A24 FRIDAY, JULY 31, 2020
YSenator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, called the pro-
posal “a mess.”
Lawmaking is laborious and rarely proceeds in a
straight line. If the calendar still said June, there would be
less reason to worry about these convolutions.
But behaving in late July as if it were still June is a reci-
pe for disaster.
Even with the infusion of trillions of dollars in federal
aid since March, many Americans are struggling to ride out
the crisis. Almost 40 million people do not expect to be able
to make their next rent or mortgage payment. Almost 30
million Americans said they did not have enough to eat dur-
ing the week ending July 21. Last week, for the 19th straight
week, more than a million people filed fresh claims for un-
employment benefits.
Grim as those numbers may be, the United States is on
the verge of an even deeper crisis.
Ernie Tedeschi, an economist at Evercore ISI, a finan-
cial research firm, estimates that failing to resume the fed-
eral unemployment payments would cause a drop in con-
sumer spending large enough to eliminate about 1.7 million
jobs — roughly the magnitude of job losses during the reces-
sions of the early 1990s and the early 2000s.
Britt Coundiff of Indianapolis is living on unemploy-
ment benefits after losing her job at an art-house cinema.
Without the federal payments, she’ll be left with a weekly
state payment of $193. She told Talmon Joseph Smith of The
Times, “With two kids and rent and groceries, that is not
enough for us to survive.”
On Thursday, Senate Republicans proposed an inade-
quate stopgap: a narrow extension of supplemental unem-
ployment benefits. Instead of continuing the $600 weekly
payments, however, Republicans proposed cutting the sum
to $200 a week, through the end of the year. That would re-
place only a portion of the income of the average unem-
ployed worker, which is reasonable in normal times; it en-
courages people to find jobs. But in the midst of a pandemic,
with few jobs available, the benefit cut is an act of pointless
cruelty.
Democrats refused to accept the proposal, and Republi-
cans refused to do anything more.
The result: More than 20 million unemployed Ameri-
cans are about to lose $600 a week. They need the money.
They can’t find jobs. And the Senate is leaving for vacation.
President Trump is not helping. The administration
fought for the inclusion of a payroll tax cut — a proposal so
patently misguided that it forced Senate Republicans into
the rare position of opposing a tax cut. It asked Republicans
to include funding for a new F.B.I. headquarters. It backed
the inclusion of billions of dollars in new military spending,
partly to replace money Mr. Trump diverted for construc-
tion of his border wall.
One thing Mr. Trump has not fought for is aid for Ameri-
cans in need.
But Mr. Trump is not a member of the Senate. He does
not have the power to prevent Senate Republicans from do-
ing their jobs. That responsibility is theirs alone.The worst economic news on Thursday was not the official
announcement that the American economy shrank at an an-
nualized rate of 32.9 percent in the second quarter of 2020 —
a grim quantification of the pain caused by the coronavirus
pandemic.
No, the really bad news was the lack of action on Capi-
tol Hill.
Congress needs to extend the emergency aid programs
that were created in March to help Americans endure a
broad suspension of economic activity. Instead, even as the
pandemic rages on, Congress is allowing those aid pro-
grams to expire.
People who lost jobs during the pandemic have re-
ceived $600 a week from the federal government on top of
standard unemployment benefits. For many, the money is
all that has kept them from going hungry and has allowed
them to stay in their homes. It has prevented a significant
increase in the share of Americans living in poverty. But
those payments end this week, even as unemployment re-
mains at a level last experienced during the Great Depres-
sion.
The federal government also is ending a moratorium on
evictions, as well as a program that provides aid to small
businesses.
Among those pleading for aid that hasn’t come: state
and local governments starved of tax revenue. School dis-
tricts that need money for safety equipment. Hospitals car-
ing for the victims of the pandemic. Elections officials brac-
ing for November.
The abject failure to act is not the fault of Congress in a
collective sense. House Democrats passed a serviceable aid
bill more than two months ago. Responsibility for the cur-
rent debacle rests specifically and squarely on the shoulders
of the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican
of Kentucky, and the other 52 Senate Republicans.
From the moment Congress passed the last big coro-
navirus aid bill, in March, it has been a matter of public
record that the aid was going to end in August.
For a time, there was reason to hope that the worst of
the pandemic could be over by now, too. But it has been
clear for weeks that the United States has failed to control
the pandemic and that many Americans still would need
economic aid beyond July. Yet Mr. McConnell and his caucus
chose to spend the summer confirming federal judges
rather than confronting the crisis.
Only in recent days have Republicans belatedly begun a
frantic effort to devise a coherent response to the crisis. Like
students who wait until the night before an assignment is
due, they have pleaded for more time and asked if they
could submit a part of the work. The nation will suffer the
consequences.
Mr. McConnell put forward a proposal on Monday that
included billions of dollars for new F-35 jet fighters, but not a
penny in aid for state and local governments. In any event, it
quickly became clear that many Senate Republicans were
not exactly on board. “There’s no consensus on anything,”
said Mr. McConnell’s deputy, Senator John Cornyn of Texas.
Mr. McConnell Could Rescue Millions
EDITORIALILLUSTRATION BY MICHAEL HOUTZ; PHOTOGRAPH BY ALAMYTO THE EDITOR:
Re “Together, You Can Redeem the
Soul of Our Nation,” by John Lewis
(Op-Ed, July 30):
Working in Montgomery, Ala., I
have walked on the trails that many
of our civil rights heroes forged and
I have listened to the stories of
unspeakable violence but also
unimaginable courage. But I have
never felt compelled to act — not
until May 25. George Floyd was my
Emmitt Till. In those 8 minutes and
46 seconds, I heard the cries of my
ancestors that came before me and
the cries of my descendants to
come. It was as if I could reach into
the past and stretch into the future
to gain the strength I needed to say
enough is enough.
I encourage all people, regardless
of race, to say enough is enough.
We as a people must, as John Lewis
put it, get into good trouble, neces-
sary trouble. Mr. Lewis has given
us his last(ing) words of wisdom,
and to me, these words have mean-
ing, these words hold power.
We must not, as Mr. Lewis said,
let fear constrain us like an imagi-
nary prison. Our nation, and indeed
our world, deserves better. Now is
the time to embrace his words and
to use them as a catalyst for
change. We can repair the soul of
our nation, but we can do so only as
a unified force — as one nation.
CASSANDRA CAVNESS
PRATTVILLE, ALA.TO THE EDITOR:
Thank you so much for publishing
this powerful call from John Lewis
from beyond the grave, exhorting
us to continue the struggle for
peace and justice for all! How can
we ignore such an eloquent case
made by one who devoted his life
and blood to this cause and lived
this commitment every day of hislife?
We all need to commit ourselves
to emulate his example to continue
the struggle and not get weary, and
we need to share this clarion call
far and wide until his and our goals
for truth, justice and the American
way for all, regardless of race, color,
creed or sexual orientation, are not
just a dream, but a reality.MARY MAXWELL THOMAS
GURNEE, ILL.TO THE EDITOR:
When John Lewis died, I was sad
but grateful for his service to my
country and his quest to make real
the principles it was built upon.
When John Lewis’s body lay in
state, I smiled and rejoiced at the
sight of so many Black faces in
historically white halls of power.
When I read his piece in The Times,
my face streamed with tears.
John Lewis called on young
people to “answer the highest call-
ing of your heart.” I wish I knew
how that appeal could reach those
who need his message of healing
and inspiration the most — many of
whom remain maskless and clue-
less. When that message is widely
broadcast, and we can return to a
time of more polite discourse and
tolerance, we may see a day when
“peace finally triumphed over
violence, aggression and war.”
May we all “walk with the wind,”
young and old, and finally bring the
American experiment to life — in
living color.
HARRY ZIMMERMAN, ALBUQUERQUEJohn Lewis’s Plea to Young Americans
LETTERSTOM WILLIAMS/CQ ROLL CALL/GETTY IMAGESTO THE EDITOR:
Re “Weird Science and Self-Pity
From President During Briefing”
(news article, July 29):
How refreshing to hear Donald
Trump actually show some under-
standing, even if only partial. Try-
ing to figure out why “nobody likes
me,” Mr. Trump concluded, “it can
only be my personality.”
Indeed, Mr. Trump, your person-
ality does explain, albeit not com-
pletely, your unpopularity. The very
fact that you are discussing your
unpopularity at a briefing about a
catastrophic virus is itself evidence
of the narcissism that partly ex-
plains that very unpopularity. Yet
this horrid behavior is itself insuffi-
cient to explain why you are held in
such low regard.
A more complete explanation
would surely include a considera-
tion of your incompetence; your
corruption; your general failure to
grasp how viruses, tariffs, science
and a host of other things work;
your sexism; your homophobia;
your support of white suprema-
cists; your contempt for the major-
ity of your constituents; and count-
less other aspects of your failed
presidency.
In sum, Mr. Trump, you are un-
popular because of your myriad
shortcomings as a leader, and not
merely because of your personality
flaws.
JONATHAN MASKIT
GRANVILLE, OHIO
The writer teaches political philosophy
at Denison University.Why ‘Nobody Likes’ Trump
TO THE EDITOR:
What a breath of (virtual) fresh air
to read ”Berkshires Museums Are
Beckoning,” Jason Farago’s July 24
Critic’s Notebook on his recent visit
to two reopened Berkshire muse-
ums, the Clark Art Institute and the
Massachusetts Museum of Contem-
porary Art. Both are superb venues
with richly varied collections, and I
recall my own visits there with
pleasure.
Most gratifying — and surprising
— was Mr. Farago’s candid reflec-
tion on the solace and purpose of
art. Favoring the tender and evoca-
tive qualities of some of the Clark’s
paintings, he ventures a truth that I
thought I would never read in The
Times: “that art’s political power
still derives, above all, from having
no pragmatic application. It can’t
fix the world.”
Indeed, at a time when the world
seems wholly off-kilter, I suspect
that there are many like me who
are not interested in turning our
every activity into a protest or a
didactic lesson. In the arts, at least
occasionally, I am grateful, as Mr.
Farago wrote, “to be reminded
what to live for” — not given a
lesson on how to live that life.,
EILEEN CARR, DAYTON, OHIOArt’s True Purpose
EVERY WORKER’S NIGHTMARE is the horri-
ble boss — everyone knows at least one
— who is utterly incompetent yet refuses
to step aside. Such bosses have the re-
verse Midas touch — everything they
handle turns to crud — but they’ll pull
out every stop, violate every norm, to
stay in that corner office. And they dam-
age, sometimes destroy, the institutions
they’re supposed to lead.
Donald Trump is, of course, one of
those bosses. Unfortunately, he’s not just
a bad business executive. He is, God help
us, the president. And the institution he
may destroy is the United States of
America.
Has any previous president failed his
big test as thoroughly as Trump has
these past few months? He rejected the
advice of health experts and pushed for a
rapid economic reopening, hoping for a
boom leading into the election. He
ridiculed and belittled measures that
would have helped slow the spread of the
coronavirus, including wearing face
masks and practicing social distancing,
turning what should have been common
sense into a front in the culture war.
The result has been disaster both epi-
demiological and economic.
Over the past week the U.S. death toll
from Covid-19 averaged more than 1,000
people a day, compared with just four —
four! — per day in Germany. Vice Presi-
dent Mike Pence’s mid-June declaration
that “There isn’t a coronavirus ‘second
wave’ ” felt like whistling in the dark
even at the time; now it feels like a sick
joke.
And all those extra deaths don’t seem
to have bought us anything in terms of
economic performance. America’s eco-
nomic contraction in the first half of 2020
was almost identical to the contraction in
Germany, despite our far higher death
toll. And while life in Germany has in
many ways returned to normal, a variety
of indicators suggest that after two
months of rapid job growth, the U.S. re-
covery is stalling in the face of a re-
surgent pandemic.
Wait, it gets worse. Trump, his officials
and their allies in the Senate have been
totally committed to the idea that the U.S.
economy will experience a stunningly
rapid recovery despite the wave of new
infections and deaths. They bought into
that view so completely that they seemincapable of taking on board the over-
whelming evidence that it isn’t happen-
ing.
Just a few days ago Larry Kudlow,
Trump’s top economist, insisted that a
so-called V-shaped recovery was still on
track and that “unemployment claimsand continuing claims are falling rap-
idly.” In fact, both are rising.
But because the Trump team insisted
that a roaring recovery was coming, and
refused to notice that it wasn’t happen-
ing, we’ve now stumbled into a com-
pletely gratuitous economic crisis.
Thanks to Republican inaction, mil-
lions of unemployed workers have seen
their last checks from the Pandemic Un-
employment Compensation program,
which was meant to sustain them
through a coronavirus-ravaged econ-omy; the virus is still raging, but their life
support has been cut off.
So Trump has completely botched his
job, bringing unnecessary pain to mil-
lions of Americans and unnecessary
death to thousands. He may not care, but
voters do. So he should be trying to turn
things around, if only as a matter of polit-
ical and personal self-interest.
But here’s the thing: Even if Trump
were the kind of guy who could learn
from his mistakes, it’s too late. If we had
found ourselves in our current situation
a year ago, there might still have been
time for Trump to get the virus under
control and turn the economy around.
But the election is just around the corner.
Suppose that the numbers on deaths
and jobs were to get somewhat better
over the next three months. How much
would that improve voters’ views of the
denier in chief? How much credence
would the public give, even to genuinely
good news, after the false dawn this past
spring? At this point Trump is simply a
failed president, and everyone except his
die-hard supporters knows it.
But as I said at the beginning, Trump is
one of those nightmare bosses who can’tdo the job but won’t step aside.
So of course he’s now talking about de-
laying the election. This was predictable;
indeed, Joe Biden predicted it months
ago, amid much mockery from pundits
(none of whom, I predict, will apologize).
Now, Trump can’t do that. There will
be an election on Nov. 3. But what Trump
can do, if he loses, is claim that the elec-
tion was stolen, that there were millions
of fraudulent votes, that the results are-
n’t legitimate. Hey, he did that after los-
ing the popular vote in 2016, even though
he won the Electoral College.
Such antics almost surely wouldn’t let
him stay in the White House, although
the process of getting him out may be...
interesting. But they could produce a lot
of chaos and quite possibly some vio-
lence across the nation. And anyone who
doesn’t think disgruntled Trump sup-
porters would try to sabotage a Biden ad-
ministration — including its efforts to
deal with the pandemic — hasn’t been
paying attention.
This is what happens when you put a
horrible boss in charge of running the
country. And nobody can say when, if
ever, the damage will be repaired. 0PAUL KRUGMAN
The Nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue
Trump is the kind of boss
who can’t do the job —
and won’t go away.
BD