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January 21, 2021

The Checks and Shots Strategy

Plus, Biden gets out his firing sunglasses

 

More money could lead to more vaccine production, as well as more check
production, though not with the same machine. (Rafiq Maqbool/AP Photo)

The Chief

The first bill that President Biden introduced, even before taking
office, was a $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which really picks up
most of the leftover elements on pandemic relief that Democrats were
unable to advance in the CARES Act and the December COVID relief bill.
Two things stood out in the bill: the topping up of $600 checks in
December to $2,000 and funding to get the vaccine produced and
distributed.

Those two pieces both probably have enough bipartisan support to pass,
even in the Senate with 60 votes. The checks are incredibly popular and
Republicans would be playing with fire to hold them up, especially if
they know they can be dumped into a majority-vote budget reconciliation
bill anyway (in other words, they'd have taken a bad vote for
nothing). And there's literally no amount of vaccine money that would
not pay itself back and then some, by leading to reopening the country
in full faster.

So there's an argument being made, within the House especially, to
just pass those two elements-what I'm calling "checks and
shots"-under regular order, and deal with the rest of the American
Rescue Plan later. This has a couple different benefits. First, Biden
would get an early, bipartisan legislative win, creating momentum for
his presidency. That's probably the most minor benefit, since
"momentum" really isn't a thing.

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More important, a bill under regular order would get checks and shots
out quick. Reconciliation takes time, and apparently the House is
staying out of session next week. A full bill through reconciliation
will run up against the extended unemployment deadline in March. By
contrast you could put a checks and shots bill on the floor almost
immediately.

Checks will circulate through the economy: the current $600 iteration is
already boosting restaurants
.
With unemployment still high
,
any amount that can help people needs to get there right away. And
vaccine money is vital. I know the private sector
-God
help us-wants to take over the rollout, but keep in mind that the most
failed part of distribution right now is the Walgreens/CVS effort to
vaccinate nursing homes. Who distributes the vaccine is less important
than if they are funded for the effort in a coordinated way, with a
Public Health Jobs Corps of 100,000 strong and a central government
standing up mobile clinics and all the rest. And since we're in a race

with the more transmissible variant, time is of the essence.

Third, as I've stressed
,
this is a trust-building exercise. Democrats ran and won in Georgia on
checks. The Biden presidency is going to rise or fall on the vaccine
rollout. Getting those priorities covered will show the public that
promises can be kept. I know there's a lot of Twitter grousing about
$2,000 checks versus $1,400. I think Congress is likely to go with
$1,400 but a standalone bill that isn't risking the rest of the
package is also more fertile ground to advocate for bigger checks.

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Punchbowl ,
which has reported a little on this, describes this as a "nibble" or a
"big bite." But checks and shots are actually a significant portion of
the American Rescue Plan. The estimate for $1,400 checks, especially
ones that include adult dependents as the Biden bill does, is anywhere
between $435 and $465 billion. Add $600 to that and it's another $200
billion. And "shots," defined as a national vaccination program, is $160
billion. If you include the Public Health Jobs Corps and scaled-up
testing to open schools and investing in COVID treatments, you're
scraping $400 billion, which is what the Biden fact sheet puts toward
"critical measures for addressing COVID-19." So this "skinny" bill is
anywhere between $595 billion and $1.07 trillion. Not very skinny! You
could see it becoming comparable to the $900 billion relief bill passed
a month ago.   

My sources in the Senate describe checks and shots as an option but also
a gamble. There's the idea that the popular items can drive Congress
to pass a bigger deal, and without them, a bigger deal might get
stranded. But this assumes that there's any Republican support for a
bigger deal, which there isn't. What passes for moderates, like Lisa
Murkowski and Mitt Romney, are already rejecting it
.
If you're going to pass the big bill, it's going to be with 50
votes. And at least for Joe Manchin, taking checks out of that big bill
helps its passage, by making it more targeted.

If you can get checks and shots, put points on the board, and still
leave a reconciliation bill available for a broader relief package, you
do it. Bottom line.

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I Think You Should Leave

Back in November, the Revolving Door Project put out a great report

about what positions in the government could be vacated on Day One. We
knew even then that the Trump team was making an effort to burrow
loyalists inside the federal government
.
But many officials serve at the pleasure of the president, and can be
fired by the president as well.

President Biden went ahead and asked for the resignations of three of
these officials

yesterday: Michael Pack of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (parent of
Voice of America), Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Kathy
Kraninger, and National Labor Relations Board general counsel Peter
Robb. Kraninger, who had been busy discounting financial industry
offenders

on their crimes, would have been able to serve until December 2023 but
for a Supreme Court ruling allowing the president to fire the CFPB
director. (Thanks Supreme Court!) She and Pack went quietly
.

Robb did not. General counsel is an important position
,
as it prioritizes cases for the board and directs staff attorneys to the
same. And Robb is vociferously anti-union; he was even involved in the
firing of air traffic controllers in the 80s.

Minutes after Robb refused to quit
,
Biden fired him. He didn't take a meeting or worry about how it would
play on Fox News. He just took action. This is a sea change from past
Democratic administrations consumed with optics. Biden hasn't done
everything I've wanted in this transition, and I would never expect
him to. But he understands at least to some degree the power of the job.
This is tracking well above the level of Obama.  

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What Day of Biden's Presidency Is It?

Day 2. I'll have more on the Day One executive orders tomorrow, though
here's a generic rundown
and
here's a fact sheet
.
There are more coming today around COVID response. Again, more tomorrow.

One of the less heralded executive orders from yesterday is a plan to
recalculate the social cost of carbon, which is important for regulatory
purposes. It was actually part of our Day One Agenda
, in this piece from Steve Novick
. So put
one on the board!

We Can't Do This Without You

The COVID Report

Sometimes the links section for First 100 will just be about the
pandemic. So here goes.

* Inauguration Day coincided with the highest death toll of the crisis
.
(COVID Tracking)

* We're up to 17.2 million vaccination doses

distributed. (Bloomberg)

* An outbreak at Los Angeles/Long Beach ports

could damage logistics across the economy. (L.A. Times)

* A study in Israel shows that you really need two doses

(The Guardian) of the Pfizer vaccine.

* The Pfizer vaccine is effective against the COVID variant

(CNBC), though maybe not for the South Africa variant
.
(New York Times)

* The vaccination goal just has to be bigger

than 100 million in 100 days. (HuffPost)

* Biden's team is worried about the surge

(Bloomberg), and it's refreshing to have an administration that's
actually concerned about whether people live or die.

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