8 0 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, AUGUST 9, 2020Tracking an OutbreakPandemic Relief and Education
New York State, the center of
the worst coronavirus outbreak in
the world four months ago, is now
one of the few places in the coun-
try that may be able to safely re-
open schools, several public
health experts said after Gov. An-
drew M. Cuomo gave districts per-
mission to do so.
Mr. Cuomo announced Friday
that public school districts across
the state could hold in-person
classes this fall, even as districts
in many parts of the country
where cases are still rising have
abandoned the idea and will con-
tinue with remote learning.
In interviews, doctors, epidemi-
ologists and other public health
experts said that conditions were
favorable throughout the state, in-
cluding New York City, to bring
children back — as long as safety
precautions are in place. Some ex-
pressed concern that the effects of
keeping students home were
more worrisome.
As of Wednesday, fewer than 1
percent of Covid-19 tests state-
wide were positive, well below the
5 percent positivity threshold that
both the Centers for Disease Con-
trol and Prevention and the World
Health Organization have tar-
geted as a safe standard for re-
opening schools.
In New York City, the positivity
rate is just slightly higher than the
state average, with 1 percent of
tests coming back with positive
results. Mayor Bill de Blasio has
said schools in the city would not
open if the metric rises above 3
percent. A report last month from
Harvard’s Global Health Institute
also recommended opening
schools only when the daily infec-
tion rate is less than 3 percent.
“If there’s any city that should
be opening in the entire country or
at least trying to open, it should be
New York City,” said Dr. Uché
Blackstock, an urgent care physi-
cian in Brooklyn and founder of
Advancing Health Equity, a health
care advocacy group, who has
children in the public schools.
Dr. William Schaffner, an infec-
tious disease expert at Vanderbilt
University, said reopening the
schools in New York was a bit of a
“social experiment,” but said the
odds of success were good.
“New York’s chances of getting
a good result, even though it is a
densely populated metropolitan
area, are actually better than in
many rural areas, where they’re
not nearly as serious about trying
to control the virus,” he said.
New York also does well by an-
other safety metric, the number of
cases per capita. A Harvard report
characterized regions with be-
tween one and 10 new cases a day
per 100,000 people as “yellow
zones,” areas suitable for in-per-
son classes at all grade levels as
long as infection control and social
distancing measures are in place.
New York is within this zone, with
23 cases per 100,000 over a seven-
day period, about 3.5 cases per
100,000 on a daily basis.
The C.D.C. and public health ex-
perts generally agree on a range
of measures that schools should
adopt for protection, including
mask wearing, physical distanc-
ing and improving ventilation in
buildings.
Districts across the state have
been told to come up with their
own reopening plans, all of which
must include those safety meas-
ures, and are subject to approval
by the state’s health and educa-
tion departments.
Most experts agree schools
should skip activities like chorus,
band and sports involving physi-
cal contact; have children eat in
classrooms instead of a central
cafeteria; and take steps to pre-
vent crowding in hallways.
“If the cases are under control
— and I’m not defining what that
means — then I think that there
are precautions we can take that
make going back to school worth-
while,” said Linsey Marr, an
aerosol scientist at Virginia Tech.
“If the cases in the community are
low, there’s a smaller chance that
someone who is infected will show
up in school, and the precautions
greatly reduce their risk of trans-
mitting it to other students and
teachers.”
Michael Osterholm, the direc-
tor of the Center for Infectious
Disease Research and Policy at
the University of Minnesota, said
elementary schools could proba-
bly be operated safely, but he pre-
dicted that high schools and col-
leges would face greater chal-
lenges. (Mr. Cuomo’s announce-
ment did not address colleges.)
New York will have to continue
monitoring cases closely and “ap-
ply the brakes” if transmissions
start inching up, he said.A ‘SOCIAL EXPERIMENT’New York
Is Set to Open
Classes Safely,
Experts Say
By RONI CARYN RABIN
and APOORVA MANDAVILLIEliza Shapiro contributed report-
ing.President Trump took execu-
tive action on Saturday to circum-
vent Congress and try to extend
an array of federal pandemic re-
lief, resorting to a legally dubious
set of edicts whose impact was un-
clear, as negotiations over an eco-
nomic recovery package ap-
peared on the brink of collapse.
It was not clear what authority
Mr. Trump had to act on his own
on the measures or what immedi-
ate effect, if any, they would have,
given that Congress controls fed-
eral spending. But his decision to
sign the measures — billed as a
federal eviction ban, a payroll tax
suspension, and relief for student
borrowers and $400 a week for the
unemployed — reflected the fail-
ure of two weeks of talks between
White House officials and top con-
gressional Democrats to strike a
deal on a broad relief plan as cru-
cial benefits have expired with no
resolution in sight.
Mr. Trump’s move also illustrat-
ed the heightened concern of a
president staring down re-elec-
tion in the middle of a historic re-
cession and a pandemic, and de-
termined to show voters that he
was doing something to address
the crises. But despite Mr.
Trump’s assertions on Saturday
that his actions “will take care of
this entire situation,” the orders
also leave a number of critical bi-
partisan funding proposals unad-
dressed, including providing as-
sistance to small businesses, bil-
lions of dollars to schools ahead of
the new school year, aid to states
and cities and a second round of
$1,200 stimulus checks to Ameri-
cans.
“Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schu-
mer have chosen to hold this vital
assistance hostage,” Mr. Trump
said, savaging the two top Demo-
crats and their $3.4 trillion open-
ing offer during a news confer-
ence at his private golf club in
New Jersey, his second in two
days. A few dozen club guests
were in attendance, and the presi-
dent appeared to revel in their
laughter at his jokes denouncing
his political rivals.
“We’ve had it,” he added, re-
peatedly referring to his direc-
tives as “bills,” a term reserved for
legislation passed by Congress.
He accused the Democrats of
holding up negotiations with de-
mands for provisions that ap-
peared to have little to do with the
pandemic, though he made little
mention of comparable items in
the $1 trillion proposal Republi-
cans unveiled last month.
Democrats have refused to
agree to that plan, pressing in-
stead for a far more expansive
economic relief package, at least
twice as large, that would provide
billions more for states and cities
and food aid, and revive the lapsed
$600-per-week enhanced federal
jobless aid payments. (Republi-
cans are proposing to revive the
payments, but at a rate of $400 a
week.)
It was unclear whether the ef-
fort to bypass Congress would kill
the already-stalled negotiations
altogether, though Mr. Trump told
reporters he would be open to con-
tinuing the discussions and Dem-
ocratic leaders responded by de-
manding that the talks resume.
“We’re disappointed that in-
stead of putting in the work to
solve Americans’ problems, the
president instead chose to stay on
his luxury golf course to announce
unworkable, weak and narrow
policy announcements to slash
the unemployment benefits that
millions desperately need and en-
danger seniors’ Social Security
and Medicare,” Speaker Nancy
Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schu-
mer, Democrat of New York and
the minority leader, said in a state-
ment. They called on Republicans
to “return to the table” to continue
negotiating and “meet us half-
way.”
It was unclear whether the aid
would even materialize if lawsuits
are filed challenging their legality.
Mr. Trump walked away from the
lectern after just a few questions
from reporters about his claim
that he had the ability to circum-
vent Congress.
Signing the orders was a famil-
iar tactic from a president who has
portrayed himself as the ultimate
deal-maker, but in practice has
shown little interest in or skill for
negotiating with Congress,
bristling against the limitations of
his power. It recalled his decision
in 2018 to shut down the govern-
ment over his demand for fundingfor a wall on the southwestern
border, his signature campaign
promise, in an effort to force Dem-
ocrats to agree to the money. They
never did, and the president ulti-
mately declared a national emer-
gency to divert other federal
money to fund it himself, a move
that drew legal challenges.
Shortly after the event on Satur-
day, the White House released
texts of the measures — one exec-
utive order and three memoran-
dums — which included several
flourishes that read like political
documents in accusing Demo-
crats of playing games. One in-
voked the Stafford Act, a federal
disaster relief statute, to divert
money from a homeland security
fund and allow states to use
money already allocated by Con-
gress to help people who have
been laid off amid the coronavirus
pandemic, effectively allowing
them to apply for disaster relief to
cover lost wages. The mechanism
would pull from the same fund
that covers natural disasters in
the middle of what is expected to
be a highly active hurricane sea-
son.
Mr. Trump claimed that the ac-
tion would provide $400 weekly in
enhanced unemployment bene-
fits, $200 less than laid-off work-
ers had been receiving under
benefits that lapsed at the end of
July. But with states being di-
rected to pick up $100 of that aid,
the federal amount would be no
more than $300 a week.
And there is another catch —
the text of the memorandum says
that the $300 can only be paid to
people who first qualify for $100 inaid paid by their state.
It was unclear how quickly
states, whose unemployment sys-
tems had already been overbur-
dened by the record numbers of
new jobless claims, would be able
to adjust to a new system, or
whether they will have the re-
sources to supplement an addi-
tional benefit.
“If they don’t, they don’t —
that’s going to be their problem,”
Mr. Trump said.
He also retroactively signed a
memorandum suspending the
payroll tax from Aug. 1 through
the end of 2020, though the order
would just defer the payment of
the taxes. (Mr. Trump vowed that
if re-elected, he would extend the
deferral and the payments.)
If Mr. Trump tried to make a
payroll tax cut permanent, it
would drastically effect the fund-
ing of Social Security, which he
has previously vowed not to cut.
The memorandum that Mr.
Trump called a moratorium on
evictions did not revive the ex-
pired moratorium that was part of
the $2.2 trillion stimulus law
passed in March. Instead, it said
that federal policy was to min-
imize evictions during the pan-
demic and that officials should
identify statutory ways to help
homeowners and renters.
Long before taking office, Mr.
Trump criticized Barack Obama
for what he described as an over-
reliance on executive orders to ac-
complish policy goals that had
been blocked by Congress, but in
acting unilaterally, Mr. Trump was
vastly expanding the use of such
measures.Mark Meadows, the White
House chief of staff and a vicious
critic of Mr. Obama’s actions while
a North Carolina congressman,
was among those who recom-
mended that Mr. Trump issue the
orders, even as he conceded that
an agreement with lawmakers
would be more potent for the
American economy.
“This is not a perfect answer —
we’ll be the first ones to say that,”
Mr. Meadows said on Friday, after
he and Steven Mnuchin, the
Treasury secretary, emerged from
another meeting with congres-
sional Democrats with no deal.
“But it is all that we can do and all
the president can do within the
confines of his executive power
and we’re going to encourage him
to do it.”
While most Democrats
slammed the legality of the execu-
tive actions, few Republicans pub-
licly criticized the maneuver. One
notable exception was Senator
Ben Sasse of Nebraska, who de-
clared, “The pen-and-phone the-
ory of executive lawmaking is un-
constitutional slop.”
Mr. Trump had told reporters on
Friday that he would probably
sign executive orders to provide
economic relief next week if no
compromise could be reached
with Democrats, but by Saturday
morning, officials were already
drafting them and planning an af-
ternoon news conference.
After signing the measures, Mr.
Trump handed out the black
Sharpies he had used, embossed
with his name, to members of his
golf club standing at the back of
the room.THE 45TH PRESIDENT
Trump Signs Rescue Edicts With Congress at a Stalemate
This article is by Maggie Ha-
berman, Emily Cochraneand Jim
Tankersley.
Luke Broadwater contributed re-
porting.
President Trump announcing his executive measures in a news conference at his private golf club in Bedminster, N.J., on Saturday.ANNA MONEYMAKER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESThe executive actions Presi-
dent Trump took on Saturday
were pitched as a unilateral jolt
for an ailing economy. But there
is only one group of workers that
seems guaranteed to benefit
from them, at least right away:
lawyers.
Mr. Trump’s measures include
an eviction moratorium, a new
benefit to supplement unemploy-
ment assistance for workers and
a temporary delay in payroll tax
liability for low- and middle-
income workers. They could give
renters a break and ease pay-
ments for some student loan
borrowers. But they are likely to
do little to deliver cash any time
soon to Americans hit hard by
the recession.
Even conservative groups
have warned that suspending
payroll tax collections is unlikely
to translate into more money for
workers. An executive action
seeking to essentially create a
new unemployment benefit out
of thin air will almost certainly
be challenged in court. And as
Mr. Trump’s own aides concede,
the orders will not provide any
aid to small businesses, state and
local governments or low- and
middle-income workers.
If the actions signal the death
of a congressional deal to provide
that aid, economists warn, the
economy will limp toward No-
vember without the fiscal sup-
port that hastened its recovery
after its quick dive into a pan-
demic-induced recession.
The federal government’s aid
to small businesses through the
Payroll Protection Program was
set to expire on Saturday. Execu-
tives, trade groups and business
lobbyists had pushed hard for a
second round of lending — along
with new programs to get money
to the businesses and industries
hit hardest in the crisis — to be
included in any congressional
stimulus deal. Mr. Trump’s ac-
tions do nothing to help those
companies.
Low- and middle-income fam-
ilies’ spending power was bol-
stered in the spring by direct
payments of $1,200 per adult that
were included in a relief bill Mr.
Trump signed into law in March.
Lawmakers were pushing for a
second round of those checks in
a legislative deal. Mr. Trump’s
measures will not provide them.
The orders will not provide aid
to states and local governments,
whose tax revenues have
plunged as a direct result of the
contraction in economic activity
brought on by the virus. Without
more money from the federal
government, states and local
governments will almost cer-
tainly have to cut their budgets
and lay off workers, increasing
the ranks of the unemployed.
Supplemental unemployment
benefits of $600 per week, which
expired at the end of July, had
been supporting consumer
spending at a time when about
30 million Americans are unem-
ployed. Mr. Trump’s memo seek-
ing to repurpose other money,
including federal disaster aid, to
essentially create a $400-a-week
bonus payment is likely to bechallenged in court and is un-
likely to deliver additional cash
to laid-off workers any time soon.
It, too, raises questions even if it
is deemed legal — for instance,
whether states that are already
struggling with their budgets will
be able to afford the 25 percent
contribution that Mr. Trump’s
memo says they will need to
make toward the new benefit.
Mark Meadows, the White
House chief of staff, conceded
many of those limitations in an
interview set to air Sunday on
Gray Television’s “Full Court
Press With Greta Van Susteren.”
“The downside of executive
orders is you can’t address some
of the small business incidents
that are there,” Mr. Meadows
said. “You can’t necessarily get
direct payments, because it has
to do with appropriations. That’s
something that the president
doesn’t have the ability to do. So,
you miss on those two key areas.
You miss on money for schools.
You miss on any funding for state
and local revenue needs that
may be out there.”
The actions will not even pro-
vide the payroll tax cut that Mr.
Trump has long coveted as a
centerpiece of stimulus efforts.
They will simply suspend col-lection of the tax, as one of Mr.
Trump’s longtime outside eco-
nomic advisers, Stephen Moore,
has recently urged him to do.
Workers will still owe the tax,
just not until next year. And
while Mr. Moore has said that
Mr. Trump could promise to sign
a law that would permanently
absolve workers of that liability,
there is no guarantee that Con-
gress would go along.
The uncertainty raises a host
of questions for companies and
workers, including a cascade of
intricate tax questions, according
to a recent analysis published by
Joe Bishop-Henchman of the
National Taxpayers Union Foun-
dation. (For example: If workers
owe less payroll tax, they would
owe slightly more income tax;
would employers change, on the
fly and in the middle of the year,
how much income tax they with-
hold?) He concluded that most
companies were unlikely to take
any risks.
“Without detailed answers to
some of these questions,” Mr.
Bishop-Henchman wrote, “em-
ployers might just steer clear of
all of it by continuing to do what
they’ve always done, blunting
the desired economic impact of
reducing taxes.”Outside of Mr. Moore and the
conservative group Freedom-
Works, which cheered the payroll
tax memorandum even before it
was announced, few economists
expressed confidence that Mr.
Trump’s actions would change
the trajectory of an economic
recovery that has slowed in the
last two months as the virus
surged anew in many parts of
the nation.
Instead, analysts and lawmak-
ers saw politics at play. Republi-
cans said Mr. Trump was forcing
Democrats back to the bargain-
ing table and showing Speaker
Nancy Pelosi of California and
Senator Chuck Schumer of New
York, the Democratic leader, that
they had overplayed their hands
in pushing for a $3.4 trillion aid
package.
“I am glad that President
Trump is proving that while
Democrats use laid-off workers
as political pawns, Republicans
will actually look out for them,”
Senator Mitch McConnell of
Kentucky, the majority leader,
said on Saturday.
But if negotiations falter now
and aid remains scarce for peo-
ple and businesses, Mr. Trump
will be making a political bet:
that it is better to tell voters he
tried to help the economy than to
have actually helped it. Mr.
Trump is the president, and he
has happily claimed credit for
the economy’s performance.
If job growth slows further,
and millions of unemployed
Americans struggle to make
ends meet, he will need to make
the case for why the symbolism
of acting alone won out over the
farther-reaching effects of cut-
ting a deal.NEWS ANALYSIS
It’s a Go-It-Alone Stimulus
Unlikely to Stoke Recovery
By JIM TANKERSLEYAn executive order signed by
President Trump on Saturday
to create a $400-a-week pay-
ment for laid-off workers is
likely to be challenged in court.ANNA MONEYMAKER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESEmily Cochrane contributed
reporting.
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