Top CEOs Call for 'Major' Coronavirus Stimulus

By Yuval Rosenberg

Top CEOs Call for 'Major' Coronavirus Stimulus

The CEOs of some of the country’s largest companies say the
outlook for their businesses has improved somewhat compared to last
quarter, but that the government must provide “further major
support” for what remains a fragile economic recovery, according to
a new survey.

The quarterly survey by the Business Roundtable, a non-profit
association of chief executives of major companies, found that 24%
of CEOs said that business conditions either didn’t suffer, have
recovered or will likely recover by the end of the year. Another
40% said they expect conditions to bounce back next year, while 36%
said it will take until 2022 or later for a full recovery.

The CEO group surveyed 149 members from August 31 to September
16. It said its index measuring CEOs' business outlooks climbed
nearly 30 points to 64, the first increase in nine quarters, but
remains well below the historical average of 81.7 dating back to
2002. The business leader projected that the economy would shrink
by 2.4% for the year, a 1.4 percentage point increase from last
quarter’s estimate.

“The outlook of Business Roundtable CEOs has improved, due in
part to actions taken by policymakers earlier this year to help
Americans,” Joshua Bolten, Business Roundtable’s president
and CEO, said in a statement accompanying the survey
results. “But further major support from the federal
government is necessary to prevent economic recovery from being
derailed. Failure to act, along with the lack of comprehensive and
coordinated efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19, would impose
long term damage on the U.S. economy, hurting most the workers and
small businesses least able to absorb the blow.”

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, who also serves as the Business
Roundtable’s chairman, also called on lawmakers to restart talks on
another coronavirus relief bill. “Business Roundtable urges the
administration and Congress to come back to the negotiating table
and pass more legislation to further ease the economic challenges
American workers, small businesses and suppliers are experiencing,”
he said.

Trump Admin Has Shifted Billions Toward Its Vaccine Push:
Report

The Trump administration has said that Operation Warp Speed, its
push to develop a Covid-19 vaccine with unprecedented speed, is a

$10 billion program funded by Congress, which also
provided “other flexible funding.” But Bloomberg News reports that
the administration has shifted billions of dollars allocated to
public-health programs toward the vaccine effort, growing its
budget to as large as $18 billion. A review of public records shows
that government deals with private-sector partners under the
program total almost $13 billion, according to Bloomberg.

John Tozzi, Riley Griffin and Shira Stein
report:

“One of the biggest transfers came in August, with $6 billion
pulled from $16.7 billion that had been allocated to the U.S.
Strategic National Stockpile, which buys, holds and distributes
crucial medical supplies in times of national crisis. The money had
originally been meant to replenish stocks of medical protective
gear, ventilators, and Covid-19 testing supplies, all of which have
experienced shortages at points during the pandemic.
“The transfer, disclosed in a footnote buried on page 135 of a
Government
Accountability Office report this month about the U.S.
response to the pandemic, came after Health and Human Services
officials said that they had been unable to spend about $1 billion
of the money allocated for the stockpile.”

The transfers are reportedly legal but raise questions
about transparency and the ultimate effectiveness of the
administration’s pandemic response. The GAO report cited by
Bloomberg reportedly also noted that shortages of PPE supplies
remain.

House Passes Bill to Avert Shutdown

The shutdown threat disappeared as quickly as it arrived.

In a 359-to-57 vote Tuesday night, the House approved a
continuing resolution to extend current funding levels through
December 11 after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and the White House
reached a deal to remove the threat of a government shutdown when
the fiscal year ends on September 30.

Earlier talks on the stopgap spending deal came crashing down
late last week, raising the possibility of a last-minute funding
crisis, but Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin were able
to revive the negotiations and come to terms on Tuesday.

The House bill provides additional funding sought by negotiators
from both sides of the aisle, including $8 billion for children’s
nutrition programs and $21 billion to replenish the Commodity
Credit Corporation, a Depression-era income assistance program that
the Trump administration has used to bail out farmers hurt by the
president’s trade policies. The resolution also includes new
guidelines that would prevent oil companies from benefiting from
CCC funding.

What’s next: The bill will advance to the Senate.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has not yet commented
publicly on the bill, but is expected to bring it up for a vote
this week, and President Trump is expected to sign it soon
after.

Senate may head home: If the bill is
signed into law by the end of the week, senators may start their
fall recess early. “My guess is if we wrap up the CR [continuing
resolution] then yeah we probably should be done for at least a
while,” Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-SD)
said Wednesday, adding that lawmakers would return
to town if needed to vote on a coronavirus relief bill or a new
Supreme Court justice.

GAO Calls for Use of Fiscal Rules and Targets

The Government Accountability Office on Wednesday released a new
analysis of the nation’s fiscal health, and the diagnosis is not
good.

“Our nation faces serious challenges at a time when the federal
government is highly leveraged in debt by historical norms,” the
report says. “The imbalance between revenue and spending built into
current law and policy have placed the nation on an unsustainable
long-term fiscal path.”

To get a better handle on the fiscal situation, GAO recommends
that lawmakers develop a long-term fiscal plan that relies on rules
and targets to limit deficits now and in the future. The agency’s
48-page report lays out a variety of options lawmakers could
deploy, ranging from clearly defined limits on revenues and
spending to targets for the size of the annual deficit. The report
also examines how such tools have performed in other countries,
including Germany and the Netherlands.

“No process can force choices that policymakers are unwilling to
make,” the report says. “However, agreement on a fiscal goal can
assist in framing the difficult choices that must then be made in
designing the mix of fiscal rules and targets adopted.”

Read the full GAO
report here.

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