OKLAHOMA CITY – Although support in Congress for another federal stimulus package is tepid at best, the possibility of another large infusion of federal aid is not entirely improbable.
2020 will be remembered in the U.S. as the year of an unprecedented economic catastrophe triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Most states, including Oklahoma, shut down “non- essential” businesses to impede the spread of the disease. As a direct result, millions of Americans – including more than half a million Oklahomans so far – lost their jobs.
As the new year dawned, “Nobody knew anything about this disease,” U.S. Rep. Tom Cole said during a recent teleconference. “We were not officially notified” by the World Health Organization “until New Year’s Eve,” the Moore Republican said.
And as late as Jan. 14 WHO and the Chinese government “were saying there was no evidence of person-to-person transmission” of the coronavirus.
Five months later, by June 6, more than 1.9 million Americans had been infected with COVID-19 and 109,802 Americans, including 347 Oklahomans, had died from the disease – which one conservative radio commentator claimed was no worse than the common cold.
“You’re more likely to die in a pandemic than in a terrorist attack,” Cole said.
The U.S. has made “extraordinary strides” on testing for COVID-19, he said. “There are a variety of tests” for the disease. In addition, medical researchers are testing “70 different vaccine lines” in hopes of finding a cure for the coronavirus, said Cole, the ranking member of the House subcommittee that oversees the National Institutes of Health.
4 AID BILLS PASSED WITHIN 8 WEEKS
Although Congress is typically slow to react, “Within eight weeks we passed four bills to deal with” the pandemic, and did so in a bipartisan fashion, Cole noted. “There was a lot of partisan bargaining, a couple of sharp elbows, but both houses voted overwhelmingly on the same side on each of these four bills.”
Those were the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, the Families First Coronavirus Act, the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act, and the centerpiece $2.3 trillion CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act, which was signed into law on March 27.
“CARES was the most complex, largest single appropriation bill in U.S. history,” Cole related.
In comparison, Congress normally appropriates roughly $1.3 trillion in annual funding for the federal government, in a series of 12 bills developed and debated and approved over a year’s time, said Cole, who has represented Oklahoma’s 4th Congressional District since 2003. The $1.3 trillion does not count toward mandatory spending (such as outlays for Social Security), he noted.
The stimulus bills included extra funds for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sick leave funds for small businesses that don’t offer that benefit to their employees, plus additional funds for nutrition programs and unemployment programs.
The relief that Congress approved also included billions of dollars for state and local governments, for hospitals, clinics and research, tax breaks and tax changes for businesses, funds to give schools more flexibility to provide meals for students, $15.5 billion for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, commonly referred to as food stamps), and $450 million more for food banks and other community food distribution programs.
U.S. ECONOMY WAS ‘GOING GREAT’ PRIOR TO HEALTH CRISIS
“Our economy was going great in February,” Cole recalled. The U.S. economy was growing at a 3% clip in the first quarter of this year “and we had more jobs open than we had workers to fill them.”
And then almost overnight “we were in a public health crisis.”
Approximately 70% of the U.S. economy is “consumer driven,” Cole said. Consequently, the “average” American is “more in debt than they usually earn.” For the first time in U.S. history since World War II, he said, the debt-to-income ratio is 1-to- 1. However, we’re not alone. The Japanese are at 200% and most European countries “are higher than us,” the congressman said.
In the short term, “We have to keep the economy productive, and then get serious about the national debt” – most of which is driven by Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security – he said. Americans are living longer, and therefore “people are using these programs longer than any other generation did.”
House Democrats in mid- May narrowly passed a $3 trillion, 1,800-page stimulus measure that promptly received a chilly reception in the Republican-controlled Senate and a veto threat from President Trump.
Cole opposed the measure because of several of its proposals, including:
• $3.6 billion to effectively federalize elections, authorize same-day voter registration and nationwide vote-by-mail. “This would be an incredible federal intrusion into the election system that is operated not by the federal government but by the states,” Cole said.
• allowing prisoners over 50 in the federal system to be released.
• providing benefit checks to individuals who have entered the U.S. illegally.
• bailing out multi-employer pension plans.
• state and local tax breaks (SALT).
• providing $25 billion to the U.S. Postal Service without requiring any reforms to their operations.
“While I remain supportive of our letter carriers and operators who serve all of our communities, including in rural America, the reality is that the U.S. Postal Service continues to operate at a loss,” Cole said. “Not only is this unsustainable, but it’s a sign that the current business model clearly isn’t working. Absent reforms and changes to operations, no amount of money thrown at the problem will ever be the solution.”
MORE STIMULUS AID IS A POSSIBILITY
Although the House Democrats’ bill was probably DOA in the Senate, another stimulus measure is not entirely out of the question, for several reasons.
For one, approximately 40 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits. That level of economic disruption hasn’t been experienced in the United States since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
A survey in late April from OnePoll of approximately 2,000 people found that 82% want monthly stimulus payments. And a Fortune/ SurveyMonkey poll from late May showed that 54% of adults support another round of stimulus payouts.
The reason Americans are likely to get a second stimulus check “is because the first one simply didn’t do enough,” The Motley Fool wrote in a June 6 article.
According to a Money/ Morning Consult survey on April 22, almost three-quarters of the 2,200 respondents reported they had already spent their stimulus money, or intended to spend their stimulus payout in four weeks or less.
Expansion of the unemployment benefits program is putting an extra $600 a week into the pockets of many Americans – but that is scheduled to end July 31.
Even though states are reopening in phases, it’s not going to be business as usual for quite awhile. For example, unemployment rates are still in double digits, eviction notices were filed in courthouses across this state last week, and moratoriums on foreclosures will expire soon.
And finally, this is a presidential election year.
In a televised message May 22, Cole said, “I fully expect there will be another coronavirus supplemental appropriations bill ... that will be a lot more thoughtful ... and that will help us reopen the economy in a smart and effective way.”