[To talk more about this $900 billion stimulus package, that’s
half the size of the $2.2 trillion stimulus law passed in March,
we’re joined by Darrick Hamilton, professor of economics at The New
School.] [[link removed]]

WE MUST REJECT AUSTERITY POLITICS: ECONOMIST DARRICK HAMILTON ON WHY
$900B STIMULUS IS NOT ENOUGH  
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Darrick Hamilton
December 22, 2020
Democracy Now
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_ To talk more about this $900 billion stimulus package, that’s
half the size of the $2.2 trillion stimulus law passed in March,
we’re joined by Darrick Hamilton, professor of economics at The New
School. _

Darrick Hamilton, The New School ,

 

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As Congress passes a $900 billion coronavirus relief package, the
first new aid since April, critics say the bill does not go far enough
in providing direct aid to those most impacted by the economic
downturn. “It needs to be thought of as a relief bill, as a bridge
to get us to a Biden presidency, where we can do something that is far
more intense and larger in scale,” says Darrick Hamilton, professor
of economics at The New School and founding director of the Institute
for the Study of Race, Stratification and Political Economy.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Congress voted Monday night to pass a $900 billion
coronavirus relief package, the first new aid since April. The measure
is part of a $2.3 trillion package that includes $1.4 trillion to fund
the government. The combined legislation is among the largest relief
packages in U.S. history. President Trump has until December 28th to
sign it.

The coronavirus relief part of the bill includes $300-per-week federal
unemployment assistance for 11 weeks; a round of $600 stimulus checks
for people who earn up to $75,000, with another $600 per child; more
money for schools and hospitals; and an extension of an eviction
moratorium by a month. It also includes $284 billion for another round
of small business aid through the Paycheck Protection Program, as well
as $20 billion to buy vaccines and make, quote, “the vaccine
available at no charge for anyone who needs it.” It offers an
additional $8 billion for vaccine distribution.

The package includes a ban on surprise medical bills from
out-of-network medical providers; a restoration of Pell grants for
incarcerated students; $35 billion for fund wind, solar and other
clean power sources; and $15 billion to U.S. airlines to bail them
out. The government funding part of the bill also allocates nearly
$1.4 billion for the border wall.

Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont told CNN the COVID
relief bill is a step forward but does not go far enough.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Now, this bill, to be honest, has a lot of very
important stuff in it. I mean, we worked very hard — I worked with
Senator Hawley — to make sure there would be direct payments. I
wanted 1,200 bucks; we ended up with $600, which, for a family of
four, the average family of four, will be $2,400. Will that help? Yes,
it will. Is it enough? No, it is not.

We managed to extend unemployment for another 11 weeks at a supplement
of $300 on top of normal unemployment. Is that enough? No, it should
have been for four months, and that number should have been higher.

We provided zero financial aid to states and localities all over this
country who are suffering devastating financial problems, which will
mean they’ll have to lay off firemen and police officers and
teachers and so forth and so on.

So, this is a step forward. It is better than nothing. But it is
nowhere near, in my view, where it should be going.

AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on CNBC
hundreds of dollars in direct payments could begin reaching people as
early as next week.

TREASURY SECRETARY STEVEN MNUCHIN: So, I think, as you know, you know,
we were worried about, you know, something like a Great Depression
again, earlier in the year. But this is now much more targeted. I
expect it’s needed in a short period of time. And I think this will
take us through the recovery.

AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about this $900 billion stimulus package,
that’s half the size of the $2.2 trillion stimulus law passed in
March, we’re joined by Darrick Hamilton, professor of economics at
The New School, where he’s also founding director of the newly
created Institute for the Study of Race, Stratification and Political
Economy. He was a surrogate and economic adviser on Bernie Sanders’
2020 presidential campaign, also one of Sanders’ appointees to the
Biden-Sanders joint task force.

Darrick, welcome back to _Democracy Now!_ Can you start off by just
reacting to the overall stimulus bill? What’s in there? What do you
feel needs to be in there?

DARRICK HAMILTON: Well, it’s long overdue. I’m glad it’s here.
It needs to be thought of as a relief bill, as a bridge to get us to a
Biden presidency, where we can do something that is far more intense
and larger in scale and — here’s the key point — that becomes
leading into transformative policy, so that we will be less vulnerable
to the next pandemic or the next economic crisis for everyday
vulnerabilities that many Americans live with.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: My concern is, while I see some excellent provisions
in this bill that were not in the previous bill — for instance,
there is now an allowance for a family where perhaps one person, one
wage earner in the family, does not have a Social Security number, may
possibly be undocumented, that they would be able to count in terms of
being able to get payments and actually even retroactively claim it on
their next year’s taxes for the previous stimulus that they were not
eligible for — but at 5,600 pages, this bill obviously has a lot of
stuff that we have not yet clearly heard about. We’re told we’re
not going to get the final version possibly until sometime next week.

And I’m wondering: Do you have any concerns about some of the stuff
that’s already come forward? For instance, apparently now they’re
increasing the deductions that businesses can take for business meals
to 100% from 50%. They’re allowing controlled foreign corporations
to be able to bring back their income from abroad without having to
pay taxes that they’ve been sheltering abroad. There’s all kinds
of other provisions, including an expansion of the new markets tax
credit, which has always been, to me, a scam for real estate investors
to make super profits — a $5 billion expansion of the new markets
tax credit. And we don’t know much of what’s still in the bill.
Your concerns about that?

DARRICK HAMILTON: I mean, you’re spot-on, Juan. We certainly know
that Washington politics includes pork-barrel politics and some
cronyism, where we’re going to get things into the bill, and
that’s problematic. And the fact that it is so long, and we just —
it just got released, and we haven’t had a chance to dissect it,
these are all problems.

But there are also some positive things in there that we should
recognize. And the politics of having those positive things in the
bills becomes very useful as we get rid of that politics of the past
where we load bills with all sorts of special interests that aren’t
aimed at the American people. You know, for example, a recognition
that education itself needs to be an industry that we invest in, so
there’s $82 billion in there for education. There’s a relief set
aside for transportation.

You and I both know that there needs to be some money in there for
state and localities, as well, and that’s not in the bill. So
there’s a lot of problems.

It was definitely necessary that we had this bill passed. And what I
like is the precedent of interventions in some areas — like you
pointed out, undocumented people, families having access to some
relief; like you also pointed out, having a bill that includes gig
workers when we think about the unemployed. In fact, why should that
ever be a distinction? Going forward, we need to provide unemployment
relief for all American workers, period. We know this new
classification of putting vulnerability onto workers, where they’re
not formally employed in firms as we traditionally employ them, the
fissuring of the workforce. We need to rethink how we design
unemployment, so that all American workers, documented and
undocumented — in fact, we need pathways to having citizenship for
people that are undocumented.

But the last point I’ll make — and I’m sorry if I’m rambling
on — is that this sets a precedent for us to build upon. And
that’s what it needs to be thought of. It is inadequate. Senator
Sanders is exactly right. But we need a new politics. And there’s
optimism, because if we look at people going into Congress, they are,
I think, standing firm and promoting industrial policy that focuses on
workers.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I’m wondering if you could talk a little bit more
about the lack of provisions for local governments and state
governments? New Jersey, for instance, is just this week having to
deal with borrowing over $4 billion to deal with its expected budget
gap this year. Could you talk about the plight of states and
municipalities right now?

DARRICK HAMILTON: Yeah. I mean, the plight is such that state and
localities are constrained to balance their budget in a way that the
federal government is not. The federal government has the power of the
purse and can fund us through a relief, but yet we’ve imposed a
great deal of burden on state and localities to take care of their
citizens, with our increasing federalism, where state and localities
are responsible for their residents, as well as balancing their
budget. It’s really problematic, that.

And the impact is going to be dramatic, if we think about who is
receiving the benefits at local levels, as well as who is employed and
what austerity is going to mean. It’s going to mean layoffs for
teachers if we don’t get relief from federal government. It’s
going to be reductions in benefits such as contributions to food
security, such as contributions to school. So it is critical and vital
that when we get the next package, when Biden takes office, that
there’s relief directed to state and locality.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Hamilton, last month Public Citizen tweeted a
comparison of the wages subsidized by different governments during the
coronavirus crisis. Whereas Japan stood at close to 100%, the U.S. has
subsidized 0% of wages due to the pandemic.

DARRICK HAMILTON: Yeah. I mean, a Paycheck Protection Program is what
we have right now. But if we had a paycheck guarantee, that would be
more direct, bigger in scale, and provide more security. So, if we
look at our international comparisons, we’re not doing what we
should be doing. And we have a greater public power to do so. So, I
think the clear narrative is that this was a necessary ingredient, but
it’s still far short, that there’s a lot more work we need to do.
I think that’s the resounding message.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, the issue of corporate liability, what Mitch
McConnell and others were holding up this bill for, that corporations
would be protected from consumers or workers during the pandemic,
being sued, that ultimately was dropped out of this. There are many
interesting things in this. If you could respond to that, and also the
no-surprise-medical-bill procedures? This is an amazing
accomplishment, pushed by grassroots health advocates around the
country. They’ve worked on this for years. When you go to an
emergency room, you’re getting an operation, you have no idea which
doctors are working on you. Some can be out of network. And then you
end up with, instead of a $600 emergency room bill, something like
$10,000. Private equity groups have bought up emergency room doctor
groups just so that they could go out of network and make this
fortune. This is now becoming illegal?

DARRICK HAMILTON: Yeah. I mean, ideally, Medicare for All would
address all of this, if we had a single-payer health insurance system.
But we know we don’t have that at this point.

And I agree with you, Amy. I think that we have made some progress on
the progressive side. So, there is a lot to be disturbed about in this
bill, and, you know, Juan started off the conversation describing some
of this pork-barrel politics that still exists. But progressives
should be vigilant and steadfast and also feel some sense of
accomplishment, and the sense of accomplishment that we were able to
keep out corporate liabilities as an emphasis, so, you know, it
signals that we need to put workers first. And with the provision that
you just described, so that people aren’t hit with a surprise
medical bill that they didn’t anticipate, that’s an
accomplishment. I mean, the fact that we’re sending direct checks to
American people as relief, that’s an accomplishment, albeit too
small. Three hundred dollars is not enough — yeah, $600 is not
enough; neither is $300 supplemental for [unemployment] compensation.
But the fact that we’re doing it sets a precedent and can set a tone
of what government can actually do.

What we should not be concerned about right now is austerity politics,
some notion of deficit constraint. And I think both sides of the
aisle, particularly the left side of the aisle, needs to recognize
that PAYGO is a problem, particularly in pandemic, that constraining
the use of the public purse for relief for Americans is absolutely not
what we should be doing. In fact, we need to be doing more to ensure,
as I said earlier, that not only will we have protections during a
pandemic, that we have a structure that — when we’re not in a
peculiar economic crisis, where people can have social mobility, a
moral economy.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: One of the other positive aspects of the bill, it
seems to me, and that can be credited to the pressure of the Sanders
campaign and the left of the Democratic Party, are the provisions on
addressing climate change, in terms of actually, apparently, expansion
of credits for solar installations and for research into wind power
and longer-serving batteries. Could you talk about some of those
provisions?

DARRICK HAMILTON: Yeah. I mean, to be frank, Juan, I don’t know the
specific details on it, but I think it goes right back to that
narrative that, you know, we were — there was ridicule directed at
Bernie Sanders as if he was holding the bill up. But as we can see,
there are provisions in there, and he’s not alone. There’s a whole
conglomerate within Congress right now that’s fighting for the
rights of Americans. And I think that momentum is illustrated in this
bill. And that, to me, is what we should be celebrating and focusing
on also, the fact that we do have a pathway forward. And you cited
one: climate change. Clearly, if we think about this pandemic in
isolation, that’s a missed opportunity, that this economic despair,
this health risk, we’re still going to be vulnerable after this
pandemic, after the dissemination of the vaccine. We have climate
catastrophe looming and waiting if we don’t do anything about it.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Professor Hamilton, what do you think the Biden
administration should do, President Biden should do first thing when
he is in office, both through executive action and just pushing
forward economic recovery? What’s most critical?

DARRICK HAMILTON: Yeah. I mean, in earnest, there is no silver bullet
policy, so we need to be thinking about economic protection across
almost a Bill of Rights, various aspects. But if I were to single out
some, well, one, he can address student debt, right? We’re going to
have this benefit cliff even — you know, the pandemic legislation
included a moratorium on evictions, moratorium on foreclosure, as well
as some relief for students with regards to paying back their debt. So
I would certainly recommend, through executive order, if Congress
doesn’t act, some relief with regards to student debt that’s been
accumulated. But if I have to focus on something, it is jobs, public
jobs, public jobs that are building a better human and physical
infrastructure for Americans, as well as putting Americans to work
with a decent wage and benefits, that put pressure on the private
sector to ensure that they also have to have decent wages and benefits
if they want to compete in the marketplace for American workers.

AMY GOODMAN: Darrick Hamilton, thanks so much for being with us,
professor of economics at The New School, where he’s also founding
director of the Institute for the Study of Race, Stratification and
Political Economy.

Next up, as hospitalizations from COVID hit another record high here
in the United States, and as Britain is cut off from the rest of
Europe because of a variant of the coronavirus, we’re going to speak
to a Virginia doctor who was among the first to receive the
Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. We’ll ask him a lot of questions. Stay with
us.

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