Trump's Dismal Polling on Coronavirus Response

Wednesday, July 15, 2020

Poll of the Day: 62% Say Trump Is Hurting Coronavirus Response

Approval of President Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic has fallen to its lowest level since March, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll. A sizeable majority of registered voters, 62%, say the president is hurting efforts to combat the virus, the poll finds. Just 31% say that Trump is helping in the fight against the virus, and 35% approve of the way he is handling the response to the pandemic.

Two-thirds of voters, 67%, say they do not trust the information the president is providing about the coronavirus.

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll similarly finds that 37% of voters approve of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak and 59% disapprove.

On the economy: Approval of Trump’s handling of the economy has also slipped to 44%, down from 52% in June. "Trump's strongest card, the economy, shredded by a killer virus, may have left the president with no go-to issue or trait to stave off defeat... not leadership, not empathy, not foreign policy, and certainly not his handling of COVID-19," said Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy. The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, by contrast, finds approval of Trump’s handling of the economy at 54%, a record high in that survey.

Overall approval falling: The Quinnipiac poll finds that 36% of voters approve of Trump’s overall job performance, a six-point drop since last month, while 60% disapprove. Trump’s net approval in the poll is his worst since August 2017. The poll has Joe Biden with a 15-point lead over Trump, 52% to 37%, compared to a 49%-41% edge last month. The Wall Street Journal/NBC poll put Trump’s overall approval at 42%, with 56% disapproving, his worst rating since April 2018.

The Quinnipiac survey of 1,273 self-identified registered voters was conducted from July 9-13 and has a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points. The WSJ/NBC poll of 900 registered voters was conducted July 9–12 and has a margin of error of 3.27 points.

Bernanke Urges Congress to Provide Billions More for States

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is urging Congress to deliver hundreds of billions of dollars in additional aid to states whose budgets have been ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic, warning that a federal pivot to austerity combined with state budget and job cuts could otherwise prolong the downturn much as they did a decade ago.

"Congress must act decisively — and it must act in ways that don’t repeat mistakes of the recent past, during the Great Recession," Bernanke, who’s now a distinguished fellow in residence at the Brookings Institution — and a member of New Jersey’s Restart and Recovery Commission — writes in a New York Times op-ed.

Bernanke says that the $150 billion provided to state and local governments in the CARES Act in March won’t be enough:

"States and localities are in desperate need of additional federal intervention before the bulk of the CARES Act funding expires this summer. Budget gaps like the one in New Jersey cannot be closed by austerity alone. Multiply New Jersey’s problems to reflect the experiences of 50 state governments and thousands of local governments and the result, without more help from Congress, could be a significantly worse and protracted recession. …

"This new aid package must be significantly larger and provide not only assistance for state and local governments but also continued support for the unemployed, investments in public health and aid as needed to stabilize aggregate demand and restore full employment."

Read the full piece at The New York Times.

How Big Should the Next Coronavirus Bill Be?

The coronavirus crisis will likely depress the economy for years to come, reducing output by trillions of dollars. According to a new analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, under current law the output gap — defined as the difference between actual output and the potential output produced by an economy firing on all cylinders — will total $750 billion over the next six months, and $2 trillion over the next two years.

The next stimulus package can help close that gap, CRFB says, and policymakers should consider how effective their spending plans would be with respect to boosting output. Much depends on the multiplier effect of different kinds of spending, with some outlays having a more powerful effect on output than others. A dollar of spending on unemployment benefits, for example, might produce as much as $1.90 in economic activity, while a dollar of spending on aid to states might produce as little as 40 cents.

Using estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, CRFB runs through various scenarios showing how much federal spending would be required to close the output given different multiplier effects.

"For example, with a fiscal multiplier of 1.5 it would take $500 billion to close to output gap over the next six months, $850 billion to close it over the next year, and $1.4 trillion over two years," CRFB says. "In contrast, with a 0.5 multiplier, it would take $1.5 trillion of funding to close the output gap over the next six months, $2.5 trillion to close it over the next year, and $4 trillion to close it over the next two years."

Alternatively, policymakers could target personal incomes rather than overall economic output. The cost of making up for lost incomes via direct transfers would come to about $200 billion over six months and $1.4 trillion over two years, CRFB says.

Schumer Pushes for Elimination of SALT Deduction Limit

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Tuesday called on Republicans to eliminate the cap on deductibility of state and local taxes (SALT) as part of the next coronavirus relief package.

The HEROES Act, passed by the House in May, would repeal the cap for 2020 and 2021. That legislation stands no chance of advancing in the Republican-controlled Senate, but Schumer said that keeping the SALT provision from that bill is one of the top priorities for Senate Democrats. "We need to cushion the blow of this virus," Schumer said Tuesday, according to New York’s Newsday. "The SALT cap hurts people affected by the virus. It hurts so many of the metropolitan areas like New York and so we want to change it and we will."

Repealing the $10,000 cap, imposed as part of the 2017 Republican tax law, would overwhelmingly benefit high-income taxpayers in high-tax states like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and California. In a statement to Newsday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said eliminating the cap "would change tax law to provide massively expensive gifts to wealthy people in high-tax blue states." Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Tuesday called on Republicans to eliminate the cap on deductibility of state and local taxes (SALT) as part of the next coronavirus relief package.

The HEROES Act, passed by the House in May, would repeal the cap for 2020 and 2021. That legislation stands no chance of advancing in the Republican-controlled Senate, but Schumer said that keeping the SALT provision from that bill is one of the top priorities for Senate Democrats. "We need to cushion the blow of this virus," Schumer said Tuesday, according to New York’s Newsday. "The SALT cap hurts people affected by the virus. It hurts so many of the metropolitan areas like New York and so we want to change it and we will."

Repealing the $10,000 cap, imposed as part of the 2017 Republican tax law, would overwhelmingly benefit high-income taxpayers in high-tax states like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and California. In a statement to Newsday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said eliminating the cap "would change tax law to provide massively expensive gifts to wealthy people in high-tax blue states."

Quote of the Day

"Every governor is out there on his or her own working to build the same programs that are being built next door. The federal government’s efforts range from a little bit of backup to not even being present."

– Reed Schuler, a senior advisor to Democratic Washington Gov. Jay Inslee in a Politico piece detailing how the surge in Covid-19 cases "is intensifying calls from politicians and public health experts across the country for a set of national strategies to combat the virus."

Number of the Day: $15 Billion

Apple scored a huge win Wednesday when the European General Court ruled that the tech giant does not have to pay 13 billion euros (nearly $15 billion) in back taxes to Ireland. Apple funnels billions in global profits to the small European nation, which serves as a tax haven of sorts for a number of international firms. The ruling, which both Apple and Ireland had sought, denies an effort by the European Commission to force Ireland to collect the taxes, based on the claim that the country’s low taxes amount to illegal state aid.

Bloomberg opinion columnist Alex Webb says the ruling demonstrates the need for a comprehensive international tax system. "There’s clearly something wrong when a government rejects the opportunity to levy 13 billion euros ($14.9 billion) in corporate taxes and an international court says it is right to do so," Webb writes.

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Trump's Dismal Polling on Coronavirus Response