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    The Clash of Liberal Wonks That Could Shape the Economy, Explained

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    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyUpshotSupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Clash of Liberal Wonks That Could Shape the Economy, ExplainedThey all agree pandemic aid is warranted, but the question is how big and how quickly.Feb. 8, 2021Updated 5:43 p.m. ETJoe Biden in an October 2009 meeting with economic advisers, including Larry Summers, second from right. Mr. Summers, then the director of the National Economic Council, is one of the economists now questioning the scale of the Biden administration’s pandemic stimulus plan.Credit…Mandel Ngan/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA fierce debate is underway among centrist and left-leaning economists, taking place in newspaper op-eds, heated exchanges on Twitter, and even at the White House lectern. Unlike most internecine battles within a narrow intellectual tribe, this one will shape the future of the American economy and the political fortunes of the Biden administration.The core question is whether the administration’s $1.9 trillion pandemic rescue plan is too big. Is action on that scale needed to contain the economic damage from the coronavirus and get the economy quickly on track to full health? Or is it far too big relative to the hole the economy’s in, thus setting the stage for a burst of inflation followed by a potential recession, as leading center-left economists including Larry Summers (the former Treasury secretary) and Olivier Blanchard (a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund) have argued in recent days?This clash of ideas is taking place at a crucial moment. With the Senate at a 50-50 partisan divide, a single Democratic senator who finds the arguments of Mr. Summers and Mr. Blanchard persuasive could require President Biden to trim his ambitions, with far-reaching consequences for his presidency and the economy.The substance of the debate touches on important macroeconomic concepts like economic speed limits, the risks of deficits and the origins of inflation. But it is impossible to separate the substance from the personal history of those involved.It has created stark divides among economic policy thinkers who for the most part know one another, have worked together in government, have spoken at the same think tank events, and share mostly similar political views.Hanging over it all is the legacy of the Clinton-era Democratic policy establishment, and a continuing debate about past policy decisions.What is in dispute?President Biden’s pandemic aid plan includes direct spending for Covid testing and vaccine rollout, expanded unemployment insurance, money for schools and child care, and $1,400 payments to most Americans. It comes on the heels of a $900 billion bipartisan pandemic aid act enacted in December.For weeks, policy veterans have been fretting among themselves over the scale of Mr. Biden’s proposal, in private emails and text chains. Mr. Summers made those concerns public with an op-ed in The Washington Post last week. Mr. Blanchard has backed him on Twitter, as has Jason Furman to some degree, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama.What is their argument?As Mr. Summers wrote, it is a good idea to spend whatever it takes to contain the virus and enable the economy to recover quickly from its pandemic-induced downturn. Provisions that strengthen the safety net for those who are suffering are worthwhile.The problem, he says, is that the plan’s total size reaches a scale that risks major future problems. In particular, the total money being proposed far exceeds most estimates of the “output gap.” (More on that below.) That implies that much of that spending will just slosh around the economy, causing prices to rise, potentially hindering the rest of Mr. Biden’s agenda and risking a new recession.This isn’t a conventional argument between doctrinaire deficit hawks and doves, but something more subtle. In the past, Mr. Summers in particular has repeatedly called for larger budget deficits to help combat “secular stagnation,” in which major world economies are mired in slow growth, and he has supported large pandemic aid packages.But Mr. Summers says any new spending package should pay out gradually over time and be devoted more substantially to long-term investments.“There is nothing wrong with targeting $1.9 trillion, and I could support a much larger figure in total stimulus,” he wrote in a follow-up article. “But a substantial part of the program should be directed at promoting sustainable and inclusive economic growth for the remainder of the decade and beyond, not simply supporting incomes this year and next.”What’s the output gap?Imagine a world in which the American economy is cranking at its full potential. Pretty much everyone who wants to work is able to find a job. Every factory is at its complete capacity. The output gap is, simply, how far away the economy is from that ideal state.A traditional approach to fiscal stimulus has been to estimate the size of that gap, apply some adjustments to account for the way federal spending circulates through the economy, and use that arithmetic to decide how big a stimulus action ought to be.In theory, if the government pumps too much money into the economy, it is trying to generate activity over and above potential output, which is impossible to sustain for long. Workers might put in overtime, and a factory might run extra hours for a while, but eventually the workers want a breather, and the machines need to shut down for maintenance. If there is more money floating around in the economy than there is supply of goods and services, the result won’t be increased prosperity, but rather higher prices as people bid up the things they want to buy.By that traditional thinking, Mr. Summers and other skeptics are on solid ground. The Congressional Budget Office is projecting an output gap for 2021 of only $420 billion, implying that $1.9 trillion in additional cash is much more than the economy needs to fill the gap. Even if you believe the C.B.O. is too pessimistic about America’s potential, we’re talking orders of magnitude of difference.There are problems with this argument, though. For one, potential output is a theoretical concept, not something we can ever know with precision. In fact, there is a solid case to be made that technocrats have underestimated the economy’s true potential for years, given the absence of inflation in 2018 and 2019 despite a hot job market.For another, it imagines the economy as a series of hydraulic tubes, in which a skilled engineer can push the right buttons to achieve a predictable outcome. In macroeconomics, especially in the era of a once-a-century pandemic, things might not be so simple.How is the Biden administration responding?Aggressively.Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and other top officials have taken to the airwaves in recent days to argue that their proposal is prudent and appropriately scaled.Administration officials have described the plan as “bottom-up,” meaning it was devised by starting with specific problems facing Americans — a lack of income for those out of work, bottlenecks in vaccine delivery, a lack of funds for school reopening — and then ending with forecasts of the sums necessary to solve those problems.Their argument is that the United States is in a do-whatever-it-takes moment, and that the most urgent goal is to try to ensure that the economy can fully reopen as quickly as possible while preventing potential lasting damage to families and businesses.“I think that the idea now is that we have to hit back hard; we have to hit back strong if we’re going to finally put this dual crisis of the pandemic and the economic pain that it has engendered behind us,” Jared Bernstein, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said in a news briefing Friday.They do not dismiss the possibility that there will be higher inflation down the road — but say it is a manageable risk.Inflation is “a risk that we have to consider,” Ms. Yellen said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, but “we have the tools to deal with that risk if it materializes” and “we have a huge economic challenge here and tremendous suffering in the country.”“That’s the biggest risk,” she said.In the logic that has prevailed within the administration and among other former officials who support the approach, it misses the point to theorize about output gaps and inflation risks. They say this relief should be thought of differently than traditional fiscal stimulus.“Relief payments are life support,” wrote Austan Goolsbee, another former Obama adviser. “To avoid permanent damage, they need to last as long as the virus does. Without them, the chance of deterioration and irrevocable harm soars.”So if this passes, is there really going to be a huge burst of inflation?Maybe.The economy is in uncharted territory. With potentially trillions of pandemic aid spending on the way — in addition to vast accumulated savings over the last year because of Americans’ pandemic-constrained spending and stimulus-boosted incomes — there is a lot of money poised to be spent.And some things may reduce the supply of goods and services, like disruptions to global supply chains resulting from the pandemic and business closures.Lots of money chasing finite supply is an Economics 101 recipe for surging prices.But for the medium term, the more important question is whether any inflation surge would be a temporary not-so-harmful phenomenon or the start of something more lasting.Why does that matter?The Federal Reserve will be inclined to mostly ignore a one-time shock of post-pandemic inflation. Chair Jerome Powell said so in a news conference last month.There is a possibility “that as the economy fully reopens, there’ll be a burst of spending because people will be enthusiastic that the pandemic is over,” Mr. Powell said. “We would see that as something likely to be transient and not to be very large.”In that case, he said, “the way we would react is we’re going to be patient.”It might even help rebalance the economy after years in which the United States has depended on low interest-rate policies from the Fed to keep growth afloat. Somewhat higher inflation would mean lower “real,” inflation-adjusted interest rates, and might gain the Fed some credibility that it will not permit inflation to be persistently too low. It could, plausibly, get back to above-zero interest rates sooner than it would otherwise, taking the air out of financial bubbles and giving it more room to combat the next downturn.However, if surging prices were to create a vicious cycle of higher prices and higher wages, the Fed would be inclined to raise interest rates enough to try to break that cycle — potentially driving the economy into another recession in the process. That is the last thing that American workers need, let alone Democrats seeking to hold Congress in 2022 and the White House in 2024.So is this part of a wider philosophical divide among Democratic economists?There is no ideological chasm here.But there is a deeper division than just the technical question of the output gap’s size or what the risks are of too much versus too little pandemic aid. Rather, the Biden approach represents a rejection of the technocratic bent within the Democratic Party that many on the left believe has been deeply damaging to the country.President Bill Clinton and President Obama relied for economic advice on what might be called the Bob Rubin coaching tree. Mr. Rubin, who served as Treasury secretary in the 1990s, was a mentor to Mr. Summers, who was a mentor to Timothy Geithner, Mr. Obama’s first Treasury secretary, and so on.The policymakers in this tradition view themselves as rigorous, careful and pragmatic. Many liberals view them as excessively moderate, too deferential to Wall Street and clueless about the political dynamics that could make for durable policies to help the working class.The Biden administration includes many top officials from outside that tree, such as Ms. Yellen. And it is particularly seeking to correct what are seen as the mistakes of the early Obama administration, when Mr. Summers and Mr. Geithner were in top jobs.The new administration sees this as a moment of profound crisis, a time when it must act on a scale commensurate with the problem. It is betting that if it solves the problem, its political fortunes will be better rather than worse, and it can always deal with inflation or other side effects if they come.In a sense then, the debate over pandemic aid isn’t entirely about output gaps or risk trade-offs. It’s about which mode of policymaking ought to prevail in the Democratic Party.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Democrats to Unveil Up to $3,600 Child Tax Credit as Part of Stimulus Bill

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesSee Your Local RiskVaccine InformationCalifornia Anti-Vaccine ProtestsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDemocrats to Unveil Up to $3,600 Child Tax Credit as Part of Stimulus BillThe credit would send monthly payments to millions of Americans under certain income thresholds for a year starting in July.“This money is going to be the difference in a roof over someone’s head or food on their table,” said Representative Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesEmily Cochrane and Feb. 7, 2021, 5:20 p.m. ETWASHINGTON —  Top House Democrats are preparing to unveil legislation that would send up to $3,600 per child to millions of Americans, as lawmakers aim to change the tax code to target child poverty rates as part of President Biden’s sweeping $1.9 trillion stimulus package.The proposal would expand the child tax credit to provide $3,600 per child younger than 6 and $3,000 per child up to 17 over the course of a year, phasing out the payments for Americans who make more than $75,000 and couples who make more than $150,000. The draft 22-page provision, reported earlier by The Washington Post and obtained by The New York Times, is expected to be formally introduced on Monday as lawmakers race to fill out the contours of Mr. Biden’s stimulus plan.“The pandemic is driving families deeper and deeper into poverty, and it’s devastating,” said Representative Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and one of the champions of the provision. “This money is going to be the difference in a roof over someone’s head or food on their table. This is how the tax code is supposed to work for those who need it most.”The credits would be split into monthly payments from the Internal Revenue Service beginning in July, based on a person’s or family’s income in 2020. Although the proposed credit is only for a year, some Democrats said they would fight to make it permanent, a sweeping move that could reshape efforts to fight child poverty in America.The one-year credit appears likely to garner enough support to be included in the stimulus package, but it will also have to clear a series of tough parliamentary hurdles because of the procedural maneuvers Democrats are using to muscle the stimulus package through, potentially without Republican support.With House Democratic leadership aiming to have the stimulus legislation approved on the chamber floor by the end of the month, Congress moved last week to fast-track Mr. Biden’s stimulus plan even as details of the legislation are still being worked out. Buoyed by support from Democrats in both chambers and a lackluster January jobs report, Mr. Biden has warned that he plans to move ahead with his plan whether or not Republicans support it.Republicans, who have accused Mr. Biden of abandoning promises of bipartisanship and raised concerns about the nation’s debt, have largely balked at his plan because of its size and scope after Congress approved trillions of dollars in economic relief in 2020.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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    Yellen Warns Jobs Will be Slow to Rebound Without Stimulus

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesSee Your Local RiskVaccine InformationCalifornia Anti-Vaccine ProtestsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyCovid-19 News: South Africa Halts Use of AstraZeneca VaccineYellen Warns Jobs Will be Slow to Rebound Without StimulusFeb. 7, 2021, 12:02 p.m. ETFeb. 7, 2021, 12:02 p.m. ETEmpty storefronts in Manhattan last month. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is urging lawmakers to pass a sizable coronavirus aid package for the sake of the economy.Credit…Mohamed Sadek for The New York TimesThe U.S. labor market is stalling and in a “deep hole” that could take years to escape if lawmakers do not quickly pass an aid package that gives workers a bridge to the end of the pandemic, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen warned on Sunday.By contrast, passing the $1.9 trillion package that President Biden has proposed could allow the economy to reach full employment by next year, Ms. Yellen said.She rebutted concerns that big spending would lead to inflation, and said that the economy would be stuck in the kind of long, slow recovery that followed the 2008 financial crisis if lawmakers do too little now.“The most important risk is that we leave workers and communities scarred by the pandemic and the economic toll that it’s taken,” Ms. Yellen said on the CNN program “State of the Union.” “We have to make sure this doesn’t take a permanent toll on their lives.”Lawrence H. Summers, a former Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, argued in The Washington Post on Thursday that Mr. Biden’s proposal was so big that it might overheat the economy. But Ms. Yellen, a former Federal Reserve chair, said on CNN that she had spent years studying inflation and that she was confident that policymakers had the tools to deal with it if it were to materialize.Democrats in Congress moved last week to fast-track Mr. Biden’s plan, but the details of the legislation are still being worked out. Ms. Yellen said it was important to ensure that not just low-income workers but also those in the middle class, like teachers and police officers, receive the additional support they need.“Of course it shouldn’t go to very well-off families that don’t need the funds,” Ms. Yellen said on the CBS program “Face the Nation,” adding that Mr. Biden was discussing with Congress where to set the income ceiling for eligibility.After a pandemic aid package passes, Ms. Yellen said, Mr. Biden wants to pass a jobs bill built around infrastructure investment, worker training and addressing climate change.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Republicans Pitch Biden on Smaller Aid Plan as Democrats Prepare to Act Alone

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesSee Your Local RiskVaccine InformationWuhan, One Year LaterAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRepublicans Pitch Biden on Smaller Aid Plan as Democrats Prepare to Act AloneThe president met at the White House with Republican senators seeking a much smaller stimulus plan, but congressional Democrats pressed forward to force through his $1.9 trillion measure, if necessary.President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris met with Republican senators on Monday about a stimulus plan.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesLuke Broadwater and Feb. 1, 2021Updated 7:43 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — A coalition of 10 Republican senators took a stimulus counterproposal to the White House on Monday evening, urging President Biden to scale back his ambitions for a sweeping $1.9 trillion pandemic aid package in favor of a plan less than one-third the size that they argued could garner the bipartisan consensus the new president has said he is seeking.Their outline, which came as Democrats prepared to push forward on Mr. Biden’s plan with or without Republican backing, amounted to a test of whether the president would opt to pursue a scaled-back measure that could fulfill his pledge to foster broad compromise, or use his majority in Congress to reach for a more robust relief effort enacted over stiff Republican opposition.Mr. Biden appeared eager to signal an openness to negotiating, telling Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and the leader of the group, that he was “anxious” to hear what the senators had to say as they chatted in the Oval Office before the meeting began, and spending two hours behind closed doors in what both sides described as a cordial and productive session.“I wouldn’t say that we came together on a package tonight,” Ms. Collins told reporters as she left. But she called the discussion “excellent” and said Mr. Biden and the senators had agreed to continue their talks. And she said Republicans appreciated that Mr. Biden had devoted his first Oval Office meeting as president to “a frank and very useful discussion” with them.“All of us are concerned about struggling families, teetering small businesses, an overwhelmed health care system, getting vaccines out and into people’s arms, and strengthening our economy and addressing the public health crisis that we face,” Ms. Collins said.Even so, Mr. Biden’s advisers have made clear that the president has little enthusiasm for significantly cutting back on the rescue measure he has proposed. And there was scant evidence, for now, that any Democrats were seriously considering embracing a proposal as limited as the one the Republicans have laid out.“The risk is not that it is too big, this package,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said before the meeting. “The risk is that it is too small. That remains his view.”Republicans outlined the plan as the Congressional Budget Office projected that the American economy would return to its pre-pandemic size by the middle of this year, even if Congress did not approve any more federal aid for the recovery, but that it would be years before everyone thrown off the job by the pandemic would be able to return to work.The rosier-than-expected projections were likely to inject even more debate into the discussions over the stimulus measure, emboldening Republicans who have pushed Mr. Biden to scale back his plan. But they also indicated that there was little risk that another substantial package of federal aid could “overheat” the economy, and reflected the prolonged difficulties of shaking off the virus and returning to full levels of economic activity.The Republicans’ $618 billion proposal would include many of the same elements as Mr. Biden’s plan, with $160 billion for vaccine distribution and development, coronavirus testing and the production of personal protective equipment; $20 billion to help schools reopen; more relief for small businesses; and additional aid to individuals. But it differs in ways large and small, omitting a federal minimum wage increase or direct aid to states and cities.It would slash the direct payments to Americans, providing $1,000 instead of $1,400 and limiting them to the lowest income earners, excluding individuals who earned more than $50,000. It would also pare back federal jobless aid, which is set to lapse in March, setting weekly payments at $300 through June instead of $400 through September.On Capitol Hill, top Democrats said they were worried a smaller package would not adequately meet the needs of struggling Americans.“This proposal is an insult to the millions of workers and families struggling to survive this crisis,” Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and the incoming Finance Committee chairman, said of the Republican plan. “A bill that sets up yet another cliff for jobless workers in a few short months is a nonstarter.”Hours before Mr. Biden sat down with the Republicans, Democratic leaders began laying the groundwork to move forward on their own, if necessary, with the president’s $1.9 trillion plan through a process known as budget reconciliation, which would allow it to bypass any Republican filibuster with a mere majority vote.Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, filed a joint budget resolution to begin the process, with plans for votes in the Senate by week’s end.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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    C.B.O. Report Says U.S. Economy Is Healing But Workers Have A Ways to Go

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesSee Your Local RiskVaccine InformationWuhan, One Year LaterAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyU.S. Economy Is Healing, but Budget Office Says Workers Have a Long Way to GoNew projections from the independent Congressional Budget Office fuel Republicans’ calls for “targeted” economic aid — and Democrats’ push to go big.Workers constructed an outdoor seating area for a restaurant in San Diego last week. While the new budget office report shows that the economy is recovering at a faster pace than expected, officials do not see unemployment falling to its pre-pandemic level by the end of the decade.Credit…Ariana Drehsler for The New York TimesFeb. 1, 2021Updated 6:33 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — The United States economy will return to its pre-pandemic size by the middle of this year, even if Congress does not approve any more federal money to aid the recovery, the Congressional Budget Office said on Monday. But it will be years before everyone thrown off the job by the coronavirus is able to return to work.Those projections could further complicate President Biden’s ability to quickly pass a $1.9 trillion stimulus package, as moderate Republicans and even some left-leaning economists express concerns that too much new federal borrowing could overheat the economy.Still, Democrats worried about families putting food on the table and avoiding eviction or foreclosure as the pandemic continues to suppress economic activity are forging ahead with Mr. Biden’s more aggressive plans, introducing budget resolutions in the House and Senate on Monday that would allow legislation based on the president’s proposals to pass without Republican votes.Mr. Biden met late Monday with a group of 10 Republican senators who have drafted a $600 billion economic aid proposal of their own. It would scale back many of the president’s spending ambitions, like additional unemployment benefits and $1,400 direct payments to individuals, while scrapping other elements entirely, like his proposed aid to state and local governments to patch budget shortfalls.Mr. Biden, who spent three decades in the Senate, has welcomed discussions with Republicans but shown little willingness to significantly cut the cost of his plan. The budget office report on Monday offered some evidence to support his position, with figures suggesting that the economy could absorb substantial new federal assistance without stoking higher inflation or forcing the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates.Congressional Democrats and many liberal economists on Monday repeated their calls for lawmakers to act swiftly and aggressively to help the large swaths of Americans still struggling to recover, a message echoed by Mr. Biden’s aides.Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters that the budget office report was “not a measure of how each American family is doing and whether the American people are getting the assistance they need.” Mr. Biden, she said, “believes that the risk is not going too small, but not big enough.”The new projections from the office, which is nonpartisan and issues regular budgetary and economic forecasts, show the economy healing faster than the office’s forecasts over the summer suggested it would.Officials told reporters on Monday that the brightening outlook stemmed from large sectors of the economy adapting better and more rapidly to the pandemic than originally expected. It also reflected increased growth driven by a $900 billion economic aid package that Congress passed in December, which included $600 direct checks to individuals and more generous and longer-lasting benefits for the millions of people who are still unemployed.The budget office now expects the unemployment rate to fall to 5.3 percent at the end of the year, down from an 8.4 percent projection in July. The unemployment rate stood at 6.7 percent in December. The economy is expected to grow 3.7 percent for the year, after recording a much smaller contraction in 2020 than the budget office had expected.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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    PPP Aid to Small Businesses: How Much Did $500 Billion Help?

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesSee Your Local RiskVaccine InformationWuhan, One Year LaterAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story$500 Billion in Aid to Small Businesses: How Much Did It Help?Some economists say the Paycheck Protection Program has not proved as useful as other aid. The debate could sway the new administration’s plans.Small businesses line a street in Westwood, N.J. A $900 billion federal relief package included $325 billion in small business aid, most of it for the Paycheck Protection Program.Credit…Mohamed Sadek for The New York TimesBen Casselman and Feb. 1, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ETAs Democrats and Republicans spent months last fall arguing over how to rescue the economy, one provision drew widespread support from lawmakers: reviving the Paycheck Protection Program, the government’s marquee effort to help small businesses weather the pandemic.The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, called the lending program “a bipartisan slam dunk.” House Democrats included an extension and expansion of the program in aid packages in the summer and the fall. And Treasury economists said in December that the program might have saved nearly 19 million jobs.Yet there is dissent from one notable contingent: Academic economists who have studied the program have concluded that it has saved relatively few jobs and that, at a cost of more than half a trillion dollars, it has been far less efficient than other government efforts to help the economy.“A very large chunk of the benefit went to a very small share of the firms, and those were probably the firms least in need,” said David Autor, an M.I.T. economist who led one study.The divergence in views over the program’s economic payoff stems in part from ambiguity about its goals: saving jobs or saving businesses.Using different methodology than the Treasury economists, Mr. Autor says the Paycheck Protection Program saved 1.4 million to 3.2 million jobs. Other researchers have offered broadly similar estimates.Given the program’s cost, saving jobs on that scale doesn’t necessarily qualify as a success. Unemployment benefits also provide income, at far less expense, and programs like food assistance and aid to state and local governments pack a larger economic punch, according to many assessments.And because the paycheck program was designed to reach as many businesses as possible, much of the money went to companies that were at little risk of laying off workers, or that would have brought them back quickly even without the help.“It’s just a really inefficient use of funds,” said Eric Zwick, an economist at the University of Chicago’s business school who has studied the program.Many policy experts on Wall Street and in Washington — as well as businesses and banks on Main Streets across the country — say the program’s merits should be assessed instead on what it did to save businesses. On that basis, they say, it helped prevent a greater calamity and fostered economic healing.“A major goal was to keep these businesses alive so that when the economy started to recover and then the economy reopened, there would be businesses around to hire unemployed workers,” said Michael R. Strain, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. Preliminary evidence suggests that the program has succeeded by that metric, he said.In the short term, the program’s proponents are winning the argument. When Congress approved a $900 billion relief package in December, most of the $325 billion in small-business assistance was for a slightly modified version of the Paycheck Protection Program. Businesses began applying for the aid last month.But the debate over the program’s merits could shape the next round of aid. President Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief plan includes billions for small businesses, but no new money for the program. His aides are weighing what to do about funds already allocated.Mr. Biden’s proposal includes direct grants for the hardest-hit small businesses and a request for Congress to find new ways to help restaurants struggling with consumer pullbacks and state and local restrictions.Many Democrats on Capitol Hill, along with some advocates for small-business relief in think tanks and lobbying shops around Washington, say lawmakers should move on to a more focused and efficient method for supporting small businesses until widespread vaccination fully reopens the economy.Congress created the Paycheck Protection Program in March as businesses shut down early in the pandemic. The program sought to stem layoffs by providing forgivable, low-interest loans to help pay employees even if they weren’t working.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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    Effort to Include $15 Minimum Wage in Relief Bill Poses Test for Democrats

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The New WashingtonLatest UpdatesExpanding Health CoverageBiden’s CabinetPandemic ResponseAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyEffort to Include $15 Minimum Wage in Relief Bill Poses Test for DemocratsThe measure will test their willingness and ability to use procedural maneuvers to shepherd big policy goals past entrenched Republican opposition in an evenly divided Senate.Senator Bernie Sanders is mounting an aggressive push for the minimum wage as he prepares to take control of the Senate Budget Committee.Credit…Pool photo by Graeme JenningsJan. 31, 2021, 7:04 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — As Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, prepares to take control of the Senate Budget Committee, he is mounting an aggressive campaign ahead of what will be one of his first tests as chairman: securing the support needed to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025 in a pandemic relief package.Whether he succeeds will not only affect the jobs and wages of millions of American workers, but also help define the limits of Democrats’ willingness and ability to use procedural maneuvers to shepherd major policy proposals past entrenched Republican opposition in an evenly divided Senate.President Biden and top Democratic leaders have repeatedly said their first choice is to pass Mr. Biden’s sweeping $1.9 trillion stimulus proposal with bipartisan support. But Republicans are already balking at the scope of the proposal, and raising the minimum wage to $15 is a particularly contentious part of the bill, a progressive priority that draws intense opposition from many Republicans.So Democrats are barreling toward using a fast-track process known as budget reconciliation to avoid the 60-vote threshold typically needed to overcome a filibuster and approve legislation. That would allow them to pass the measure with no Republican support and Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tiebreaking vote. Both chambers are expected to vote on a budget resolution — a measure that will formally direct committees in the House and the Senate to begin drafting the relief package, kicking off the reconciliation process — in the coming days.Mr. Sanders argued in an interview that Democrats clinched control of the White House and the Senate in part by promising sweeping policy changes and additional pandemic relief, and that not supporting the full legislation would betray their voters and undermine faith in the party’s governing.“If that is the case, if that is what we do, we will surely be a minority in two years,” Mr. Sanders said. “We have to keep the promises that we made.”But Republicans have said that failing to compromise would jeopardize future bipartisan negotiations for a president who has repeatedly called for unity, with a group of 10 Republican senators moving to unveil their own $600 billion proposal as early as Monday in an effort to negotiate with the administration.And the minimum wage poses a particularly polarizing test: Including it in the package would be an aggressive use of reconciliation, one some lawmakers fear will not be allowed by the Senate parliamentarian. That could force Democrats into even more contentious tactics if they want the minimum wage to pass, setting up a battle between a priority championed by liberals like Mr. Sanders and the further fraying of Senate norms.“Minimum wage is probably the most controversial of those proposals,” Mr. Sanders acknowledged. “I’m sure every Democratic senator will have some problem with some aspect of reconciliation, I do, others do — I am absolutely confident that people will support our new president and do everything we can to help the working families of this country.”Other lawmakers, including some Republicans, have argued that the pandemic relief package should be scaled down, with items like the minimum wage provision left for another legislative battle later in the year. Most House Republicans voted against a stand-alone minimum wage bill in 2019, pointing to a Congressional Budget Office report that estimated the provision would put an estimated 1.3 million Americans out of work. Senate Republicans, in control of the chamber, did not take it up.“That’s an agenda item for the administration, so be it,” Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, told reporters. “Should it be included as part of a Covid relief package? I think it takes the focus off the priority, which is what is the immediate need today.”“Hey,” she added, “you get the keys to the car now. And so let’s get some legislation done, but you don’t need to think that you need to get it all in one package.”Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, bluntly told reporters in January that “we’re not going to do a $15 minimum wage in it” and that Mr. Biden was better off reaching out to Capitol Hill and negotiating a compromise.Mr. Sanders and Democrats have argued that with jobless benefits set to begin expiring in mid-March, there is little time to win over their Republican counterparts, who embarked on similar reconciliation efforts in 2017 to repeal portions of the Affordable Care Act and pass a sweeping tax overhaul.But to secure the first increase in the federal minimum wage since 2009, even under reconciliation Mr. Sanders and liberal Democrats can afford to lose little, if any, support from the rest of the caucus.Several lawmakers, including Representative John Yarmuth of Kentucky, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, have voiced skepticism that the minimum wage provision can prevail through the rules of the reconciliation process, which imposes strict parameters to prevent the process from being abused. Under the so-called Byrd Rule, Democrats cannot include any measure that affects the Social Security program, increases the deficit after a certain period of time set in the budget resolution or does not change revenues or spending.The decision on whether the provision can be included in the reconciliation package lies with the Senate parliamentarian. Ms. Harris could ultimately overrule the parliamentarian — something that has not been done since 1975 — and Mr. Sanders declined to say whether a rejection of the minimum wage provision would prompt Democrats to do so.“Our first task is to get the ruling of the parliamentarian,” he said. “That’s what I would like to see and that’s what we are focused on right now.”Some Democrats, including Mr. Yarmuth, have signed on instead to stand-alone legislation for the minimum wage increase as another avenue for approval, but one that would require Republican support. Cedric Richmond, a top White House adviser, argued that “the minimum wage has been expanded or increased during times of crisis before” but declined to say whether it should be part of the coronavirus package or a stand-alone bill.Mr. Sanders pointed to two new studies, shown to The New York Times ahead of their publication, that argue that the minimum wage would have a direct impact on the federal budget, opening a door to using reconciliation. In a new paper, Michael Reich, a professor of economics and labor economist at the University of California, Berkeley, estimated that approval of the minimum wage would have a positive effect of $65.4 billion per year largely because of increases to payroll and income tax revenue.“It seems to me that it has pretty substantial budgetary impacts,” Mr. Reich, who has long studied the effects of minimum wage, said of the provision in an interview, adding that he had been conservative in his estimate.Another report, produced by three economists at the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank and a longtime advocate for increasing the minimum wage, found that there would be “significant and direct effects” on the federal budget by increasing payroll tax revenue by $7 billion to $13.9 billion and reducing expenditures on public assistance programs by $13.4 billion to $31 billion.“This is a sizable chunk of money, no matter how you look at it,” said David Cooper, who wrote the report with Ben Zipperer and Josh Bivens. They determined that increased revenue would prevent many workers and their families from qualifying for assistance programs, reducing expenses.But it remains uncertain whether that evidence will be enough to clear the parameters of the Byrd Rule, given that those effects could be ruled “merely incidental.” The Congressional Budget Office, one of the arbiters of the budget effects, found during the last Congress that there would be minimal impact based on the wages of some federal employees.But Mr. Sanders, pressed on whether Democrats had the votes in an evenly divided Senate to move forward with the minimum wage provision, declared that there were “50 votes to pass reconciliation, including minimum wage, yes.”“In totality, what Democrats are saying,” he said, is “we’ve got to support the president, we’ve got to address the crises facing working families and we’re going to pass reconciliation.”Jim Tankersley More

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    Ghosts of 2009 Drive Democrats’ Push for Robust Crisis Response

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The New WashingtonLatest UpdatesExpanding Health CoverageBiden’s CabinetPandemic ResponseAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNews AnalysisGhosts of 2009 Drive Democrats’ Push for Robust Crisis ResponseIn their quest for Republican backing, Democrats say they missed opportunities in 2009 for a stronger response to the Great Recession. They are determined not to repeat the mistake.Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the new majority leader, at the Capitol on Wednesday. “We should have learned the lesson of 2008 and 2009, when Congress was too timid and constrained in its response to the financial crisis,” he said last week.Credit…Oliver Contreras for The New York TimesJan. 31, 2021Updated 5:27 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — Ten Republican senators asked President Biden on Sunday to drastically scale back his $1.9 trillion pandemic aid bill, offering a $600 billion alternative that they said could pass quickly with bipartisan support.But their proposal met a tepid reception from Democrats, who are preparing this week to move forward with their own sweeping package — even if it means eventually cutting Republicans out of the process. Haunted by what they see as their miscalculations in 2009, the last time they controlled the government and faced an economic crisis, the White House and top Democrats are determined to move quickly this time on their stimulus plan, and reluctant to pare it back or make significant changes that would dilute it with no certainty of bringing Republicans on board.“The dangers of undershooting our response are far greater than overshooting,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the new majority leader. “We should have learned the lesson of 2008 and 2009, when Congress was too timid and constrained in its response to the financial crisis.”Their strategy can be traced to 12 years ago, when Barack Obama became president, Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, and they tackled both an economic rescue package and a sweeping health care overhaul.In retrospect, in the quest to win Republican backing for both, Democrats say, they settled for too small an economic stimulus and extended talks on the health care measure for too long. That view was driving the party’s unenthusiastic response on Sunday to the new offer from the Senate Republicans who asked for a meeting with Mr. Biden to lay out a substantially smaller stimulus proposal. In a letter, the 10 senators — notably enough to defeat a filibuster — said their priorities aligned with Mr. Biden’s on crucial areas such as vaccine distribution.But members of the group made clear in interviews on Sunday that their plan amounted to less than a third of Mr. Biden’s proposal. Democrats said they would review it, but would insist on a comprehensive legislative response.While talks with Republicans are expected to continue, Democrats are set this week to put in motion a budget process known as reconciliation that is not subject to a filibuster, allowing them to push through pandemic legislation on their own if no bipartisan agreement emerges.That possibility has Republicans squawking that Democrats are abandoning their bipartisan pledge without giving it a chance and warning that the effort will poison their ability to reach bipartisan deals. The objection ignores the fact that when they controlled Congress, Republicans rolled over Democrats in January 2017 and began their own reconciliation process even before Donald J. Trump was sworn in as president, paving the way for the enactment of a $1.5 trillion tax package that was muscled through without a single Democratic vote.“We’re giving an opportunity to come together on important and timely legislation, so why wouldn’t you do that rather than trying to move it through with reconciliation and having a fully partisan product?” asked Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska and one of the signers of the new letter.While they have yet to roll out their plan, members of the group said it would omit Democrats’ proposal for a federal minimum wage increase and scale back direct stimulus payments to individuals, excluding Americans earning more than $50,000 a year or families with a combined income exceeding $100,000.“Let’s focus on those who are struggling,” Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, said on the CNN program “State of the Union” on Sunday.But to Democrats, the scars from 2009 cut deep. First, they believe they were too accommodating to Republicans, who called for restraint in providing stimulus for the economy. Then Democrats saw themselves as sandbagged by Republicans who engaged in prolonged negotiations over health care before pulling the plug entirely, opposing legislation that they had helped draft and inflaming a partisan fight that cost Democrats dearly in the 2010 midterm elections.This time, Democrats say the new aid must be robust and delivered quickly. They do not intend to allow Republicans to dictate the timing nor the reach of the legislation.“I’m not going to let Republican senators stall for the sole purpose of stalling,” Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and the incoming chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said on a conference call hosted by the advocacy group Invest in America. He added that his view grew out of his own experience serving as a junior member of the panel during the Great Recession.Mr. Biden would no doubt prefer to push his proposal through with bipartisan support to show he is able to bridge the differences between the two parties. But the White House has been adamant that it will not chop up his plan to try to secure Republican backing and that while the scope could be adjusted, the changes will not be too substantial.“We have learned from past crises that the risk is not doing too much,” Mr. Biden, who was vice president in 2009, said on Friday at the White House, striking the same theme as Mr. Schumer. “The risk is not doing enough.”Like Mr. Biden this year, Mr. Obama entered the White House in 2009 optimistic he could cooperate with Republicans, and there had been promising signs in 2008. In the face of a dire economic emergency, congressional Republicans, Democrats and George W. Bush’s administration had worked closely to approve the $700 billion Wall Street bailout. Republicans also seemed dispirited by steep election losses in November, suggesting some might be open to cooperation.But to an extent that was not immediately apparent, top Republicans in the House and Senate quickly decided that their best path to reclaiming power was to remain united against Mr. Obama’s agenda, a stance Republicans later acknowledged.As a result, the administration and Democratic leaders had to make multiple concessions to ensure the votes of three Republicans and a few moderate Democrats needed to provide the bare minimum of 60 votes to overcome deep Republican opposition to the stimulus package. That meant holding the amount to $787 billion, less than what some economists at the time said was needed, and potentially slowing the recovery.President Obama speaking about health care in 2009. Democrats say they settled for too small an economic stimulus to gain needed Republican support while also extending talks on health care for too long.Credit…Stephen Crowley/The New York TimesThen came the health care law. Democrats were determined to both expand access to affordable health insurance and to work with Republicans in doing so. They were also concerned then about repeating past mistakes, particularly the Clinton health care effort in 1994, whose spectacular collapse was attributed partly to a failure to involve Republicans from the start.While many Republicans were considered out of reach in 2009, a group of three senators influential on health care policy — Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, Mike Enzi of Wyoming and Olympia Snowe of Maine — engaged in lengthy negotiations with three Democratic counterparts, in a group that came to be known as the Gang of Six.To bring them along, Democrats proposed a market-based approach rather than the kind of government-run, single-payer program sought by many liberals. They even eschewed a limited public option to mollify Republicans and some moderate Democrats. Still, the talks dragged, and Republicans began pulling back amid a rash of raucous protests at congressional town hall events across the country.Frustrated and believing Democrats were being strung along, Mr. Obama in September 2009 summoned Mr. Grassley to the White House along with Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, who was leading the Gang of Six.Mr. Obama recounted the scene in his new memoir, writing that he had pressed Mr. Grassley on whether, “if Max took every one of your latest suggestions, could you support the bill?” Mr. Grassley was hesitant. “Are there any changes — any at all — that would get us your vote?” Mr. Obama asked, drawing what he described as an awkward silence from the Republican senator.“I guess not, Mr. President,” Mr. Grassley eventually responded.As they plunge forward this year, Democrats say they do not want to find themselves in a similar position, working with Republicans only to come up short with an insufficient response that does not draw bipartisan support.Some Democrats still hold out hope of reaching bipartisan agreement on at least some elements of the administration’s coronavirus response and say the party must make a legitimate attempt to come together with Republicans.“We ought to try to do what we can do in a bipartisan way,” Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, a leading Democrat in the bipartisan talks, told reporters. He said it would then be appropriate for Mr. Schumer to use “other means to move things along” if progress could not be made.Emily Cochrane More