Sunday, April 12, 2020
With Postal Service on 'Verge of Collapse' and 630,000 Jobs at Risk, Trump Slammed for Refusing to Act
"We've pleaded with the White House to help. Donald Trump personally directed his staff not to do so."
by
Jake Johnson, staff writer
79 Comments
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/11/postal-service-verge-collapse-and-630000-jobs-risk-trump-slammed-refusing-act
The U.S. Postal Service warned Congress this week that it will completely "run out of cash" in the next several months without immediate action from the White House and Congress, but—with as many as 630,000 jobs at risk—President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers have refused to commit to rescuing the prized government institution as it falters amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Postmaster General Megan Brennan told the House Oversight and Reform Committee in a briefing on Thursday that the USPS will need access to a total of $75 billion in cash, grants, and loans in order to avert financial ruin by the fall.
"We are at a critical juncture in the life of the Postal Service. At a time when America needs the Postal Service more than ever, the reason we are so needed is having a devastating effect on our business," said Brennan, referring to the coronavirus outbreak, which has led to a sharp decline in mail volume.
As Government Executive reported, "House Democrats pushed for a $25 billion cash infusion for the Postal Service as part of the last stimulus package, but Senate negotiators ultimately opted to include only a $10 billion line of credit. Postal management has said that amount would be insufficient for preventing fiscal calamity this year."
President Donald Trump has thus far rejected the Postal Service's requests. During a press briefing earlier this week, Trump urged USPS to simply "raise the prices by, actually a lot."
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), one of the most vocal critics of the Trump administration's refusal to assist USPS, said in a statement Thursday that "we cannot allow the Postal Service to collapse."
"To do so would deepen our nation's economic crisis and eliminate an important lifeline for individuals who rely on the Postal Service's 1 billion deliveries of lifesaving prescription deliveries and eviscerate the very infrastructure we need to administer the upcoming elections," said Connolly.
In a tweet Thursday, Connolly accused Trump of personally intervening to block the approval of any emergency funding for the Postal Service.
According to new reporting from the Washington Post on Saturday, Connolly's accusation was correct. "Trump threatened to veto the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security, or CARES, Act if the legislation contained any money directed to bail out the postal agency, according to a senior Trump administration official and congressional official," the Post reported.
The New York Times reported Thursday that a bailout for the Postal Service "has already emerged as a political sticking point" in talks over another large coronavirus stimulus package, "with Democrats pressing to deliver one and President Trump, a persistent critic of the agency, opposed."
"Some lawmakers, postal union representatives, and others who rely on the service now fear that the Trump administration is trying to use the current crisis to achieve conservatives' longstanding goal of nudging the mail service toward privatization," the Times noted, "either by setting highly prescriptive loan terms or by essentially forcing it into bankruptcy. That would aid commercial competitors like FedEx and UPS."
Progressives argue that a major culprit behind the Postal Service's financial woes is a 2006 law that requires USPS to prefund its retirees' health benefits through the year 2056. As Sarah Anderson and Brian Wakamo of the Institute for Policy Studies wrote last year, "this extraordinary mandate, which applies to no other federal agency or private corporation, created a financial 'crisis' that has been used to justify harmful service cuts and even calls for postal privatization."
In a tweet Friday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) urged Congress to take immediate action to save USPS as the Trump White House refuses to budge.
"Our Postal Service is on the verge of collapse," said Warren. "I'm calling on Congress to act swiftly to shore up USPS so that everyone can continue to receive essential medicines and supplies, and as many Americans as possible can vote from home."
Trump Labor Secretary Condemned for 'Despicable' Efforts to Roll Back Unemployment Benefits, Paid Leave in Coronavirus Stimulus
"Trump's Labor Department has been working diligently to ensure that no U.S. worker has it too easy in the middle of a pandemic and burgeoning economic depression."
by
Jake Johnson, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/11/trump-labor-secretary-condemned-despicable-efforts-roll-back-unemployment-benefits
From his guidance rolling back paid leave benefits to his attempt to limit who qualifies for beefed up unemployment insurance, Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia's implementation of the multi-trillion-dollar coronavirus stimulus package is coming under fire from Democratic lawmakers and advocacy groups who say the former corporate lawyer's handling of the new law favors businesses over people in desperate need of assistance.
Scalia, son of the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, "has used his department's authority over new laws enacted by Congress to limit who qualifies for joblessness assistance and to make it easier for small businesses not to pay family leave benefits," the Washington Post reported Friday.
"Because of COVID-19, more than 16 million Americans have submitted unemployment claims in the past three weeks, but Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia is using his authority to limit who qualifies for assistance," Cohen wrote. "This is despicable. We are in the midst of a pandemic!"In a tweet late Friday, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) pointed to the unprecedented surge in jobless claims over the past month and ripped Scalia's "despicable" management of the CARES Act, which temporarily expands relief for the unemployed.
While criticizing the stimulus package—which President Donald Trump signed into law late last month—as far too business-friendly overall, progressives have cautiously applauded the law's across-the-board expansion of unemployment benefits by $600 for a period of four months.
But lawmakers have voiced alarm at the Labor Department's lack of urgency in rolling out the benefits and, as the Post reported, Scalia issued guidance earlier this week that aims to "make it more difficult for gig workers such as Uber and Lyft drivers to get benefits."
Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, ripped the department's guidance in a series of tweets:
The Trump-Scalia Dept of Labor released new regulatory guidance for the new pandemic #unemployment assistance (PUA) program passed by Congress in the #CARESAct, and it’s criminally narrow. https://t.co/A8FwrrX13A
— AndrewStettner (@pelhamprog) April 6, 2020
While the program will cover #gigeconomy workers, it only extends to those who are “forced to suspend operations” because of #COVID19, leaving those who could still turn their apps on—even if they can’t find work—in a grey area.
— AndrewStettner (@pelhamprog) April 6, 2020
Earlier this month, as Common Dreams reported, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) slammed Scalia for quietly scaling back the already inadequate paid leave provisions in the CARES Act and creating "gratuitous loopholes" for companies to deny benefits to their employees.
"The Trump administration is twisting the law to allow employers to shirk their responsibility and is significantly narrowing which workers are eligible for paid leave," Murray said in a statement. "This simply can't stand. This guidance needs to be rewritten so workers get the leave they are guaranteed under the law."
The Post reported that under the Labor Department's newly issued rules, "businesses that deny workers paid leave don't have to send the government any paperwork justifying why. The Labor Department's guidance asks companies to 'retain such records for its own files,' a contrast with the heavy documentation required from gig workers who must prove they were affected by the coronavirus outbreak to get aid."
Scalia has not been shy in offering his opinion on the stimulus law's expansion of benefits.
"Unemployment is not the preferred outcome when government stay-at-home orders force temporary business shutdowns," Scalia wrote earlier this week in a Fox Business op-ed with Jovita Carranza, the head of the Small Business Administration. "We want workers to have work, not to become dependent on the unemployment system."
Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist with the Economic Policy Institute, called Scalia's warning about unemployment dependency in the midst of a global pandemic "an absolute disgrace."
This is outrageous. The Secretary of Labor suggesting that what we really need to worry about right now—when we have shut down huge portions of the economy and thrown millions out of work—is workers becoming *dependent on the unemployment system* is an absolute disgrace. pic.twitter.com/IpMdBoFX30
— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) April 6, 2020
As New York magazine's Eric Levitz put it Friday, "Trump's Labor Department has been working diligently to ensure that no U.S. worker has it too easy in the middle of a pandemic and burgeoning economic depression."
Without Urgent Aid, Warns Oxfam, Coronavirus Could Throw Half a Billion People Into Poverty Worldwide
"We can only beat this virus through coming together as one...Rich country governments must massively upscale their help."
by
Julia Conley, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/09/without-urgent-aid-warns-oxfam-coronavirus-could-throw-half-billion-people-poverty
International charity Oxfam International said Thursday that to keep half a billion people from being thrown into poverty around the world as a result of social distancing and lockdown orders which have brought global economies to a halt, world leaders must immediately agree to an Economic Rescue Plan for All to support developing countries.
In its new report, "Dignity Not Destitution," Oxfam calls on wealthy economies to immediately cancel $1 trillion in debts from developing nations and to issue a $1 trillion stimulus package which countries could draw from in order to increase their health spending, support small businesses, and keep unemployed people from falling deeper into poverty.
A failure to do so could leave six to eight percent of the global population impoverished during the economic shutdowns put in place to fight the spread of the coronavirus, and half the globe living in poverty by the time the coronavirus pandemic has passed, the report claims.
"The devastating economic fallout of the pandemic is being felt across the globe," said Jose Maria Vera, interim executive director of Oxfam International. "But for poor people in poor countries who are already struggling to survive there are almost no safety nets to stop them falling into poverty. G20 Finance Ministers, the IMF, and World Bank must give developing countries an immediate cash injection to help them bail out poor and vulnerable communities."
The report was released a week before the G20 Finance Ministers, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank are set to meet.
Micah Olywangu, a taxi driver in Nairobi, Kenya and father of three, has not had a passenger in his cab since the country's lockdown began on March 27. The lockdown is set to last at least until April 17.In the report, Oxfam details how people in developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, and the Middle East have had their livelihoods threatened and incomes slashed as a result of government lockdowns aimed at stopping the spread of the coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19.
"This virus will starve us before it makes us sick," Olywangu told Oxfam.
Tarawati, a domestic worker in South Delhi, India, told Oxfam her husband has earned no money as a cobbler since the government ordered a lockdown last month. The family is unable to pay for rent or food.
"For the billions of workers in poor countries who were already scraping by—pulling rickshaws, picking tea, or sewing clothes—there are no safety nets such as sick pay or government assistance," Danny Sriskandarajah, CEO of Oxfam Great Britain, told The Guardian.
While many wealthy governments have quickly passed domestic relief packages to assist small businesses, expand unemployment benefits, and bail out corporations, Oxfam writes, "most developing nations lack the financial firepower to follow suit." As a result, about half of the jobs in Africa could be lost as a result of economic shutdowns.
In countries where many were already living in poverty before the pandemic, the coronavirus could set the fight against poverty back as many as 30 years, Oxfam says.
Canceling Ghana's external debts would allow the government to give direct cash payments of $20 per month to 16 million children, people with disabilities, and elderly people for six months.
In Ethiopia, the government's ability to draw from a global stimulus package would allow it to increase healthcare spending by 45%, potentially allowing the country to prepare for a worsening outbreak as the number of cases there doubles every seven days.
Wealthy countries must also increase their aid to poor governments, Oxfam advises, meeting their commitment of 0.7% GDP.
"We can only beat this virus through coming together as one," Oxfam writes. "Developing countries must act to protect their people, and demand action from rich nations to support them. Rich country governments must massively upscale their help...mobilizing at least $2.5 trillion dollars to tackle the pandemic and prevent global economic collapse."
Only 0.05% of the $2.2 trillion CARES package passed by the U.S. government last month—$1.1 billion—has been set aside to aid poor countries as they fight the pandemic.
"That is shocking and shortsighted," the report reads. "Unless rich countries are ready to quarantine themselves forever, this crisis will not end without international solidarity."
We Cannot Rely on Trump. Congress Must Lead the Way in This Unprecedented Crisis
The American people deserve and require leadership from Washington amid this horrific pandemic and economic meltdown
Bernie Sanders
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/04/08/we-cannot-rely-trump-congress-must-lead-way-unprecedented-crisis
In this unprecedented moment in American history, we need an unprecedented legislative response. President Trump is incapable of providing leadership, and instead continues to mislead the public and act out of political self-interest. So it is Congress that must lead, and it must do so now.
With anxiety growing, everyone in our country needs to know that, in the midst of this horrific pandemic and economic meltdown, their government is doing everything possible to keep them healthy and financially secure.
In other words, we need to build upon and expand the recent stimulus package with new and bolder emergency legislation which must be passed as soon as possible. Here are a few core principles that must be included in that legislation.
First, Congress must explicitly authorize that the Defense Production Act is fully utilized to demand that the private sector start delivering the equipment and products that our medical personnel desperately need in order to treat their patients. We cannot rely on Trump to do it.
Recent reporting has revealed that the Trump administration did not start ordering crucial equipment like masks until March. It is beyond comprehension that, in the wealthiest nation on Earth, doctors and nurses throughout the country are putting their lives on the line because they lack an adequate supply of surgical masks, gloves and gowns. We must also produce the ventilators as well as the various kinds of testing kits that we need now and will need in the future, as well as the dwindling supply of certain prescription drugs that are essential to treat the virus. States and hospitals should not have to compete against each other. The federal government must take the lead in coordinating efforts
Further, during this crisis, every American must be able to receive all of the healthcare they need regardless of income. Before the pandemic, 87 million people were uninsured or underinsured. That number is rapidly escalating as millions of workers are not only losing their jobs but are also losing their employer-based health insurance.
The cost of hospital treatment for the coronavirus amounts to tens of thousands of dollars. Tragically, we have already seen people who have delayed treatment due to concerns about cost. In this pandemic, lack of insurance will lead to more deaths and more Covid-19 transmissions
As long as this pandemic continues, Medicare must be empowered to pay all of the deductibles, co-payments and out-of-pocket healthcare expenses for the uninsured and the underinsured. No one in America who is sick, regardless of immigration status, should be afraid to seek the medical treatment they need during this national crisis.
Obviously, Congress must not only address the pandemic crisis, it must also act with a fierce sense of urgency to effectively deal with the economic crisis as well.
In the last two weeks, a record-breaking 10 million people filed unemployment claims – more than during the entire 2008 Great Recession. Frighteningly, the St Louis Federal Reserve projects that 47 million more people may become unemployed by the end of June, with unemployment reaching 32%. While such estimates may be a worst-case scenario, the reality of the pandemic has taught us that worst-case scenarios are what we must plan for. For the sake of working families all over this country, we must be prepared for all contingencies
We cannot wait before taking the bold action that is necessary. In my view, it makes a lot more sense to prevent the collapse of our economy than figuring out how we put it back together after it crumbles. Simply stated, that means that every worker must keep receiving his or her paycheck and benefits during the crisis. In the recent emergency relief bill, Congress appropriated over $25bn in grants to the airline companies so that 2 million workers in that industry will continue to receive their full paycheck and benefits through 30 September. And that is exactly what we must do for every worker in America. This is not a radical idea. It is similar to what France, Norway, Denmark, the UK and other countries are doing.
Further, as quickly as possible, we must get money into the hands of people by immediately providing a $2,000 monthly emergency payment to every person in the country until the crisis has passed.
In addition, we must guarantee paid medical and sick leave to all workers. It has been estimated that only 12% of workers in businesses that are likely to stay open during this crisis are receiving paid sick leave benefits as a result of the second coronavirus relief package. We have got to increase this figure to 100%.
Moreover, workers who are on the frontlines of this crisis including those who work in grocery stores, warehouses, paramedics, nurses, pharmacies, domestic workers, postal workers, farm workers, public transit, truck drivers and janitors must receive $500 a week hazard pay, childcare and a safe and secure workplace.
Finally, we must put an immediate moratorium on evictions, foreclosures and utility shut-offs, and suspend payments on rent and mortgage loans for primary residences during this crisis.
This is a frightening and devastating time for our country, and the world. Never before in our lifetimes have we had to deal with both a public health pandemic and an economic meltdown.
The American people deserve and require leadership from Washington that acts aggressively, puts working people first, and provides peace-of-mind to the most vulnerable people in our country. Now more than any point in recent history, we are in this together. We must act with love, compassion and urgency.
Historians will look back at this time to see how we dealt with this unprecedented crisis. I hope they will observe that we responded with the courage and boldness that the moment required.
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