New Record High for Vaccine Shots

By Michael Rainey

Record High for Daily Vaccine Doses

The U.S. set a record Friday for the number of vaccine shots in
a single day, with 3.4 million doses delivered, according to the
White House.

The big day for vaccinations could make it a bit easier for
President Joe Biden to reach his new target of 200 million doses in
his first 100 days. At the current 7-day average rate of 2.6
million shots per day, the U.S. should hit the target before April
30, the 100-day anniversary of Biden’s swearing in.

Democrats Push Back Against Postal Plan

A group of House Democrats introduced a bill Friday that would
block some of the provisions in Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s
controversial
10-year plan for the U.S. Postal Service.

The bill – called the Delivering Envelopes Judiciously On-time
Year-round Act, or DEJOY Act – would maintain current guidelines
and expectations for mail delivery and prohibit the service from
increasing the expected delivery window.

According to current standards, first-class mail is expected to
be delivered within three days. Among the many changes outlined in
his proposal, Postmaster DeJoy wants to extend that delivery window
to as many as five days, though with the majority of mail still
delivered within the three-day timeframe.

“This particular change, going from 100 percent of first-class
mail being delivered one to three days to only 70 percent, would be
a nonstarter, in my opinion, with the American people,” Rep. Raja
Krishnamoorthi (D-IL)
told The Washington Post. Krishnamoorthi
introduced the DEJOY Act with six co-sponsors, all Democrats.

In response, a spokesperson for the USPS said the agency
did not support maintaining “unachievable service
standards.”

IRS Says Masks, Sanitizer Are
Tax-Deductible

The IRS
announced Friday that outlays for personal
protective equipment used to prevent the spread of Covid-19 –
including masks, hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes – can be
deducted as medical expenses.

The deduction covers materials purchased starting January 1,
2020, the IRS said. The costs should be treated like other medical
expenses, and so cannot exceed 7.5% of income or be reimbursable by
health insurance.

The IRS also said that protective equipment could be purchased
with funds in flexible spending plans and medical savings accounts.
Those costs would not be tax-deductible, though, since those
accounts are typically funded with pre-tax dollars.

And just a reminder: Last month, the IRS delayed the deadline
for 2020 federal income taxes to May 17, 2021.

Biden’s Big Spending Plans Pose a Challenge for
Budget Watchdog

The Congressional Budget Office plays a key role in fiscal
policy debates in Washington, evaluating various policies for how
they will affect public finances. But as Bloomberg’s Katia
Dmitrieva
reports Friday, the agency is facing a conundrum
with President Joe Biden’s calls for massive new spending on a
variety of issues, from Covid relief to infrastructure
investment.

Since its founding in 1975, the CBO frequently acts as a brake
on new programs, consistently taking the position that excessive
public debt is harmful to the economy and often backing up
conservative calls for limits on spending. The problem is that some
of its key forecasts have proven to be wildly off the mark, raising
questions about the reliability of its projections and, more
broadly, the validity of its hawkish stance on government spending
and debt.

One of the most notable misses for the CBO has been interest
rates, which the agency has repeatedly overestimated. High interest
rates, driven upward by growing debt, are an important part of why
the CBO says public debt is so harmful. Rates inevitably rise with
increased debt, according to CBO economic models, because federal
sending is “crowding out” private investment, increasing
competition for precious capital. Those higher interest rates make
debt all that more expensive, threatening to consume a larger and
larger portion of the budget.

The problem is that interest rates have pretty much done the
opposite of what CBO has predicted, falling even as public debt
grows. As a result, the cost of servicing the national debt has
been on a downward trend for decades, despite increasing
substantially in size.

That’s one reason so many Democratic lawmakers and policy
experts have become less concerned about the increasing reliance on
deficit spending in Washington. “These stories about debt don’t
make sense any more, and now people actually recognize that and
have become skeptical,” J.W. Mason, an economist at the City
University of New York, told Politico.

The agency has taken notice. “We know that interest rates have
remained lower than previously expected, even as deficits have
remained wide and the debt level has picked up -- and that’s
important news,” Phillip Swagel, CBO’s director, told
Bloomberg.

But that hasn’t prevented conservatives opposed to new social
programs from demanding that the CBO step up and more forcefully
sound an alarm on spending. Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah
reintroduced a bill last week that would force CBO to make public
all of its data and models, an effort inspired by what the
conservative lawmaker sees as failures at the agency that have
resulted in overly favorable projections for Democratic policies,
including on issues like Obamacare enrollment.

That leaves the CBO at something of a crossroads, recognizing
that the debt has been more manageable than it once claimed while
maintaining its conviction that rising debt and interest costs
represent a threat that could at some point damage the economy.

The CBO director said that amid all the back and forth over the
threat or lack thereof of increased debt, critics sometimes lose
sight of the agency’s role. “Should there be more spending or less
spending? What’s the proper role for the government in society?
Those are not issues for the CBO to decide,” Swagel said.

Solid Support for Biden’s Covid Relief
Bill

A solid majority of Americans support the $1.9 trillion
coronavirus relief bill President Joe Biden signed into law earlier
this month, Gallup
reported Friday.

In a poll conducted between March 15 and March 21, 63% of
respondents said they approve of the American Rescue Plan Act. Not
surprisingly for a bill that passed with no Republican votes in
Congress, there were significant differences in opinion according
to political party, with 97% of Democratic respondents expressing
approval, but only 18% of Republicans doing the same. Among the
non-aligned, 58% of independents said they approved.

Gallup noted that while a majority clearly support the latest
relief effort, previous legislation providing assistance in
response to the coronavirus crisis had higher levels of approval.
The Cares Act, which then-President Donald Trump signed into law at
the beginning of the pandemic and provided $2.2 trillion in aid,
was backed by 77% of poll respondents. Clear majorities of both
parties supported the bill, including 70% of Democrats and 79% of
Republicans.

Different bill, different circumstances: Both the
American Rescue Plan Act and the Cares Act represented
unprecedented responses to the pandemic, Gallup noted. But a year
ago, the threat was new and the country was pulling together to do
whatever it takes to combat the virus. Now, the situation has
changed. “Today's legislation comes as the country is in the
recovery phase, allowing for more partisan disagreement over the
best solutions, and with Democrats in charge of the legislative and
executive branches, making it harder to earn GOP buy-in,” the
polling group concluded.

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