Unsanitized: The COVID-19 Report for Aug. 3, 2020

Why a Relief Bill Is So Elusive This Time
Plus, phantom teacher hirings, world's largest biker rally

 

Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer address the media on Saturday, after
meeting with White House officials. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo)

First Response

Back in March, Senate Republicans put together a fairly partisan bill to
respond to the coronavirus, Democrats asked for changes and got them,
and the legislation passed. This time around, Senate Republicans put
together a fairly partisan bill, and a couple weeks later, we are
nowhere near an agreement. The Sunday show finger-pointing

was notably intense, and Mitch McConnell has completely disconnected, as
the White House and Democratic leaders negotiate. The White House has
explored unilaterally extending unemployment benefits
,
which they can't really do, such is their frustration with failing to
reach agreement.  

This has surprised a few people
.
Congressional Republicans still have an election to run in November,
after all. A depression would presumably be catastrophic to their hopes.
Don't they still have any interest in preventing widespread suffering?

In their mind, they have. The suffering on Wall Street has been lifted.
On the day that expanded unemployment benefits expired last Friday, the
stock market rose. It's back up again
today. As we know, this is the
cause of an ironclad vow from the Federal Reserve

to do whatever it takes to protect asset prices, and a $4.5 trillion
money cannon facilitated by Congress to back up the promise.

The corporate bailout was the rescue Republicans wanted. It was valuable
to them and they were willing to give up a lot to get it. Democrats
secured some pretty good terms but they were all temporary, and now
they've mostly expired. The Fed money cannon, you will note, has not.

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In the second round, Democrats want lots more: $3.5 trillion worth, if
you see the Heroes Act as their opening bid. But Republicans already got
their corporate bailout. That was the moment of highest possible
leverage. Republicans, or at least McConnell, would like to give
corporations total immunity from any negligence lawsuit over infecting
workers and customers, but it's more of a nice-to-have than a
must-have. They already have the Supreme Court, after all.

So the deal isn't coming together as easily this time because you have
a serious imbalance between what each side actually wants. "But the
election," you might ask. Republicans know they're cooked in the
election. They can read a poll, they can see the death count, they know
who Donald Trump is and that suppressing the virus is something he
can't BS his way through. There are two choices here: try to salvage
the election in a probably fruitless attempt, or saddle the next
president with a depression, and immediately shift to deficit
fearmongering to constrain the response, and win in 2022 and 2024.

Opting for the latter probably isn't unilateral among Republicans but
it doesn't have to be. If enough Republicans are looking past this
year, that's enough to crush their negotiating position. But since at
least some Republicans are required to find a compromise, having them
check out makes a deal elusive.

All of this is to say that Democrats had really one shot to maximize the
relief measures, back in March. At that point they could have ensured
that there wasn't an imbalance between temporary individual measures
and permanent corporate ones. That was the time to ensure money for the
Postal Service and the elections. That was the time for significant
state and local relief commensurate with the scale of the problem, with
no strings attached. Many of us were urging Democrats to up the ante on
their asks, because the leverage would go away after the corporations
were taken care of.

But here we are. I haven't been arguing that the CARES Act was a bad
bill in hindsight, but in foresight. I looked a little bit down the road
and saw this disaster unfolding. I saw that the design of the CARES Act
was going to lead to premature reopenings
.
I saw that Donald Trump was the president and a well-managed conclusion
to the coronavirus crisis wouldn't be possible. I'm not a
clairvoyant and it didn't take one to see these problems. It required
only a simple appreciation of negotiating leverage and an ability to
look over th horizon.

Nobody did. And here we are.

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The Teacher Hiring Surge that Isn't

We're going to get monthly job numbers on Friday, and estimates have
been so off during the pandemic that the outcome is really unknown. But
at least one set of numbers will be quite distorted.

Bill McBride of Calculated Risk

has been explaining for a while that the seasonal adjustment for
education routinely accounts for a large number of education
personnel-teachers, but also various support staff-being laid off in
June and July and going back to work in the fall. Those teachers have
already been laid off much earlier in the school year. The way the
seasonal adjustment will work, it adjusts for these losses in hiring and
smooths them throughout the year. The way it will work this year is that
it will show a large surge in hiring of teachers in July, about 850,000
worth, give or take.

Obviously 850,000 teachers weren't hired last month. And to be clear,
this just takes things back to the normal level of teachers, meaning
that the job loss previously was over-emphasized. But when that headline
jobs number comes out, it's going to include this phantom teacher
hiring surge. That's based on a season adjustment that this year is a
little bit skewed.

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Oh God

They're doing the Sturgis rally this year. Sturgis is a massive biker
event in South Dakota; back in my TV editing days I once worked on a
show about it. The week-plus event starts August 7 and brings in bikers
from around the country. Over 250,000 people are expected
,
about half as many as normal (though since it's literally the only
major gathering of its kind in the U.S. since March, that number could
go a fair bit higher). Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised, but my
assumption is you'll be able to count the masks on one hand.

Sturgis has apparently become more upscale in recent years, with
affluent biker enthusiasts joining the fray. But this is probably a case
of having no way to cancel this thing even if you officially canceled
it. And so, starting this Friday, hundreds of thousands of people are
going to come together in one campground during the pandemic.

Yikes.

Days Without a Bailout Oversight Chair

129
.

We Can't Do This Without You

Today I Learned

* The incredible progress on a vaccine

is remarkable. (Stat News)

* Hundreds of Pac 12 football players are threatening to bail on the
season

without safety protections for them and other athletes. A big moment for
college athletics. (Vox)

* Operation "Make People Hate the Post Office" continues, as mail is
significantly delayed

across the country. The twin goals of privatization and voter
suppression are activated. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

* Retail bankruptcies today

include Lord & Taylor and the parent company of Men's Wearhouse. (NBC
News)

* One fun side note to the retail bankruptcies is that foreign suppliers
that have already delivered product usually get stiffed
.
(Washington Post)

* Huge lockdown in Australia

after case counts jump to 671/day in one state. We had 15,000 in Florida
not too long ago. (CNN)

* An actual crisis along the U.S.-Mexico border: coronavirus spikes in
south Texas

with not enough medical facilities to mitigate it. (Houston Chronicle)

* Did the pandemic kill the theatrical window

for movies? (Wall Street Journal)

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