Trump's Dismal Polling on Coronavirus Response

By Yuval Rosenberg

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.

Happy tax day, we guess. Send your
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