Trump urges Americans to heed COVID-19 mitigation guidelines: 'It's a matter of life and death'
The White House releases sobering new predictions on the coronavirus death toll and unveils a '30 days to stop the spread' plan; John Roberts reports.
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The coronavirus pandemic is above all a health crisis, with officials on the Coronavirus Task Force warning ominously Tuesday that the virus could kill 100,000 to 240,000 Americans and infect millions. But it is also an economic crisis that could become the worst in American history, dwarfing the Great Depression that crippled our country from 1929 to 1933.
Our elected officials need to take dramatic action to prevent these health and economic nightmares from becoming a reality.
The rapidly worsening pandemic is shaping up as the defining challenge of the Trump presidency. Future historians will judge if Trump should be viewed like President Herbert Hoover or President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in meeting the challenge. While Hoover is generally blamed for not doing enough to fight the Great Depression, Roosevelt is generally credited with ending it.
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Trump and House Democrats called this week for a fourth round of economic stimulus to prevent a second Great Depression, on top of the $2.2 trillion stimulus bill passed by Congress and signed into law by the president last week. The president’s new plan calls for $2 trillion to rebuild our nation’s infrastructure and create jobs. The Democrats are calling for a $760 billion five-year infrastructure plan, plus billions of dollars more to be spent on other programs.
It’s in the national interest for the House, Senate and president to reach agreement quickly on a massive economic rescue plan and for all sides to compromise to reach such an agreement. Right now our economy is being consumed by a gigantic raging fire – and we need our leaders to put political differences aside and come together to put it out.
The good news is that the president seems to have embraced a wartime mentality – and that can only mean bold actions are coming.
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Getting the Democratic-controlled House, Republican-controlled Senate and Trump to agree on another hugely expensive stimulus bill will not be easy. But if Trump is successful, he could go down in U.S. history as the man who saved America and become one of our most revered and respected presidents.
Before we talk about making history, we need to consider tactically what it will take to pass a massive new stimulus measure and what should be included in such a bill.
As a first step, Congress must be called back into session immediately, since most members are out town until April 30.
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Members of the House and Senate have understandable fears about gathering together and falling victim to the coronavirus themselves, as some have already. To deal with these fears, congressional leaders should find a way to harness technology so they can meet and vote from remote locations.
Firefighters don’t go on vacation when a massive blaze is roaring out of control. So members of Congress shouldn’t stop work for another month in the face of the economic and health crisis created by the coronavirus. Just as millions of us are working remotely now, members of Congress should be able to do the same while the pandemic threatens their health and their lives.
Trump must ensure that all members of the Republican leadership are on board regarding the need for a second multitrillion-dollar economic stimulus bill.
Unquestionably, our country will be faced with massive deficits and an enormous national debt because of the rescue plan the coronavirus has made necessary. But when a fire is burning out of control, firefighters don’t worry about incurring a big water bill to put it out. They do all they can to extinguish the flames and worry about the cost later.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has an obligation to convince his caucus that doing too little will not only be tragic for our country, but will doom the GOP in the 2020 elections. Doing too much to bring about an economic recovery is better than doing too little while foolishly waiting to see if things will get better.
Then there is the arduous task of figuring out what to include in the package. The most important item should be another round of cash payments to Americans hurt economically by coronavirus-forced business closures, layoffs and firings.
In fact, these payments should be expanded in size and scope to include more people in higher income brackets. While no one would agree to include millionaires in such payments, just because you make a good living doesn’t mean you can go for a long period without any income.
For example, let say you own a gym, a restaurant, a clothing store or other business now shuttered. You have to make a sizeable mortgage or rent payment each month and have other ongoing expenses. Or maybe you have children enrolled in an expensive college, have big medical bills, or are paying for an elderly parent to live in a nursing home. With little or no current income, you need government assistance.
And from here our government must do still more, because cash payments simply won’t be enough.
President Trump should help homeowners receive critical assistance to make their mortgage payments. For example, he should ensure that payments on all federally backed mortgages can be deferred for at least six months, with the payments made by the federal government during that period as part of the economic stimulus.
There should also be provisions to aid people holding mortgages not backed by the government, as well as renters. The last thing we need as the coronavirus nightmare worsens is to create a nightmare of home and business foreclosures and evictions of renters.
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We should then focus on deploying resources to areas of the nation hardest hit economically due to the aftershocks of the coronavirus. As President Trump has said, America is in desperate need of vital infrastructure spending.
Just travel down Interstate 95 from Connecticut onto the New Jersey Turnpike and you will experience roads that are littered with potholes, old bridges and crumbling pieces of concrete somehow holding it all together.
President Trump and Congress should focus federal dollars to make sure our highways are safe in these parts of the nation, our airports are modernized, our ports continue to function properly, and all parts of our nation have state-of-the-art high-speed Internet.
This infrastructure program could provide vital economic assistance for projects that have been underfunded or deferred for decades.
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And the above is just a sample of what will be needed. The longer the coronavirus forces much of America to be closed for business, the more expensive a federal economic rescue plan will become.
While it’s an election year, now is not the time for our elected officials to think about November. With strong leadership from President Trump they must put partisanship aside for a few months and fight a two-front war against the coronavirus to protect both public health and our economic health.