The Daily 202: ‘Robbing Peter to pay Paul.’ Congress chooses checks over other relief that might help economy more.

As we enter what public health experts fear may be the darkest winter in American history, the Labor Department announced Thursday morning that 885,000 Americans applied for jobless benefits for the first time last week, up from 862,000 the week before. These numbers are not as bad as during the lockdowns of the spring, but they are worse than the worst jobs reports of the Great Recession. In addition, 455,037 Americans filed initial claims last week for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance.

Even though it’s the holiday season, the Commerce Department revealed Wednesday that retail sales dropped 1.1 percent from October to November. That was just the latest data point that, even as vaccines offer hope that 2021 will be so much better, our economy continues to slow down amid a new round of closures. It seems like everything will get worse before it gets better.

There are a handful of lingering disagreements that negotiators are working through, but after nine months of dithering and deadlock, President Trump and Congress appear poised to enact desperately needed relief before leaving town for their Christmas vacations.

The $908 billion bipartisan proposal that was released earlier this week by a group of moderates would not have authorized another round of stimulus checks, but it would have included $160 billion in aid for states and cities who have seen tax revenue dry up amid the pandemic. 

Republicans have insisted that they will not vote for any package unless the price tag is under $1 trillion. On Wednesday, the money for state and local governments was cut after the two parties could not agree on coronavirus-related liability protections for corporations. Democrats have pushed for the local aid while Republicans have pushed for the liability shield.

Instead, the $160 billion pot of money will go toward sending another round of checks to people whose income is below a certain threshold. The details are still being worked out, but the number is likely to be somewhere between $600 to $700 – compared to the $1,200 checks from earlier in the year. These direct payments were added after a vigorous push by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).

This failure to provide meaningful help for state and local governments will mean significant layoffs of public employees and reduce services at a time when there is growing demand for public assistance. This will make the job picture bleaker and increase the pain for the neediest.

New data released Wednesday showed 7.8 million Americans have fallen into poverty over the past five months, including 2.3 million children under 17. “It is the biggest jump in a single year since the government began tracking poverty 60 years ago. It is nearly double the next-largest rise, which occurred in 1979-1980 during the oil crisis,” per Heather Long. “A recent report from the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan audit agency, also found that many states have been paying gig workers and self-employed workers unemployment aid that is below poverty level.”

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell reiterated his calls Wednesday for more stimulus. “The case for fiscal policy right now is very, very strong,” he said after the Fed’s final meeting of the year. While emphasizing that the decision about providing direct aid to local governments is “entirely in the hands of Congress,” Powell also noted that budget shortfalls have already forced state and local governments to lay off 1.3 million people since March. This is more government workers than lost their jobs during the Great Recession, something Powell cited as “a concern.”

“It’s a very large number of people to be out of work from just that one source,” Powell said. It is important that government policies work together “to create a bridge across this economic chasm that was created by the pandemic,” he explained. “But there is a group where they don’t have a bridge yet.”

Many governors expressed anger that they will not get federal help as part of the emerging deal. During a news conference in Albany, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) called it a “disgrace” that could bankrupt the state. “It is madness,” he said. 

“The addition of the stimulus checks is expected to also come in part by reducing the amount of unemployment aid,” Jeff Stein, Mike DeBonis and Seung Min Kim report. “Congressional leaders have told other lawmakers that they are planning on reducing the length of unemployment benefits by one month from the bipartisan plan … That could mean that the extended benefits would expire at the end of March. Such a timeline could force the incoming Biden administration to move more quickly in its effort to pass a massive stimulus bill early next year. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, panned the cut to unemployment benefits as ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul.’”

The measure being discussed includes $300 per week in supplemental federal benefits for more than 10 million jobless Americans, according to Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the No. 2-ranking Republican senator.  Thune suggested to reporters that lawmakers are seeking to prevent people receiving federal unemployment benefits from also receiving a direct payment, calling that a potential “double benefit.”

Lawmakers are still tangling Thursday over Republican demands to limit the emergency lending programs run by the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve. “Democrats believe these provisions, pushed primarily by Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.), would constrain the ability of the incoming Biden administration to stabilize the economy during a protracted downturn,” per Stein, DeBonis and Kim. “Democratic lawmakers, meanwhile, are seeking to include funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to give to states and cities in emergencies. Republicans are wary that measure could amount to a form of aid for states and cities … Democrats say the measure would only cost about $1 billion. Similarly, Democratic lawmakers are seeking to delay the Dec. 31 deadline that states and cities have to spend unused federal assistance before that funding expires and has to be returned. Republicans have been resistant to that change as well, aides said.”

Companies are taking money that could have been invested into employees and innovation and giving it away to shareholders, who tend to be high-income families. Cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent has not delivered in the ways that Trump and congressional Republicans promised it would three Decembers ago. In fact, the overhaul of the tax code made inequality significantly worse by encouraging CEOs to buy back even more of their shares (making the shares they own more valuable) and pay out higher dividends rather than pass along savings to workers in the form of higher wages. The pandemic has dramatically intensified these troubling trends.

“Between April and September, one of the most tumultuous economic stretches in modern history, 45 of the 50 most valuable publicly traded U.S. companies turned a profit,” Douglas MacMillan, Peter Whoriskey and Jonathan O’Connell report. “Despite their success, at least 27 of the 50 largest firms held layoffs this year, collectively cutting more than 100,000 workers … [and] 21 big firms that were profitable during the pandemic laid off workers anyway. Berkshire Hathaway raked in profits of $56 billion during the first six months of the pandemic while one of its subsidiary companies laid off more than 13,000 workers. Salesforce, Cisco Systems and PayPal cut staff even after their chief executives vowed not to do so. … 

“Walmart, whose CEO spent the past year championing the idea that businesses ‘should not just serve shareholders,’ nonetheless distributed more than $10 billion to its investors during the pandemic while laying off 1,200 corporate office employees. … The top 50 firms collectively distributed more than $240 billion to shareholders through buybacks and dividends between April and September, representing about 79 percent of their total profits generated in that period. … Current and former employees at some of these companies say they weren’t surprised to see their leaders renege on promises to retain staff through the pandemic. … ‘The choices that they make are governed by, essentially, maximizing shareholder value,’ said Gary Walker, a systems engineer who was one of 1,000 employees Salesforce cut in late August.”

French President Emmanuel Macron tested positive this morning. He was given a test after exhibiting symptoms and must now self-isolate for the next seven days. Macron attended a European Union summit at the end of last week and met Wednesday with Portugal Prime Minister António Costa. (James McAuley and Michael Birnbaum)

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) said he tested positive, just hours after delivering a speech on the House floor. “Thankfully I feel fine and do not have any symptoms,” he said, adding that he will quarantine through Christmas. During his speech, he praised Trump’s handling of the contagion and credited him for the vaccine. (Daily Beast)

Interior Department Secretary David Bernhardt, 51, tested positive yesterday before a Cabinet meeting with Trump. As a result, the asymptomatic secretary did not attend. A large holiday party that had been scheduled for today has been canceled. (Darryl Fears and Juliet Eilperin)

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo canceled his final major holiday party of the year after he was exposed to a person who tested positive, forcing him into quarantine. Pompeo has hosted hundreds of diplomats and dignitaries over the past week. A department spokesman would not say when Pompeo came into contact with the infected person. (John Hudson)

“The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday that pharmacists can draw additional doses from vials of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine, potentially expanding the country’s supply by millions of doses,” Fenit Nirappil reports. “Pharmacists began to notice that vials contain more than the expected five doses. … The supply of remaining vaccine could be up to 40 percent greater, though the drugmaker cautions that it’s uncertain how many extra doses are available. The FDA and Pfizer also caution that any leftover vaccine from different vials that is smaller than a full dose should not be mixed together, which experts say risks cross-contamination. ‘The amount of vaccine remaining in the multidose vial after removal of 5 doses can vary, depending on the type of needles and syringes used,’ Sharon Castillo, a spokeswoman for Pfizer, said in a statement.”

Joe Biden’s team said the president-elect will receive the vaccine as soon as next week, and Vice President Pence will receive Pfizer’s vaccine tomorrow, live on camera: “Second lady Karen Pence and Surgeon General Jerome Adams are expected to be vaccinated as well. Meanwhile federal health officials said Wednesday they are in talks with Pfizer to purchase tens of millions of additional doses this spring after the drug company said the United States probably would have to wait until summer.”

A health-care worker in Alaska had a severe allergic reaction to the Pfizer vaccine. After a night in the hospital, she is now stable and has been discharged. “Federal health officials praised Alaska hospital officials for following monitoring guidelines and catching the woman’s reaction and treating her promptly,” Lena Sun and Joel Achenbach report. “Those guidelines advise that people with no history of allergic responses be observed for 15 minutes after receiving a shot; those with severe allergic histories should be observed for 30 minutes. The Alaska health-care worker, described as middle-aged but otherwise not identified, began flushing and experiencing other signs of an allergic response about 10 minutes after she received the shot.” She will not receive the second vaccine.

• Mass vaccination against the virus in the E.U. will begin later this month. Germany, France and Italy said they would coordinate their rollouts. The European Medicines Agency has yet to approve a vaccine for use in the 28-member bloc. (Erin Cunningham)
• Vaccine distribution campaigns across Africa are not likely to begin until April. (Danielle Paquette and Max Bearak)
• Brazil will buy millions of doses of the vaccine developed by the Chinese firm Sinovac, despite President Jair Bolsonaro’s open disdain for it. (Teo Armus)
• Saudi Arabia began its first phase of vaccinations, which includes people older than 65, the obese and the immunodeficient. (Kareem Fahim)
• The World Health Organization said that an international team of scientists will visit China next month to investigate the origins of the pandemic. (Lily Kuo)

That is more than three times the number they treated in September and nearly double that reported at the height of the spring surge. “In Boston, pediatric wards are being consolidated to fit all the adults battling covid-19. Philadelphia hospitals are once again barring family visitors due to transmission worries. And in Los Angeles, a public hospital canceled elective and scheduled surgeries because it cannot spare ICU beds,” Brittany Shammas, Ariana Eunjung Cha, Ben Guarino and Jacqueline Dupree report. “Mounting hospitalizations in these and other states are pushing some hospital systems to near breaking points, with many scrambling to reconfigure themselves to handle a crush of patients streaming in after holiday gatherings and the arrival of flu season.”

California is now reporting more cases than most countries in the world, including India, Germany and Britain: “The southern region of California, which includes Los Angeles County, has emerged as one of the state’s bright-red hot spots, with 0.5 percent availability of intensive-care beds … In the last week, 18 states have set single-day records in patients hospitalized for covid-19 … Mounting cases and hospitalizations in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Ohio and North Carolina continue to push some regions and hospital systems to crisis conditions, while the Upper Midwest and Plains states are finally seeing plateaus. … 

“That the current surge is so widespread means health-care systems have not been able to share the burden as they have in the past. Those in rural areas, in particular, have been grappling with overflow conditions because some of their larger partners in urban centers have stopped accepting transfers. Such facilities are dependent on formal or informal partnerships with other institutions to handle critically ill patients after decades of financial challenges forced many to close or greatly reduce their intensive care units. … 

“With outbreaks in a local nursing home and prison, Norton County, Kan., with a population of 5,400, has seen some of the nation’s highest per capita rates of infection this fall. The 25-bed Norton County Hospital has had to greatly expand the distance it sends patients as the larger systems that typically take its patients have intermittently turned them away … Normally, the hospital sends patients needing a higher level of care an hour-and-a-half away by ambulance to Hays Medical Center, a regional hub that is so packed that it turned away more than 100 patients in November alone. Now, as a result, Norton County Hospital must send critical patients three-and-a-half hours away to Wichita as well as to Omaha, which is five hours away. One patient was sent all the way to Denver, six hours away.”

“Now the entire country is one big red hot zone,” said Arizona Medical Association President Ross Goldberg. “That red map that shows the really bad places for covid — now it’s just red.”

Internal emails obtained by House Democrats and provided to Politico show Paul Alexander, a top Trump science adviser who left in September, repeatedly pushed horrified public health officials to adopt a “herd immunity” approach to covid and allow millions of Americans to get sick. “There is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes about allowing the non-high risk groups expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD,” then-science adviser Paul Alexander wrote on July 4 to his boss, Health and Human Services assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo, and six other senior officials. “Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk….so we use them to develop herd…we want them infected.”

The tranche of damning emails further undercuts months of vigorous denials by the White House that herd immunity was never under consideration. The emails show Alexander, a part-time professor at a Canadian university, spent months attacking government scientists and meddled in official statements to make them more favorable to Trump. Alexander wrote in a May 30 email that a draft statement from the CDC about how covid was disproportionately affecting communities of color was “very accurate,” but he moved to block it: “in this election cycle that is the kind of statement coming from CDC that the media and Democrat [sic] antagonists will use against the president.” Alexander even appeared to acknowledge that the White House’s own push to let states wind down their covid restrictions was leading to a spike in cases.

Fresh data illustrate the recklessness of Alexander’s stance. “In research published on Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, we found that among U.S. adults ages 25 to 44, from March through the end of July, there were almost 12,000 more deaths than were expected based on historical norms,” per Jeremy Samuel Faust, Harlan Krumholz and Rochelle Walensky, Biden’s pick to lead the CDC. “In fact, July appears to have been the deadliest month among this age group in modern American history,” the three doctors write in the New York Times. “Based on prior trends, around 154,000 in this demographic had been projected to die in 2020. We surpassed that total in mid-November. Even if death rates suddenly return to normal in December — and we know they have not — we would anticipate well over 170,000 deaths among U.S. adults in this demographic by the end of 2020. … Covid-19 is the driving force behind these excess deaths.”

• D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser issued a late-night order modifying the city’s rules on churches in the face of a lawsuit from the Archdiocese of Washington, which sought the right to hold Christmas services. The mayor revoked the cap of 50 people that she had previously imposed. Instead, religious facilities can fill no more than 25 percent of their pews, up to 250 people. (Julie Zauzmer)
• The NFL plans to give free tickets to the Super Bowl to health-care workers who have received the vaccine. (Mark Maske)
• Tyson fired the seven managers who allegedly bet on how many of their pork plant workers would get infected. (Armus)
• The architect of Sweden’s failed herd immunity strategy, Anders Tegnell, is facing criticism from the country’s king. “The Swedish people have suffered enormously in difficult conditions,” Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf said. “I think we have failed. We have a large number who have died, and that is terrible.” (Armus)

“Hundreds of his allies — including some of his closest business associates and many high-profile criminals — are ramping up their efforts to squeeze out the final ounces of his presidential power,” CNN reports. “So inundated is Trump’s staff with requests for pardons or commutations that a spreadsheet has been created to keep track … Unlike practically any other matter related to the end of his presidency, his clemency powers are a topic Trump actually seems to enjoy discussing, one person in communication with the President said … Because Trump has shown little interest in using the Justice Department’s Pardon Attorney system for assessing requests for executive clemency, petitioners are approaching the White House directly, calling or emailing senior adviser Jared Kushner, chief of staff Mark Meadows or White House counsel Pat Cipollone — when they can’t get ahold of Trump himself.”

An eyebrow-raising paragraph: “In his moments of deepest denial, Trump has told some advisers that he will refuse to leave the White House on Inauguration Day, only to be walked down from that ledge. The possibility has alarmed some aides, but few believe Trump will actually follow through. ‘He’s throwing a [expletive] temper tantrum,’ an adviser said.”

• The Pentagon estimates taxpayers could save $2.6 billion if Biden halts construction of Trump’s wall. “U.S. Army Corps commanders met with members of the Biden transition team last week to discuss the border wall project,” Josh Dawsey and Nick Miroff report.
• A hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee became a forum for Republicans, led by its departing chairman Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), to re-air Trump’s baseless case against the election results in swing states as the president cheered them on from a distance. (Karoun Demirjian)
• Incoming acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen declined to say in an interview with Reuters whether he would name special counsels to investigate Trump’s claims of election fraud or Hunter Biden.
• Biden’s two finalists for attorney general are Judge Merrick Garland and Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.). A final decision is not expected until next week, and Biden may still take a second look at former acting attorney general Sally Yates or former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, per CNN.

“The first is Leslie T. Fenwick, dean emeritus of the Howard University School of Education and a professor of educational policy and leadership. The second is Miguel Cardona, who last year was named the top education official in Connecticut,” Laura Meckler and Valerie Strauss report. “Fenwick is a fierce critic of many attempts at education reform, including some touted by President Barack Obama’s Education Department. Cardona has promoted a return to school buildings during the pandemic, saying it is imperative to get children back to face-to-face learning. The situation remains fluid, and no decisions have been made. Three people familiar with the process said the transition committee is focusing its attention on these two candidates at the moment. Another person cautioned that others are in the mix.” 

• Biden is considering Wall Street executive Diana Taylor for a number of roles, including as administrator of the Small Business Administration. (NYT)
• Members of Congress typically receive 200,000 tickets to distribute among their constituents for inaugurations. This year, tickets will be for the member and one guest only. (Emily Davies)
• In the latest of a string of moves to put its stamp on federal workplace policies, the Trump administration is set to propose rules to make employees’ performance ratings a top consideration in deciding who stays or goes during layoffs. (Eric Yoder)
• The Trump administration relaxed a regulation restricting water flow from showerheads. The president has often complained that he wanted more water to be able to make his hair “perfect.” (AP)

“For decades, baseball historians and fans have accepted it as gospel that Willie Mays collected 3,283 hits in his career, Bob Feller threw the only Opening Day no-hitter in baseball history and the top three batting averages of all time belonged to Ty Cobb (.366), Rogers Hornsby (.358) and ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson (.356). To suggest otherwise was to provoke a bar fight — or at the very least a peaceful consulting of Google. But on Wednesday, in a monumental change for the sport, Major League Baseball announced it was elevating the 1920-48 Negro Leagues to major league status,” Dave Sheinin reports. The move “not only seeks to right a cosmic wrong that has shadowed the game for a century — the segregation of baseball that famously ended when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947 — but also forces a wholesale recalibration of its record book. … The move was the result of years of study by researchers from the Seamheads Negro League Database — who pored over newspaper clippings, scorebooks and other historical records to compile statistics — as well as research by the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Mo., and other entities.” 

• Thomas Boswell: “Baseball’s record book is beloved, but not sacred. Including Negro leaguers is long overdue.”
• Barry Svrluga: “Baseball is finally addressing its racist past, but its work can’t end there.”

“Ten states led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google on Wednesday, alleging the tech giant illegally sought to suppress competition and reap massive profits from targeted advertisements placed across the Web,” Tony Romm reports. “The lawsuit — filed in a Texas federal court and backed exclusively by Republicans — strikes at the heart of Google’s lucrative business in connecting those who seek to buy online ads with the websites that sell them. Paxton and his GOP allies contend that Google relied on a mix of improper tactics to force its ad tools on publishers and solidify its pole position as a ‘middleman’ in the invisible transactions that power much of the Web. Online advertising is expected to generate $42 billion in revenue this year for Google, which captures a third of all digital ad spending … 

“Paxton and his peers also faulted Google for failing to protect the privacy of millions of Web users and engaging in allegedly improper dealings with one of its chief rivals, Facebook. In one heavily redacted portion of the complaint, state officials said that Google in 2015 signed an agreement with Facebook that granted Google ‘access to millions of Americans’ end-to-end encrypted WhatsApp messages, photos, videos and audio files.’ … Google immediately sought to rebut Paxton’s case as ‘meritless.'” 

• Facebook reversed its postelection algorithm, which boosted news from authoritative sources. (NYT)
• A hacker apparently got into Trump’s Twitter account in October by guessing the password: “maga2020!” The White House and Twitter have insisted there was no evidence of such a hack, but prosecutors in the Netherlands confirmed details in court. (Vox)

“To his Russian admirers, Timur Olevskiy is a kind of latter-day Walter Cronkite or Mike Wallace, a trusted journalist and fearless muckraker. In a country where the press is suppressed and many prying reporters have been killed, Olevskiy has been a rare independent voice, operating outside state controls as a star host for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the U.S. government-funded international news agency affiliated with Voice of America,” Paul Farhi reports. “So people in Moscow were stunned when Radio Free Europe fired Olevskiy earlier this month. The organization cited his unauthorized participation in an online discussion about Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who has blamed state forces linked to President Vladimir Putin for his near-fatal poisoning by a nerve agent this year. Olevskiy’s firing has turned into a mini-propaganda coup for the Kremlin, which has used it to portray Radio Free Europe as hypocritical in its claims about free speech.”

“At his annual marathon news conference Thursday, Putin was asked by famous musician-turned-journalist Sergei Shnurov why Russian hackers didn’t help Trump get reelected,” Isabelle Khurshudyan reports. “Putin angrily called the question a ‘provocation.’ … He then took it a step further and answered a question on recent Russian media investigations into the financial activities of Putin’s family and entourage by alleging U.S. interference in Russia’s domestic affairs. ‘That’s the State Department and U.S. security services; they are the real authors. Anyway, this has clearly been done on their orders. This is absolutely obvious,’ Putin said, without offering evidence. … 

“Then he addressed Navalny’s poisoning for the first time since the investigative website Bellingcat released a joint investigation on Monday detailing how a team of Russian state security officers trailed Navalny for years, including on the trip to Siberia on which he was poisoned in August. ‘This is not an investigation. This is an attempt to legitimize the materials provided by American intelligence officers,’ Putin said. Referring to Navalny as ‘the patient at the Berlin clinic,’ he said he ‘is actually supported by U.S. intelligence. Of course he’s followed by other intelligence services.’ … 

“In response to a query about if Trump might be offered asylum in Russia, Putin replied that, ‘I don’t think that there is any need for Mr. Trump to come and seek asylum in Russia because he has the support of 50 percent of the American population.’”

• Trump’s former homeland security adviser, Tom Bossert, says the magnitude of the “ongoing” Russian cyberattack on U.S. agencies is “hard to overstate,” warning that it will take years to know for certain which networks the Russians control and which they merely occupy. “We are sick, distracted, and now under attack,” Bossert writes in an NYT op-ed.
• The Treasury Department formally accused Switzerland and Vietnam of manipulating their currencies in ways that harmed U.S. economic interests, as Trump fired what could be one of the final shots in his global trade war. (David Lynch)
• Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met for two hours with Taliban negotiators in the Persian Gulf, during which he urged a reduction of violence across Afghanistan. (AP)
• China’s moon mission returned to Earth bearing 4.4 pounds of lunar rock and soil. (Gerry Shih)
• Paris’s city hall was fined for employing too many women in senior positions, a decision mocked as absurd by Mayor Anne Hidalgo. The fine of €90,000 was demanded by France’s public service ministry on the grounds that the city hall broke national rules on gender parity. “I am happy to announce that we have been fined,” Hidalgo said. (Guardian)

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie (R), one of the few in Trump’s inner circle to issue a mea culpa for behaving recklessly before getting covid, encouraged people to wear masks:

The Associated Press accidentally referred to Joe Biden as “José” in a story about the Mexican president:

Chicago’s O’Hare airport changed its Twitter bio after Transportation Secretary nominee Pete Buttigieg said at an event with Biden that he proposed to his husband, Chasten, at Gate B5:

Stephen Colbert analyzed messages recently sent to McConnell: 

Trevor Noah explored other places Trump could live since his neighbors don’t want him at Mar-a-Lago:

Sam Bee explained how Georgia ended up on everyone’s minds: