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... and how they were covered NEWS 5
What happened
House Democrats unveiled detailed plans this
week for a $1.9 trillion stimulus package with
an expanded child tax credit of as much as
$3,600 per child as well as a new round of
$1,400-per-person payments. The enhanced
child benefit would replace the current $2,
tax credit with direct cash payments of $
per child under six and $250 each for older
kids. While the stimulus legislation released by
Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), chairman of the
House Ways and Means Committee, provides
the child benefit for only a single year, Demo-
crats said they would seek to make it permanent. Rejecting earlier
calls to lower the cap, the legislation would make the full stimulus
and child benefits available to individual taxpayers with an income
of $75,000 and couples who earn up to $150,000. Chuck Marr,
senior director of federal tax policy at the Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities, a think tank, said a permanent child benefit would
cut the number of children living in poverty by 4.1 million and
would have “real meaning to low- and middle-income families.”The Democratic plan follows some of the contours of a proposal
put forward last week by Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah). Under the
Romney plan, parents would get $1,400 right before the birth of a
child and then receive $350 a month for each child under the age of
five and $250 per month for each child aged 6 to 17. The $250 bil-
lion cost of the annual payments would be offset by abolishing the
state and local tax deduction (SALT), tax credits for day-care costs,
the head of household filing status, and the Temporary Assistance
for Needy Families welfare program.What the columnists said
The House Democrats’ child tax credit
plan includes the laudable provision of
extending it to nonworking parents, said
Matt Bruenig in The New York Times. It
was always “morally wrong” to tie social
benefits to work when it’s the unemployed
who are “struggling the most.” Unfortu-
nately, Democrats didn’t go as far with the
earned income tax credit, which was only
increased from $543 to $1,500 for childless
adults. In that case, families with children
must still earn almost $15,000 to qualify.
“Why fix one credit but leave the other broken?”The Romney plan from which Democrats drew is even more “wildly
ambitious,” said Ramesh Ponnuru in Bloomberg.com. It would con-
front America’s historically low birth rate by making it “easier for
people to start and expand their families,” and cut child poverty by
one-third. But progressives don’t want to see the end of TANF, and
conservatives are raising claims that it would disincentivize work.The stimulus plan from Biden and Democratic lawmakers carries
“some big risks,” said Lawrence Summers in The Washington
Post. Conditions are already ripe for inflation, with rising employ-
ment, record savings levels, and low interest rates. If we inject an
unprecedented $1.9 trillion into the economy, it could unleash
forces “we have not seen in a generation.” Lawmakers have to ask
themselves: Will there be enough money and political will remain-
ing once the stimulus is passed “for the public investments that
should be the nation’s highest priority?”Neal: Steering the stimulus billNew stimulus plan proposes child benefit of up to $3,
What happened
With new cases of Covid-19 steadily declining in the U.S. and the
vaccination rollout speeding up, scientists were warning states
this week to keep social-distancing measures in place to protect
against fast-spreading variants of the disease. Some 79,
Americans are currently hospitalized with the coronavirus, the
lowest number in nearly three months, and the U.S. is now
reporting just under 100,000 new cases a day—less than half
of last month’s peak. Vaccinations are picking up: 10 percent
of Americans have now received at least one shot and about
1.4 million doses are being administered per day. To accelerate
the speed of inoculation, the Biden administration authorized the
deployment of 1,100 active-duty troops to help build and man
mass-vaccination sites.A new study found that cases of the U.K. Covid variant, which
is up to 40 percent more infectious than earlier strains, are dou-
bling every 10 days in the U.S. By March, the variant is expected
to be the dominant strain in the country. We’re “in the eye of the
hurricane,” said Dr. Peter Hotez of Baylor College of Medicine.
“The big wall is about to hit us again.” Health experts are also
worried by a highly contagious variant that has caused a massive
second wave in South Africa and appears able to evade some of
the vaccines. South Africa halted distribution of AstraZeneca’s
shot this week after a small-scale clinical trial suggested it was
only about 10 percent effective against the variant. At least six
cases of the strain have been detected in the U.S.What the columnists said
States are easing Covid-19 restrictions at the worst possible time,
said Holly Yan and Christina Maxouris in CNN.com. Iowa and
North Dakota have taken the recent dip in case numbers as an
invitation to drop mask mandates, while New Jersey and New
York are allowing indoor restaurants to reopen at 35 percent and
25 percent capacity, respectively. But letting our guard down now
will allow the “highly contagious variants to trample the U.S.” At
least 463,000 Americans have already died of Covid. How many
more will perish needlessly in the coming months?Joe Biden promised “over and over again” on the campaign trail
that he had a plan to end the pandemic quickly, said Jim Geraghty
in NationalReview.com. Yet it’s now being reported that his Covid
response team thinks the U.S. might not reach herd immunity—
which will require about 80 percent of the population to be
inoculated—until at least Thanksgiving. President Biden can argue
that the Trump administration botched the initial rollout, but if
the pace of vaccinations doesn’t accelerate soon, that’s all on him.To beat this disease, we can’t just focus on our own nation, said
Dr. Ashish Jha in The Washington Post. Runaway outbreaks will
always produce viral mutations, and travel bans won’t stop vari-
ants born overseas from reaching our shores. That’s why the U.S.
must launch a “Manhattan Project–like effort” to build factories
here and abroad that could produce billions of vaccines “for the
entire world.” Like it or not, “we really are in this together.”A mutating threat from Covid-