California's Phase 2: Welcome to the End of the Beginning
Psst! The guys wearing red shirts on Star Trek are the ones who die.
California’s Governor Newsom outlined a strategy for gradually reopening businesses in California this week, dependent on locale and the nature of their commerce.
“We see a little bit of sunshine on the horizon,” he said.
Keep your flashlights handy, folks. What the coiffed optimist in Sacramento described is a false dawn.
I don’t blame the Governor for his faulty metaphor. It beats the hell out of what’s coming soon from the Trump administration, namely denial, deceit, and distraction. And the State’s plan is better than what California Republicans like Supervisors Desmond and Gaspar are proposing, which amounts to sanctioned eugenics.
Newsom is doing what politicians do when confronted with crises of this magnitude -- trying to tamp down despair while appearing knowledgeable and hoping for answers to appear.
The fact is that most of Phase Two is a sham. Businesses won’t make enough money to cover overhead while operating within safe parameters, and even if they could, the demand isn’t there. And, assuming entities can open, who's going to take care of the kids?
What once was will never be again. Not jobs. Not retail. Not government.
The enormity of the problem is presently disguised (go stock market!) by way of the tens of trillions being pumped into corporate coffers originating at the Federal Reserve. In addition to $2.3 trillion in financial help for “small business,” one trillion dollars a day was made available to banks through March, and massive purchases of Treasury notes continue unabated.
This isn’t taxpayer money. Nor is it tied to any asset visible to the casual observer. The money is just there, as if by magic. Unfortunately, this leap of faith won’t extend to monies appropriated by the Congress because of faulty notions of national indebtedness that only become an issue when Democrats want to spend money.
The Paycheck Protection Program authorized by Congress is a whole other pile of cash, mostly available to non-retail businesses facing a decline in demand but still operating. Guaranteeing payroll costs for a “non-essential” retailer that cannot open its doors is a non-starter under the program’s rules.
We’re not looking at a pothole along the road back to prosperity; --which is what the Trump administration would like us to think-- it’s a sinkhole the size of an ocean.
The Union-Tribune editorial today suggests a solution amounting to more of the same things we saw during the last recession, namely massive budget cuts so local and state governments can ride this out until prosperity returns.
Obviously, the UT’s editors don’t grasp the enormity of the problem. Nor do they see the potential to get the economy on an environmentally sustainable, humans first course for the future.
Their underlying assumptions remain the same: more consumerism, more savaging of the common wealth of the nation, and more worship at the altar of the golden calf of predatory capitalism.
Non-federal government entities dependent on tax dollars generated by a consumer economy are in big trouble, trouble that can only be mitigated by the national government. If they slash and burn their way to a balanced budget, the corresponding decline in demand (caused by all the employees let go) for consumer goods will make "recovery" impossible.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been busy for weeks now, rounding up votes for another couple of trillion dollars for supporting local governments, money and a strategy for testing, expanding food access programs and mo’ money in your pocket.
Two grand a month per person is the opening bid on this deal, and it’s wrapped with promises of support for our “heroes” — firefighters, police and health-care workers.
From the Jennifer Rubin (not exactly a flaming liberal) at the Washington Post:
One could not help but think: What is the possible argument against what Pelosi is proposing — that we shouldn’t reopen safely? That we should stiff police, firefighters and other public employees who have risked their lives to keep us safe? That we shouldn’t follow data? The Republican aversion to intelligent governance and to deployment of science to save lives is, frankly, untenable politically. And Pelosi knows it.
The public overwhelmingly favors the things Democrats are advocating (a slow and safe return to economic activity, a bigger role for the federal government in testing, more and not less government). Trump, his acolytes and the right-wing noise machine can defy public opinion, but they do so at their extreme political peril. Moreover, to the extent they “win” by not funding police and firefighters or recklessly pushing to reopen the economy without testing, the results are likely to be disastrous.
I suspect the GOP/Trump answer to this will be noise, and a lot of it. Expect trash talking, fact denying, and lots of deflecting (look, a squirrel!) in the coming days.
The Trump 2020 campaign is expected to roll out their first round of attacks on anything and everything connected to any Democrat in the coming days.
Phase “Two” for Democrats, now that primary campaigning is over, should be focused on the issues directly addressing the needs of the American public, which I suspect will be more interested in a square meal than a sham smear.
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Lead graphic is a screen grab from the Original Star Trek series.