Trump Wants $1 Trillion for Infrastructure

By Yuval Rosenberg

Trump Wants a $1 Trillion Infrastructure Plan. He’ll Have to
Convince His Own Party.

Senate Republicans are pushing back against the Trump
administration’s still-developing plans for a $1 trillion
infrastructure package designed to boost the coronavirus-ravaged
economy — and the president’s reelection chances.

A draft of the plan is being prepared by the Department of
Transportation, Bloomberg
reported, and it focuses on typical infrastructure
projects such as road and bridge construction over a 10-year
period, though it also includes money for rural broadband and
updated wireless infrastructure.

Conservative lawmakers are already saying the plan will be
a tough sell for the administration, at least in the Senate. "I
think that’s a very heavy lift," Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), who sits
on the Finance Committee,
told The Hill.

The big problem. The objection to the plan is
simple: it’s expensive, and the federal government is already
spending trillions of deficit-funded dollars to address the
coronavirus. "Nothing we’re doing right now is fiscally
responsible," said Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY). "I’m much more inclined
to stick to solving the virus problem."

In April, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
rejected the idea of including infrastructure projects in the
coronavirus relief bills then under discussion. "Infrastructure is
unrelated to the coronavirus pandemic that we’re all experiencing
and trying to figure out how to go forward," he said at the
time.

McConnell is reportedly more focused on the five-year
reauthorization of the Highway Trust Fund, a Senate version of
which is expected to cost $287 billion — a far smaller sum than the
Trump infrastructure plan, but a problem nevertheless in an
increasingly deficit-focused upper chamber. Senate Finance
Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said he is still looking
for ways to pay for $93 billion of the highway bill.

Room to maneuver? Still, there are some Republicans
who are open to an infrastructure package. Sen. Lisa Murkowski
(R-AK) said she would like to work with the House, which is
currently marking up a $500 billion package focused on surface
transportation, to pass a bill that also addresses water
infrastructure and new energy technologies. Senate Appropriations
Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-AL) has also said he is
interested in a major infrastructure bill, though he has not
discussed any details with the administration.

Democrats, however, may be wary of working with a White
House that has repeatedly talked up infrastructure spending but
done little to see a plan through. As one Democrat told the

Financial Times, "Infrastructure has been like
Lucy pulling away the football from Charlie Brown. Every single
time he thinks ‘this time it’s real.’"

Poll: Voters Don’t Want Unemployment Benefits Cut

With Congress likely heading for a fight over an extension of
enhanced unemployment benefits, voters in a
new poll overwhelmingly say they don’t want those
payments to be cut.

The survey by Politico and Morning Consult found that four
in 10 registered voters say the government should increase
unemployment benefits to workers who lost their jobs due to the
coronavirus pandemic. Another 35% said jobless benefits should stay
the same. Just 13% said the payments should be cut.

The poll of 1,987 registered voters was conducted June
12-14 and has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

Trump administration officials and leading Republican
lawmakers have said that the current benefits, including a $600
weekly boost provided as part of emergency coronavirus relief
legislation, is a problem since it creates a disincentive for
workers to go back to their jobs. Democrats have proposed extending
the $600 increase, set to expire at the end of July, by six
months.

1.5 Million Public Sector Employees Have Been Laid Off or
Furloughed

State and local governments have shed about 1.5 million jobs since
March, bringing employment in the sector to its lowest level since
2001, according to a
review of Labor Department data by the Pew
Charitable Trusts. Most of the job losses have been furloughs or
temporary layoffs, with public education accounting for about
two-thirds of the reductions.

As the coronavirus pandemic hit the economy in March,
local "governments issued hiring freezes, furloughed staff, or laid
off seasonal employees," Pew says. "School districts made
significant cuts to noninstructional hourly staff, such as bus
drivers and maintenance workers. Most of the hits to school
payrolls so far resulted from closures, but any future downsizing
would be driven primarily by budget cuts in the wake of the
recession ..."

While many state and local officials view the job cuts
as temporary, much depends on how schools reopen in the fall — and
how quickly tax revenues return to pre-pandemic levels. On Monday,
the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think
tank, released its
latest estimates for state revenue losses, which
indicate that state and local governments face enormous losses in
revenue that could last for many months.

CBPP estimates that states alone will see a $615 billion
shortfall in revenues across three fiscal years from 2020 to 2022 —
a much larger loss than in the previous two recessions. The deepest
shortfall will occur in the 2021 fiscal year, which begins on July
1 in many states.

"The projected shortfall for the upcoming fiscal year
(2021) is much deeper than the shortfalls faced in any year of the
Great Recession," CBPP said. "These figures underscore the
continued urgency of the President and Congress enacting
substantially more fiscal relief and maintaining it for as long as
economic conditions warrant."

Fiscal Flashes

Court strikes down Trump rule requiring drug prices
in TV ads: A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the Trump
administration lacks the legal authority to force drugmakers to
disclose their prices in television ads. The unanimous decision by
a three-judge panel — the latest in a series of setbacks for the
administration’s blueprint to lower prescription drug prices —
"denies Trump an easy-to-understand win on a major reelection
priority for the White House," Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar of the
Associated Press writes. (Associated
Press)

Fed chief talks up fiscal support: Federal Reserve Chair
Jerome Powell urged lawmakers Wednesday to move slowly and
carefully as they considers winding down programs that are
supporting individuals and businesses during the coronavirus
pandemic. "I would think that it would be a concern if Congress
were to pull back from the support that it’s providing too
quickly," Powell told the House Financial Services Committee. "I do
think it would be appropriate to think about continuing support for
people who are newly out of work and for smaller businesses who are
struggling," he added. "The economy is just now beginning to
recover. It’s a critical phase and I think that support would be
well-placed at this time." (Bloomberg)

SBA and Treasury reduce paperwork for PPP loan forgiveness:
"The Small Business Administration and the Treasury Department
released a three-page "EZ"
loan forgiveness form that certain borrowers from
the so-called Paycheck Protection Program would be able to use. The
administration said it requires fewer calculations and less
documentation than the full application. The initial version of the
forgiveness form was 11 pages." (Politico)

It’s not just the virus keeping people from going to
the doctor: "While hospitals and doctors across
the country say many patients are still shunning their services out
of fear of contagion — especially with
new cases spiking — Americans who lost their jobs
or have a significant drop in income during the pandemic are now
citing costs as the overriding reason they do not seek the health
care they need," The New York Times’s Reed Abelson reports.
(New
York Times)

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