150 Top Business Leaders Back Biden's Covid Plan

By Yuval Rosenberg

More Than 150 Top Business Leaders Back Biden's Covid Rescue
Plan in Letter to Lawmakers

As Democrats press ahead with plans to pass a $1.9 trillion
Covid relief package by a process that would bypass the need for
Republican support, more than 150 CEOs of large American companies
are urging bipartisan backing for the plan.

The latest: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD)
announced Tuesday night that Democrats plan to pass their relief
bill through the lower chamber on Friday. “The American people
strongly support this bill, and we are moving swiftly to see it
enacted into law,” he said
on Twitter. On the Senate side, lawmakers are awaiting a ruling
from the parliamentarian,
Elizabeth MacDonough, as to whether an increase in
the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour can be included in the
package under rules governing the special budget reconciliation
process being used. A ruling is reportedly expected as early as
Wednesday evening.

CEOs back Biden’s plan: More than 150 top executives of
large companies across a number of industries voiced support for
the $1.9 trillion rescue package in a letter to lawmakers
Wednesday. "Previous federal relief measures have been essential,
but more must be done to put the country on a trajectory for a
strong, durable recovery," the executives said in the letter first
reported by
CNN. "Congress should act swiftly and on a
bipartisan basis to authorize a stimulus and relief package along
the lines of the Biden-Harris administration's proposed American
Rescue Plan."

The most notable signatories include some heavyweights from the
worlds of finance and technology: Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon,
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Morgan Stanley’s James Gorman, Google’s
Sundar Pichai and Blackstone’s Steve Schwarzman, who CNBC notes had
previously backed former President Donald Trump. The CEOs of
AT&T, Comcast, Intel, Mastercard, Visa and Well Fargo were also
among those signing, as were the chief executives of American
Airlines, JetBlue and United Airlines.

The Business Roundtable, a CEO group, wrote a separate
letter on Tuesday supporting “the swift enactment
of additional COVID-19 rescue legislation” focused on public health
needs and targeted aid to individuals and small businesses, but
urging lawmakers to set aside the minimum wage increase for future
legislation.

American public also supports the Biden
plan: A new Politico/Morning Consult poll adds to
the number of surveys showing that a sizable majority of Americans,
including Republicans, say they favor the Biden rescue package. The
poll finds that 76% say they support the legislation, including 52%
who “strongly” support it. Just 17% say they oppose it. More than
seven in 10 independents and some 60% of Republicans say they back
the Biden plan. (Other polls have found
less than majority support among
Republicans.)

Why it matters: The letter
from top business leaders gives Biden and Democrats more ammunition
as they argue that their relief package is appropriately sized to
meet the Covid crisis. Republicans have criticized the size and
specifics of the Democratic bill, and it appears than no GOP
lawmakers will support the plan.

Tanden Votes Postponed in Latest Sign of Trouble for Biden’s
Budget Nominee

Two Senate committees abruptly delayed planned votes Wednesday
on Neera Tanden’s imperiled nomination to head the Office of
Management and Budget, underscoring the difficulty President
Biden’s pick faces in being confirmed.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
and the Senate Budget Committee both postponed scheduled votes on
Tanden’s nomination. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) announced last week he
would vote against Tanden, and a number of centrist Republicans
have also said they will not back her, citing her history of mean
partisan tweets, leaving it unclear if she can get the 50 votes
required for confirmation.

“We are postponing the business meeting because members need
more time to consider the nominee,” a Democratic aide on the
Homeland Security committee
said. “The president deserves to have a team in
place that he wants, and we’re going to work with our members to
figure out the best path forward."

The White House is still publicly backing Tanden.

"As the president repeated yesterday, we're fighting for her
nomination and she and our team remain in close contact and close
touch with senators and key constituency groups," White House Press
Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at her press briefing. “There’s
one nominee to lead the budget department, her name is Neera
Tanden, and that’s who we’re continuing to fight for.”

White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, a friend of Tanden's,
reportedly has been working the phones trying to find a Republican
to back Tanden, without success.

The White House has reportedly also started considering other
candidates for the job, with some lawmakers
pushing for
Shalanda Young, the former staff director for the
House Appropriations Committee who Biden nominated last month to be
deputy director of the budget office.

The bottom line: “[T]he political
reality is that the votes to push her through an evenly divided
Senate do not appear to exist,” CNN
reports. “Tanden stands a chance if she wins the
support of moderate Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, but it is far from clear
that will happen.”

Fed Chair: Could Take Years to Hit Inflation Target

In his second day of testimony before Congress this week,
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told lawmakers that he is not
worried about a persistent rise in inflation anytime soon.

“We live in a time where there is significant disinflationary
pressures around the world and where essentially all major advanced
economy’s central banks have struggled to get to 2%,” Powell told
the House Financial Services Committee Wednesday.

Significant slack in the labor market plays a key role in the
dynamic, Powell said, explaining that “our policy is accommodative
because unemployment is high and the labor market is far from
maximum employment.”

While some asset prices have risen recently, including those for
cars and some types of technology, the increases are likely
temporary, Powell said. “That doesn’t necessarily lead to inflation
because inflation is a process that repeats itself year over year
over year,” he told the committee.

If short-term inflation does spike in the spring as the service
economy reopens and consumers start spending down their ample
savings, Powell assured lawmakers that the Fed has “the tools to
deal with it.”

A goal, not a worry: Powell reiterated that the Fed’s
goal is to push inflation up to its 2% target range, something the
central bank has been unable to do for decades. “I’m confident that
we can and that we will, and we are committed to using our tools to
achieving that,” he said. “We believe we can do it, we believe we
will do it.”

A team effort: Other Fed leaders expressed dovish stances
on inflation Wednesday. Fed Vice Chair Richard Clarida
told the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia
that while the outlook is improving, “it will take some time for
economic activity and employment to return to levels that prevailed
at the business cycle peak reached last February.” In the meantime,
the Fed will maintain policies that are intended to push inflation
“above 2 percent for some time," Clarida said.

Speaking to an economics class at Harvard University, Fed
Governor Lael Brainard
said that “the economy remains far from our goals
in terms of both employment and inflation, and it will take some
time to achieve substantial further progress,” which would likely
depend upon widespread vaccination distribution. “Inflation remains
very low, and although various measures of inflation expectations
have picked up recently, they remain within their recent historical
ranges,” she said. “I will carefully monitor inflation
expectations, it will be important to see a sustained improvement
in actual inflation to meet our average inflation goal,” she
added.

Why it matters: The Fed chief
once again is providing Democrats with a powerful
defense against charges that their proposed $1.9 trillion Covid-19
relief bill will spark a destructive increase in
inflation.

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