Democrats ramp up demand for massive bailout
of state and local governments
|
April 29, 2020 12:01 AM
House and Senate
Democrats are escalating calls for an historic federal bailout of state and
local governments coping with significant revenue losses due to the coronavirus
outbreak.
The price tag for the aid Democrats propose is massive:
$500 billion for state governments plus “a very big figure,” for
municipalities, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, told reporters
Tuesday.
And there’s more: Pelosi said lawmakers may seek a $200
billion increase in Medicaid spending.
Congress last month passed legislation providing $150
billion in federal aid to states. A separate measure Congress passed earlier in
March provided a temporary 6.2% increase in federal Medicaid spending.
“And now we need more,” Pelosi said Tuesday in a press call
that featured union workers who could face layoffs due to underfunded states
and municipalities.
House Democrats likely have the support within their own
party to pass a big spending bill that includes many of their wish list items.
But the Senate is controlled by Republicans, and Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell has called Pelosi’s demands “tangential,
left-wing daydreams.”
McConnell has announced his own priorities for the next
round of coronavirus legislation. McConnell said he’s seeking new laws to
“expand and strengthen” protections for businesses and healthcare facilities
from opportunistic lawsuits.
“While our nation is asking everyone, from front-line
healthcare professionals to essential small-business owners to major employers,
to adapt in new ways and keep serving, a massive tangle of federal and state laws
could easily mean their heroic efforts are met with years of endless lawsuits,”
McConnell said this week.
McConnell said in an interview on the Guy Benson radio show
Monday, “there probably will be,” a new federal spending package for state and
local governments suffering from coronavirus-related budget shortfalls.
President Trump earlier this month also pledged to provide state and local aid
in the next bill.
Democrats said the GOP will be under pressure to back their
state and local spending plan because governors in both parties support it and
are providing Democrats with funding requests to meet their needs.
But Congressional Republicans and the president aren’t
anywhere close to green-lighting the spending plan proposed by Democrats, and
they are setting conditions in exchange for any new state or local spending.
“We need to make sure that we achieve something that will
go beyond simply sending out money,” McConnell told Benson.
McConnell wants to incorporate new liability protections
for employers.
Trump on Tuesday also suggested there needed to be a
trade-off for new state and local funding.
Trump wants payroll tax cuts, which Democrats have
previously rejected.
And Trump said there should be an
elimination of sanctuary
city policies some
states enforce to protect illegal immigrants
from federal
immigration officers.
Republicans are also opposed to states using the money to
bail out their troubled pension funds.
“I think there's a big difference between the state that
lost money because of COVID and the state that's been run very badly for 25
years,” Trump told reporters during a meeting with Florida’s Republican Gov.
Ron DeSantis. “There's a big difference, in my opinion. And, you know, we'd
have to talk about things like payroll tax cuts, we would have to talk about
things like sanctuary cities, as an example. I think sanctuary cities are
something that has to be brought up where people that are criminals are
protected. They are protected from prosecution. I think that has to be done. I
think that's one of the problems that the states have.”
McConnell last week said he supported examining a change to
the law that would allow states to declare federal bankruptcy rather than use
federal tax dollars to prop up the underfunded pension programs.
“We do want to help them with expenses that are directly
related to the coronavirus outbreak,” McConnell told Benson on Monday. “But
we're not interested in helping them fix age-old problems that they haven't had
the courage to fix in the past.”
Democratic leaders on Tuesday rejected the GOP proposals.
“I don't think at this time of the coronavirus that there's
any interest in having any less protection for our workers,” Pelosi told
reporters who asked about McConnell’s plan to try to limit employer
liabilities.
Pelosi also dismissed McConnell’s desire to block states
from bailing out pension funds with federal money.
She blamed a former GOP governor for the pension funding debacle unfolding in Illinois and
said new federal funding for state and local governments is intended to deal
with the impact of the coronavirus epidemic and nothing else.
Pelosi dismissed placing restrictions on new spending in
order to satisfy Republicans who want to limit how governments could use the
federal aid.
“We don’t need any prescription about anybody’s
methodology, or just excuses not to do the job,” Pelosi said. “It’s really sad,
it’s disgraceful. Because there is such tremendous need.”
Pelosi is a ghastly creature. She and her ilk – Feinstein, Boxer, Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom – have effectively destroyed California and they did it on purpose. They strive to import as many illegal migrants as possible; they've created and fostered the homelessness and let it fester. California is now a socialist disaster and the further destruction of the economy is just what they've wanted. They see it as their chance to transform the state into Venezuela. PATRICIA McCARTHY
Democrats Promise Many Work Permits for DACA Medical Workers in Coronavirus Crash
8:49
Democrats will demand work permits for hundreds of thousands of non-immigrant foreign workers in the next coronavirus rescue bill, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Tuesday.
“What corona has made clear is how vital our TPS recipients are, or DACA recipients are, to continuing health care in America,” Schumer said in a press briefing promoted by America’s Voice Education Fund and the FWD.us advocacy group for West Coast investors. The New York senator continued:
[If] you go to New York, any New York healthcare institution, and a high percentage of the people are immigrants, many of whom are TPS and DACA recipients. … It’s obviously an awful crisis, but I think it’s shown America how much we need these folks as they help us fight the crisis, and I think that should help us with new support as we push for this in [the draft] COVID Four [rescue bill].
Schumer’s comments conflated legal immigrants with temporary workers and illegal migrants. For example, “TPS” are foreign migrants — including many illegal aliens — who were given “Temporary Protected Status” because of crises in their homelands, sometimes decades ago.
“DACA” refers to President Barack Obama’s 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which blocked deportations and also gave work permits to roughly 800,000 younger illegal aliens.
President Donald Trump has begun to shrink the huge TPS program and has ordered an end to the DACA program. Both programs are being shielded temporarily by lawsuits. Trump has repeatedly suggested he would back both programs if the Democrats would support his immigration reform plans.
“We’re joining forces to demand that the Trump administration extend the work authorization for the over 130,000 TPS holders and 200,000 back DACA recipients, many of whom are serving on the frontlines in the battle against COVID-19,” Schumer said.
Schumer’s promise will likely fail. New polls show that Americans want strong curbs on migration during the epidemic. Public hostility blocked Democrat efforts in April to extended work permits for hundreds of thousands of foreign workers in the United States — even though the public wants more doctors.
Trump gets 2:1 public support for his Americans-first shift on immigration.
Even 62% support from Dems who 'somewhat disapprove' of Trump.
Is strong evidence for a strategy of incrementalism vs. a big rush for a total victory.
But deadline is Nov 3#H1B bit.ly/3aDkl6B
President Trump has also directed his deputies to develop rules by the end of May that would protect Americans’ jobs from companies’ hiring of visa workers during the crisis. However, he also directed his deputies to preserve the continued legal inflow of foreign doctors via the J-1 visa program and of foreign nurses via the green card process.
Also, the Supreme Court may shortly strike down the DACA program, likely forcing Democrats to trade concessions to keep the DACA migrants in the United States. That trade is supported by some immigration reforms, in part, because the DACA migrants have spent nearly all of their lives in the United States.
But Schumer declined to offer any trade to Americans in exchange for adding hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants into Americans’ job market, even though millions of Americans are losing their jobs during the crash.
Even before the crash, many Americans — including college graduates — have seen their salaries stall and their housing costs rise because the government inflates the labor supply each year by inviting more than one million legal immigrants and visa workers to compete for jobs and housing.
In contrast, business-funded advocacy groups say the federal government should welcome more foreign healthcare workers during and after the coronavirus crash.
The Democrats’ tally of migrant healthcare workers includes many migrants who are holding jobs — such as home healthcare aides — that would be filled by hiring unemployed Americans at decent wages.
Throughout the Tuesday press conference, Schumer, as well as Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), repeatedly praised legal immigrants and illegal migrants, often while downplaying Americans’ role in combating China’s virus:
Anytime you go to a hospital [or] you go to a clinic and [you will see] such a high percentage of hard-working, dedicated, talented immigrants in our healthcare system, every day. These DACA — DACA and TPS — recipients put themselves in danger, they risked their family’s health to keep the rest of us safe. So now is the time, more than ever, that we need to stand with them and protect them during these awful times, whenever they need our support. Unfortunately, President Trump is doing what he always does — he uses immigrants as scapegoats. I find it despicable — the only word I can use.
That “President Trump is trying to turn the American people against these immigrants and newcomers to this nation is just unspeakable, said Durbin, adding:
It reflects a whole heart and a hateful mind — two things we definitely do not need in America. When we return next week, we’re going to have a chance to take the floor of the Senate for the first time in weeks … Many of us [Democrats] will be coming to the floor and asking our colleagues to join us to salute the healthcare heroes across America.
“These frontline workers, and certainly all of the incredible healthcare workers, and all the emergency technicians, ambulance corps worker, all of these people are doing incredible valiant work,” Menendez said, adding:
But these frontline workers — [both] Dreamers and TPS — are also risking their lives every day. And we have to respect their work by protecting them from deportation.…Like so many Americans, these dreamers and TPS holders are risking their lives every day in the fight against COVID-19. They’re caring for the sick. Working double shifts … and often doing so without the personal protective gear they need. Regardless of their place of birth, these individuals, undoubtedly represent the best of America.
Despite the Democrats’ promotion of the DACA and TPS migrants, the two groups comprise a minimal slice of the nation’s healthcare workforce.
“DACA recipients simply do not comprise a large share of workers, and that is certainly true in a huge sector of the economy like health care,” says an April 7 study by the Center for Immigration Studies. The DACA healthcare workers “translates to just 0.2% of the nation’s 14.5 million health care workers,” Director of Research Steve Camarota wrote.
He continued:
Probably the two occupations that seem the most relevant to combating the Wuhan Virus are registered nurses and health technologists and technicians, which includes licensed practical nurses and jobs like pharmacy technicians. The ACS shows that there are 3.3 million registered nurses working in the country and 3 million technologists and technicians, making DACA recipients just 0.1% and 0.2% of these occupations respectively. Again, even assuming CAP’s estimates are correct, DACA recipients in the most relevant occupations are a miniscule share of workers.
Moreover, the DACA migrants are far outnumbered by non-working Amerian healthcare professionals — including legal immigrants — who can be recruited for an emergency, especially if employers offer them a bonus because of the health risk, he said:
The Census data also shows there were 41,000 unemployed registered nurses and 67,000 unemployment technicians in 2018. In addition, there were 860,000 nurses and technicians who are out of the labor force entirely, but who reported having worked in these fields in the prior five years. So there is a huge pool of people who can be drawn upon if a few thousand DACA nurses and technicians were deported.
Even without much training, many laid-off Americans and legal immigrants can be hired to perform the jobs held by most of the DACA immigrants, Camarota added:
Their estimates also show that nearly one third of the DACA workers they identify are home health and personal care aides and related occupations. The Bureau of Labor Statics reports that becoming a health care aid requires only a high school education and sometimes not even that. Moreover, at a time when unemployment is increasing massively among the less-educated, replacing a few thousand health care aids, whose primary responsibility is typically helping the elderly or disabled dress and bath, hardly seems difficult, if it came to that.
Many additional American healthcare workers are retired or switched careers and are available during a crisis, he added.
Follow Neil Munro on Twitter @NeilMunroDC, or email the author at NMunro@Breitbart.com.
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