of physical health services;
***costs associated with sanitation and cleaning for schools and school transportation;
***professional development for school-based staff on trauma-informed care to restore the learning environment;
***purchasing educational technology, including assistive technology, that aids in regular and substantive interactions between students and their classroom instructor;
***coordination efforts between State educational agencies and public health departments for emergency planning, response, and recovery;
***authorized activities under education statutes including ESEA, IDEA, McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act, and the Perkins Act;
Click to access Heroes%20Act%20Summary.pdf
The draft legislation was structured around “provisos.” Some of these referred to ESSA, others to federal offices other than Education. In no time flat, Nina Rees complained there are “there are no safeguards for charter schools in this package.” She was right.
In fact, the HEROES Act says: “With respect to the allocation and award of funds under this title, The Secretary of Education is prohibited from—
(a) establishing a priority or preference not specified in this title; and (b) imposing limits on the use of such funds not specified in this title.
In other words, DeVos could not have privileged charter schools.
https://www.publiccharters.org/latest-news/2020/05/13/national-alliance-releases-statement-heroes-act-proposal-and-letter-house
In a “post policy party” numbers don’t have to add up. Actions do not have to be legal or constitutional . Sound bites are all that matter . Hopefully the American people have learned when they are being scammed.
Trump’s executive orders are “full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.”…..except perhaps more chaos.
Once a grifter, always a grifter
Of course, Fox News is telling all the Chumps for Trump that the President has acted and finally done something when Congress would not.
When will Trump’s stimulus relief executive orders take effect? “Real soon now,” Trump says, but as the inventor of the emoticon, computer scientist Scott E. Fahlman has pointed out, “Real soon now” means “some time before the heat death of the universe.”
But Trump’s promised relief, of course, will NEVER happen.
Don the Con
The only “relief,” as I see it, would be when/if it45 is gone from the WH.
BINGO
And the loss of Republican majorities in Congress and state legislatures. I’m still not convinced the Idiot will lose. Poll numbers of 10-12% leads are the exact margin of error of the Duke Effect. It’s gonna be ugly either way.
Re: What [the Idiot’s] Executive Orders Really Do: My I refer the jury to the lyrics of Edwin Starr’s War.
May I refer…