Welcome to Monday, August 24th, electorate...

California's ongoing historic wildfires have forced more than 100,000 people to evacuate their homes, burned over 1 million acres, and killed five.

Three groups of wildfires - ignited by lightning strikes - are spreading through the dry fields and forests around the Bay Area: The LNU Lightning Complex (Sonoma, Napa, and Solano); the SCU Lightning Complex (Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara); and the CZU Lightning Complex (Santa Cruz Mountains).

President Donald Trump had harsh words for California, saying Thursday:

“I see again the forest fires are starting. I said, you gotta clean your floors, you gotta clean your forests. Maybe we’re just going to have to make them pay for it because they don’t listen to us.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said Saturday that almost all firefighting resources in the state are in use, and thanked the president for declaring a state of emergency and approving disaster relief.

“Thank you to the president for your partnership and granting this urgent Major Disaster Declaration,” Newsom said in a statement. 

“California is battling two of the largest fires in our history and has seen nearly 600 new fires in the last week caused by dry lightning strikes. These are unprecedented times and conditions, but California is strong – we will get through this.”

Read how you can help here, then...

For a politics-free guide to how to protect you and your loved ones from corona, click on over to our Coronavirus Info Center.

On the Radar

The Delivering for America Act

This bill would require the USPS to reverse any policies that cause delay in processing, delivery, or non-delivery of mail. Additionally, it would provide USPS with $25 billion in funding and require it to postmark election-related mail and process it the same day it is received.

Those in favor argue that in light of the ongoing pandemic and projections that a record-breaking number of Americans will cast their ballot by mail in the upcoming election, now is not the time to implement changes at the U.S. Postal Service that could slow the processing of election mail. This bill stops and reverses all such changes, and provides the USPS with an additional $25 billion in funding to operate.

Those opposed say the USPS has enough cash to operate normally through August 2021 and has a $10 billion line of credit it hasn’t utilized yet, so the $25 billion provided by this bill is unnecessary. USPS can also make necessary changes to its operations while maintaining the capacity to process all election mail in a timely manner, given that it will represent less than 2% of all mail between now and the election.

Do you support H.R. 8015?

Under the Radar

Trump’s Payroll Tax Deferral

President Trump’s recent executive actions to extend coronavirus relief measures amid the ongoing impasse in Congress over relief legislation included a voluntary deferral of payroll taxes from September 1st through the end of the year. 

The deferral is open to employees who generally have a biweekly pre-tax income of less than $4,000 (or about $104,000 per year), and applies only to the 6.2% Social Security portion of the payroll tax. 

This USAFacts chart breaks down the estimated payroll tax deferral based on household income bracket. The upper-middle class (the fourth 20%) would have $1,197 deferred on average, the most among the income quintiles, followed by the middle class (middle 20%) with $693 deferred: 

How do you feel about the payroll tax deferral?

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Good luck. Hope to see you at our next Zoom meeting...

And, in the End...

It's National Waffle Day.

Here's why I have Georgia on my mind:

Smothered, covered, or chunked?

—Josh Herman

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