vox--2020-05-04--Bill Gates’s efforts to fight coronavirus, explained

“ I rate the chance of a widespread epidemic , in my lifetime , as well over 50 percent , ” he told Ezra Klein in 2015 .
“ Something like the Spanish flu in the modern day — health systems are far better , so you think , okay , that wouldn ’ t be very bad .
What we showed [ when infectious disease researchers working with the Gates Foundation modeled the scenario ] was that the force of the infection , because of modern transport ... within days , it ’ s basically in all urban centers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s second-richest man ( he recently lost the top spot to Jeff Bezos ) has , in the years since he and his wife founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000 , made a name for himself in philanthropy , especially in the field of public health .
The foundation funds vaccinations through programs like GAVI , which Gates set up with a $ 750 million grant in 1999 and which is estimated to have saved millions of lives .
( The foundation ’ s support to GAVI has totaled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Gates Foundation funds fights against diseases like malaria and polio , and in its first 20 years of existence , it has spent some $ 40 billion on global development and public health programs .
And when the pandemic Gates long warned about arrived , he got to work on philanthropic initiatives to fight it .
Today , he pledged another $ 50 million for that fight , making $ 300 million in total commitments .
Much of his recent commitments have been for distributing treatments and vaccines in the developing world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ entirely neglected as they struggle to keep a handle on things at home .
Gates is not the only one making big donations in this emergency — many companies and rich individuals have pledged eye-popping sums to the global fight against the coronavirus .
But Gates deserves special attention .
He has more money than all but one , more experience working in public health and infectious disease response , stellar approval ratings among the American public , and — thanks to his early warnings about the disease — a resource that may @ @ @ @ @ @ @ credibility .
In a February letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine , he urged the government to start a strong policy response at home , and to contribute to preparedness in lower-middle-income countries , which is where Gates has dedicated much of the $ 100 million he pledged in February to the coronavirus fight .
He called for accelerated work on treatment and vaccines .
He also laid out a plan for how to make sure a situation like this doesn ’ t happen again .
On April 15 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to testing , treatment , and aiding poor countries in their coronavirus response .
“ Realistically , if we ’ re going to return to normal , we need to develop a safe , effective vaccine .
We need to make billions of doses , we need to get them out to every part of the world , and we need all of this to happen as quickly as possible , ” Gates argued on April 30th , explaining his relentless focus on getting a vaccine on an unprecedented timescale .
It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would have liked to see from the US government ; the Trump administration was still insisting in late February that there was no cause for concern in the United States .
It is catastrophic that the federal government has failed as badly as it has .
Into the breach have stepped private actors — Gates leading among them — to address the problems the government has failed to address .
Billionaire philanthropists like Gates have attracted justified criticism , but it ’ s crucial to look at the good side , too : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how , at its best , billionaire philanthropy can do critical work that democratic systems are failing to get done .
It ’ s fair to say that things would be much better off if President Donald Trump had mounted a competent response — and much worse off if Bill Gates weren ’ t around to help fill the void the incompetence at the top has created .
The Gateses ’ fight against the coronavirus One of the many early heroes in the fight against the coronavirus in the United States was the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ project that studied influenza-like illness in the Seattle area .
The group spent most of February seeking permission to test the samples it had acquired for its study of influenza in Seattle for the novel coronavirus ( government regulations prevented the group from using those samples for a different purpose , in this case tracking the spread of a new disease ) .
Eventually , the Seattle Flu Study did a test — and found a person with coronavirus .
The state reacted fast once the detection of early cases was announced , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the country .
The positive tests from the flu study resulted in cases being detected sooner , and might have helped the state react in time : It went from the nation ’ s leader in coronavirus cases to its current 14th place .
That effort is emblematic of many of Gates ’ s coronavirus response programs .
Because the Gates Foundation was already working in infectious disease response and global health , it had connections with scientists and researchers and preexisting expertise in vaccine deployment and public health response .
Confronting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he has put those resources to use .
In the developing world , global health teams Gates has funded , like the Global Polio Eradication Initiative ( GPEI ) , have pivoted to working on a coronavirus response as the virus has made their original work unsafe ( they could spread the coronavirus ) and created pressing new needs in the communities they serve .
“ The GPEI will use our tools , our workforce , and our laboratory and surveillance network to support countries as they respond to COVID-19 , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation , said .
“ What that looks like will depend on the situation in each country and the extent of the polio operations that are up and running there — but in general , the systems we ’ ve built for polio eradication will help support things like coordination of response operations , surveillance of suspected cases , training for healthcare workers , and standing up data systems.
” The Gates Foundation , headquartered in Seattle , has done additional work at home , too @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the University of Washington ’ s Seattle Flu Study again to explore home testing kits for the virus ; the Food and Drug Administration has since banned at-home testing , but the team is working on a test that can be self-administered at a testing site .
The foundation has also launched the Covid-19 Therapeutics Accelerator to study the most effective treatments for the virus , with $ 125 million in initial funding .
Already , it has shown some promising results .
While most studies have explored treatments , some early studies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prophylaxis — drug treatments that prevent people from getting sick in the first place , likely for health care workers and people at similarly high risk .
“ We ’ re not expecting to find a 100-percent-effective solution right off the bat , ” Trevor Mundel , president of the Gates Foundation ’ s Global Health program , explained , noting that other viruses like HIV , as well as other lung infections like tuberculosis , have proven most responsive to cocktails of several drugs .
“ That ’ s why the Accelerator @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about 50-100 FDA-approved drugs , and then narrow this down to a few that could be scaled up .
And what this will look like is , first trying to use individual drugs , and then of course combinations of those individual drugs , ” he added .
Like the program it was modeled on — the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations ( CEPI ) , an international collaboration to make vaccines available quickly when disease outbreaks happen — the Therapeutics Accelerator is an international project , with contributions from Gates as well @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also a Gates Foundation initiative .
As you might expect , Gates has also started directing resources at finding a vaccine for the coronavirus .
“ I do think manufacturing , construction , a lot of things we ’ ll do , but large public gatherings may have to wait until we have that vaccine , ” he told NPR in April .
“ Until we get a vaccine that almost everybody ’ s had , the risk of a rebound will be there.
” With that in mind , Gates has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only the vaccine that is going to be used is manufactured .
That means a delay in the rollout between when a vaccine is chosen and when it is actually available at the necessary scale .
Gates ’ s proposal is to build seven factories , for all the leading vaccine candidates , and manufacture lots of each of them .
It will mean some wasted money , but it ’ ll be worth it to get a vaccine to patients sooner .
He estimates this will cost billions .
Though the foundation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will personally be spending , a project of this magnitude will require other stakeholders — as have most of Gates ’ s public health projects .
“ The Gates Foundation is working with a range of national and multilateral stakeholders who are funding the development of vaccines for COVID-19 .
Enhancements of global manufacturing capacity are clearly required given the population-level scale at which a COVID-19 vaccine will need to be given , ” the Gates Foundation told Vox in a statement .
“ Many of the current vaccine approaches are novel and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ product .
In addition , governments need to continue to provide important vaccines for other diseases while scaling a successful COVID-19 vaccine.
” On April 15 , the foundation announced an expanded commitment to the global Covid-19 response , with an additional $ 150 million in funding to help with more diagnostics , treatments , and vaccine research , as well as funding for Africa and South Asia , where countries are grappling with the spread of the virus without the resources to address it .
On May 4 , it announced another @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to $ 300 million , with an emphasis on delivering vaccines to lower-income countries once they ’ re developed .
Gates has , of course , attracted critics .
That includes conspiracy theorists who believe he engineered the whole pandemic , possibly so that he can inject us all with a surveillance system as part of the vaccines .
Another conspiracy theory has seized on the fact that a nonprofit Gates funded did a tabletop pandemic response exercise in 2019 that imagined the emergence of a new coronavirus .
Infamous conspiracy theorist Alex @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Gates to be arrested as a “ collaborator ” in the virus outbreak .
Needless to say , these are fictions .
But there are legitimate critiques .
One line of criticism is familiar .
Gates , it acknowledges , is plainly doing great stuff .
But a lot has gone wrong in our society if we are in the position of relying on individuals to make eye-popping sums of money starting tech companies and then devote their retirement to bailing out the rest of us .
Shouldn ’ t we have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
And there ’ s a related critique , prominently articulated in recent years by Anand Giridharadas , among others : When billionaires donate to charity , they ’ re not just buying vaccines — they ’ re also buying good PR .
If you think that addressing the most pressing problems in society requires changing how wealth works so there aren ’ t any billionaires , then this looks like a bad trade : We ’ re accepting gifts from billionaires in exchange for entrenching them .
But there are problems with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s not low taxes that hampered the US response .
The FDA didn ’ t refuse to approve private tests for critical weeks because it was short on budget — it was short on a sense of what was at stake .
This critique also doesn ’ t acknowledge that the administration in power might not necessarily share everyone ’ s priorities for where taxes should go — witness Trump ’ s budgets , which have sought to cut funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .
From the top @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has been slow , incompetent , and poorly suited to what was at stake .
Abolishing billionaires would not magically make Trump more competent .
In that context , I find it hard to wish that Bill Gates had been taxed until he no longer had the resources he ’ s now spending to try to attack this pandemic .
And until the problems that produced this government response are fixed , I ’ m opposed to tearing down the philanthropic safety net that has been there to catch us when the Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gates isn ’ t necessarily representative of his class .
But the point remains : Abolishing the billionaire class hardly guarantees the kind of competent government response needed in a crisis like this .
Additionally , it ’ s worth noting that Gates has been touring the world advocating for increased funding for those agencies , and warning that a dangerous global pandemic might happen if funding weren ’ t increased .
( More broadly , Gates has also pushed for higher taxes on the billionaire class . )
But that ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ space for accountability .
“ With the prospect of catastrophic numbers of deaths , any effective response , no matter the source , is to be wished for , ” Stanford philosopher Rob Reich , who criticized the dynamics of billionaire giving in his book Just Giving , told me .
“ When government is as ineffective as it has proven to be , responses from individuals , corporations , philanthropies , should be welcomed , insofar as they are effective.
” But , he pointed out , it ’ s important that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that actually are effective .
We don ’ t want to uncritically praise or uncritically criticize — we want to ask questions , elevate the best projects , and assign credit where it ’ s due .
“ Whatever the source of a large-scale response is , we should direct scrutiny at it .
Just as when [ New York Gov .
Andrew ] Cuomo or Trump or [ California Gov . ]
Gavin Newsom stand up to offer their own responses , there ’ s a critical and question-asking press corps debating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ too should we be directing that scrutiny at corporations and philanthropists , ” he told me .
So there are some good questions to ask Gates .
Are vaccines the best focus here , when realistically the US can not stay on lockdown until one is ready ?
Should there be more focus on low-tech measures like cloth masks and reminders to stay away from people ?
Even as we acknowledge Gates ’ s good deeds , we should continue pressing him and other philanthropists on these questions — in the spirit of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work even better , and what most deserves assistance from other funders .
Why good government is still needed But for all the good Gates and other billionaires might be doing , it ’ s important to remember that it will not be nearly enough to meet the current crisis .
In a catastrophe of this magnitude , no billionaire can actually do a fraction as much as the US government can .
If Gates liquidated all his wealth — no more vaccine programs , no more Gates Foundation — to distribute to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than $ 300 each .
The $ 2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package spends far more money than all the billionaires in America combined could .
“ This pandemic has unleashed an extraordinary philanthropic response .
While significant , it is still only one small part of what must be a coordinated effort to beat this global crisis , ” foundation CEO Mark Suzman said in an April 15 press release .
“ Philanthropy can not — and should not — supplant the public and private sectors .
What philanthropy is good at is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get tried , so governments and businesses can then take on the successful ones .
With all sectors working together , we can avoid the worst-case scenarios of human , economic , and social costs.
” So the sensible role for philanthropists is not trying to replace the government .
They can ’ t do that .
It ’ s filling in the gaps — moving faster than the government , moving around bureaucratic red tape , making sure that good ideas break ground immediately instead of waiting weeks for approval .
Gates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of building seven factories for the seven most common vaccine candidates , knowing most of the vaccines produced would fail clinical trials , but he won ’ t put up most of the money for the project .
“ The foundation is exploring using its catalytic funding to get the process moving , recognizing that any large-scale projects will require multilateral and/or government funding , ” the foundation told Vox in a statement .
As Gates has acknowledged , the factory plan will cost billions that even he would struggle to put up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the seed money to kick it off , it will only really happen if governments pitch in .
“ From the perspective of a foundation , ” Reich wrote in 2013 , “ successful philanthropic giving consists not in funding social innovations and then sustaining the most successful of them forever .
Because the assets of even the largest foundations are dwarfed by the assets of the marketplace and of rich states , success consists in seeing proven policy innovations ‘ scaled up ’ by private firms or by the state.
” But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ place over years or decades .
What ’ s happening now is that same process , but on the scale of weeks .
Gates sets up a trial for therapeutics , and then the results are seized on by states and by doctors desperate for insight into how to treat coronavirus patients .
I asked Reich if the events of the pandemic had changed his understanding of the role charitable giving should play in a democratic society .
“ I had written about philanthropy and defended it as a distinctive source of risk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he told me .
“ In general , emergency responses are not the sort of thing where you ’ d want risk capital for long time horizons .
And yet given the abject failures of the government , I ’ m glad they ’ re doing disaster relief.
” Foundations can ’ t do it all .
But extreme circumstances like the one we find ourselves in highlight the need for their logjam-breaking , research-boosting , government-guiding role even in short-term and fast-moving situations — at least if the government is falling down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

Bill Gates saw this coming.
“I rate the chance of a widespread epidemic, in my lifetime, as well over 50 percent,” he told Ezra Klein in 2015. “Something like the Spanish flu in the modern day — health systems are far better, so you think, okay, that wouldn’t be very bad. What we showed [when infectious disease researchers working with the Gates Foundation modeled the scenario] was that the force of the infection, because of modern transport ... within days, it’s basically in all urban centers of the entire globe.”
The world’s second-richest man (he recently lost the top spot to Jeff Bezos) has, in the years since he and his wife founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000, made a name for himself in philanthropy, especially in the field of public health. The foundation funds vaccinations through programs like GAVI, which Gates set up with a $750 million grant in 1999 and which is estimated to have saved millions of lives. (The foundation’s support to GAVI has totaled $4.1 billion to date.) The Gates Foundation funds fights against diseases like malaria and polio, and in its first 20 years of existence, it has spent some $40 billion on global development and public health programs.
And when the pandemic Gates long warned about arrived, he got to work on philanthropic initiatives to fight it. Today, he pledged another $50 million for that fight, making $300 million in total commitments. Much of his recent commitments have been for distributing treatments and vaccines in the developing world, a problem rich-country governments have almost entirely neglected as they struggle to keep a handle on things at home.
Gates is not the only one making big donations in this emergency — many companies and rich individuals have pledged eye-popping sums to the global fight against the coronavirus. But Gates deserves special attention. He has more money than all but one, more experience working in public health and infectious disease response, stellar approval ratings among the American public, and — thanks to his early warnings about the disease — a resource that may be just as important as money: credibility.
In a February letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine, he urged the government to start a strong policy response at home, and to contribute to preparedness in lower-middle-income countries, which is where Gates has dedicated much of the $100 million he pledged in February to the coronavirus fight. He called for accelerated work on treatment and vaccines. He also laid out a plan for how to make sure a situation like this doesn’t happen again. On April 15, Gates committed an additional $150 million to testing, treatment, and aiding poor countries in their coronavirus response.
“Realistically, if we’re going to return to normal, we need to develop a safe, effective vaccine. We need to make billions of doses, we need to get them out to every part of the world, and we need all of this to happen as quickly as possible,” Gates argued on April 30th, explaining his relentless focus on getting a vaccine on an unprecedented timescale.
It’s the sort of response many people would have liked to see from the US government; the Trump administration was still insisting in late February that there was no cause for concern in the United States. It is catastrophic that the federal government has failed as badly as it has. Into the breach have stepped private actors — Gates leading among them — to address the problems the government has failed to address.
Billionaire philanthropists like Gates have attracted justified criticism, but it’s crucial to look at the good side, too: The crisis has been an example of how, at its best, billionaire philanthropy can do critical work that democratic systems are failing to get done. It’s fair to say that things would be much better off if President Donald Trump had mounted a competent response — and much worse off if Bill Gates weren’t around to help fill the void the incompetence at the top has created.
The Gateses’ fight against the coronavirus
One of the many early heroes in the fight against the coronavirus in the United States was the Seattle Flu Study, a Gates-funded research project that studied influenza-like illness in the Seattle area. The group spent most of February seeking permission to test the samples it had acquired for its study of influenza in Seattle for the novel coronavirus (government regulations prevented the group from using those samples for a different purpose, in this case tracking the spread of a new disease). Eventually, the Seattle Flu Study did a test — and found a person with coronavirus.
The state reacted fast once the detection of early cases was announced, implementing social distancing measures earlier than most of the country. The positive tests from the flu study resulted in cases being detected sooner, and might have helped the state react in time: It went from the nation’s leader in coronavirus cases to its current 14th place.
That effort is emblematic of many of Gates’s coronavirus response programs. Because the Gates Foundation was already working in infectious disease response and global health, it had connections with scientists and researchers and preexisting expertise in vaccine deployment and public health response. Confronting a new threat in the Covid-19 coronavirus, he has put those resources to use.
In the developing world, global health teams Gates has funded, like the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), have pivoted to working on a coronavirus response as the virus has made their original work unsafe (they could spread the coronavirus) and created pressing new needs in the communities they serve.
“The GPEI will use our tools, our workforce, and our laboratory and surveillance network to support countries as they respond to COVID-19,” Dr. Erin Stuckey, epidemiologist and program officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said. “What that looks like will depend on the situation in each country and the extent of the polio operations that are up and running there — but in general, the systems we’ve built for polio eradication will help support things like coordination of response operations, surveillance of suspected cases, training for healthcare workers, and standing up data systems.”
The Gates Foundation, headquartered in Seattle, has done additional work at home, too. In March, it partnered with the University of Washington’s Seattle Flu Study again to explore home testing kits for the virus; the Food and Drug Administration has since banned at-home testing, but the team is working on a test that can be self-administered at a testing site.
The foundation has also launched the Covid-19 Therapeutics Accelerator to study the most effective treatments for the virus, with $125 million in initial funding. Already, it has shown some promising results. While most studies have explored treatments, some early studies launched by the accelerator have looked at prophylaxis — drug treatments that prevent people from getting sick in the first place, likely for health care workers and people at similarly high risk.
“We’re not expecting to find a 100-percent-effective solution right off the bat,” Trevor Mundel, president of the Gates Foundation’s Global Health program, explained, noting that other viruses like HIV, as well as other lung infections like tuberculosis, have proven most responsive to cocktails of several drugs.
“That’s why the Accelerator is looking to identify a shortlist of about 50-100 FDA-approved drugs, and then narrow this down to a few that could be scaled up. And what this will look like is, first trying to use individual drugs, and then of course combinations of those individual drugs,” he added.
Like the program it was modeled on — the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), an international collaboration to make vaccines available quickly when disease outbreaks happen — the Therapeutics Accelerator is an international project, with contributions from Gates as well as many national governments.
CEPI is also a Gates Foundation initiative. As you might expect, Gates has also started directing resources at finding a vaccine for the coronavirus. “I do think manufacturing, construction, a lot of things we’ll do, but large public gatherings may have to wait until we have that vaccine,” he told NPR in April. “Until we get a vaccine that almost everybody’s had, the risk of a rebound will be there.”
With that in mind, Gates has been airing another big idea. Usually, only the vaccine that is going to be used is manufactured. That means a delay in the rollout between when a vaccine is chosen and when it is actually available at the necessary scale.
Gates’s proposal is to build seven factories, for all the leading vaccine candidates, and manufacture lots of each of them. It will mean some wasted money, but it’ll be worth it to get a vaccine to patients sooner. He estimates this will cost billions. Though the foundation hasn’t disclosed how much it will personally be spending, a project of this magnitude will require other stakeholders — as have most of Gates’s public health projects.
“The Gates Foundation is working with a range of national and multilateral stakeholders who are funding the development of vaccines for COVID-19. Enhancements of global manufacturing capacity are clearly required given the population-level scale at which a COVID-19 vaccine will need to be given,” the Gates Foundation told Vox in a statement. “Many of the current vaccine approaches are novel and have never been scaled for a commercialized product. In addition, governments need to continue to provide important vaccines for other diseases while scaling a successful COVID-19 vaccine.”
On April 15, the foundation announced an expanded commitment to the global Covid-19 response, with an additional $150 million in funding to help with more diagnostics, treatments, and vaccine research, as well as funding for Africa and South Asia, where countries are grappling with the spread of the virus without the resources to address it. On May 4, it announced another round of commitments, bringing total funding to $300 million, with an emphasis on delivering vaccines to lower-income countries once they’re developed.
Billionaire philanthropy’s critics
Gates has, of course, attracted critics. That includes conspiracy theorists who believe he engineered the whole pandemic, possibly so that he can inject us all with a surveillance system as part of the vaccines. Another conspiracy theory has seized on the fact that a nonprofit Gates funded did a tabletop pandemic response exercise in 2019 that imagined the emergence of a new coronavirus. Infamous conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has led his followers in calling for Gates to be arrested as a “collaborator” in the virus outbreak. Needless to say, these are fictions.
But there are legitimate critiques. One line of criticism is familiar. Gates, it acknowledges, is plainly doing great stuff. But a lot has gone wrong in our society if we are in the position of relying on individuals to make eye-popping sums of money starting tech companies and then devote their retirement to bailing out the rest of us. Shouldn’t we have institutions that solve our problems more systematically?
And there’s a related critique, prominently articulated in recent years by Anand Giridharadas, among others: When billionaires donate to charity, they’re not just buying vaccines — they’re also buying good PR. If you think that addressing the most pressing problems in society requires changing how wealth works so there aren’t any billionaires, then this looks like a bad trade: We’re accepting gifts from billionaires in exchange for entrenching them.
This is the whole problem; it tells the story. the billionaires collectively own the government, fleece it, shrink it, render it impotent.
Then when gov fails, a billionaire steps in and we say, see, billionaires and corporations are saving the day!
Which makes them stronger. https://t.co/f2NYHadAgY — Farhad Manjoo (@fmanjoo) April 5, 2020
Billionaires back us into a corner.
They’ve tax-dodged, lobbied, wage-thieved, benefit-cut, monopolized, and rigged society to a place where, in a crisis, people and institutions are hard-up and they have resources.
So they step up to fix what they helped break. And we take it. https://t.co/9bXdClggoy — Anand Giridharadas (@AnandWrites) April 8, 2020
When you see a virus donation by a company or billionaire, one question you might ask -- beyond whatever understandable gratitude you may feel -- is: Would this crisis have hit us as severely as it has had that money instead been paid as taxes or wages or worker benefits? — Anand Giridharadas (@AnandWrites) April 6, 2020
But there are problems with this critique. In particular, it’s not low taxes that hampered the US response. The FDA didn’t refuse to approve private tests for critical weeks because it was short on budget — it was short on a sense of what was at stake. This critique also doesn’t acknowledge that the administration in power might not necessarily share everyone’s priorities for where taxes should go — witness Trump’s budgets, which have sought to cut funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
From the top down, the official US government response has been slow, incompetent, and poorly suited to what was at stake. Abolishing billionaires would not magically make Trump more competent.
In that context, I find it hard to wish that Bill Gates had been taxed until he no longer had the resources he’s now spending to try to attack this pandemic. And until the problems that produced this government response are fixed, I’m opposed to tearing down the philanthropic safety net that has been there to catch us when the Trump administration failed. To be sure, Gates isn’t necessarily representative of his class. But the point remains: Abolishing the billionaire class hardly guarantees the kind of competent government response needed in a crisis like this.
Additionally, it’s worth noting that Gates has been touring the world advocating for increased funding for those agencies, and warning that a dangerous global pandemic might happen if funding weren’t increased. (More broadly, Gates has also pushed for higher taxes on the billionaire class.)
But that’s not to say there’s no space for accountability.
“With the prospect of catastrophic numbers of deaths, any effective response, no matter the source, is to be wished for,” Stanford philosopher Rob Reich, who criticized the dynamics of billionaire giving in his book Just Giving, told me. “When government is as ineffective as it has proven to be, responses from individuals, corporations, philanthropies, should be welcomed, insofar as they are effective.”
But, he pointed out, it’s important that we target our accolades at the projects that actually are effective. We don’t want to uncritically praise or uncritically criticize — we want to ask questions, elevate the best projects, and assign credit where it’s due.
“Whatever the source of a large-scale response is, we should direct scrutiny at it. Just as when [New York Gov. Andrew] Cuomo or Trump or [California Gov.] Gavin Newsom stand up to offer their own responses, there’s a critical and question-asking press corps debating whether their responses are worthy. So too should we be directing that scrutiny at corporations and philanthropists,” he told me.
So there are some good questions to ask Gates. Are vaccines the best focus here, when realistically the US cannot stay on lockdown until one is ready? Should there be more focus on low-tech measures like cloth masks and reminders to stay away from people? Even as we acknowledge Gates’s good deeds, we should continue pressing him and other philanthropists on these questions — in the spirit of helping identify what works, what can work even better, and what most deserves assistance from other funders.
Why good government is still needed
But for all the good Gates and other billionaires might be doing, it’s important to remember that it will not be nearly enough to meet the current crisis.
In a catastrophe of this magnitude, no billionaire can actually do a fraction as much as the US government can. If Gates liquidated all his wealth — no more vaccine programs, no more Gates Foundation — to distribute to every American, everyone would get less than $300 each. The $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package spends far more money than all the billionaires in America combined could.
“This pandemic has unleashed an extraordinary philanthropic response. While significant, it is still only one small part of what must be a coordinated effort to beat this global crisis,” foundation CEO Mark Suzman said in an April 15 press release. “Philanthropy cannot — and should not — supplant the public and private sectors. What philanthropy is good at is testing out ideas that might not otherwise get tried, so governments and businesses can then take on the successful ones. With all sectors working together, we can avoid the worst-case scenarios of human, economic, and social costs.”
So the sensible role for philanthropists is not trying to replace the government. They can’t do that. It’s filling in the gaps — moving faster than the government, moving around bureaucratic red tape, making sure that good ideas break ground immediately instead of waiting weeks for approval. Gates pledged some initial money toward his idea of building seven factories for the seven most common vaccine candidates, knowing most of the vaccines produced would fail clinical trials, but he won’t put up most of the money for the project.
“The foundation is exploring using its catalytic funding to get the process moving, recognizing that any large-scale projects will require multilateral and/or government funding,” the foundation told Vox in a statement. As Gates has acknowledged, the factory plan will cost billions that even he would struggle to put up personally, so while he can donate the seed money to kick it off, it will only really happen if governments pitch in.
“From the perspective of a foundation,” Reich wrote in 2013, “successful philanthropic giving consists not in funding social innovations and then sustaining the most successful of them forever. Because the assets of even the largest foundations are dwarfed by the assets of the marketplace and of rich states, success consists in seeing proven policy innovations ‘scaled up’ by private firms or by the state.”
But Reich was imagining a process that took place over years or decades. What’s happening now is that same process, but on the scale of weeks. Gates sets up a trial for therapeutics, and then the results are seized on by states and by doctors desperate for insight into how to treat coronavirus patients.
I asked Reich if the events of the pandemic had changed his understanding of the role charitable giving should play in a democratic society. “I had written about philanthropy and defended it as a distinctive source of risk capital for long time horizons,” he told me. “In general, emergency responses are not the sort of thing where you’d want risk capital for long time horizons. And yet given the abject failures of the government, I’m glad they’re doing disaster relief.”
Foundations can’t do it all. But extreme circumstances like the one we find ourselves in highlight the need for their logjam-breaking, research-boosting, government-guiding role even in short-term and fast-moving situations — at least if the government is falling down on the job.


vox--2020-05-04--Democrats should make voting reform a nonnegotiable baseline for the next stimulus bill

Update , May 4 : New research from a group of political scientists affirms that mail-in voting in Colorado raised turnout more than 10 points among the most vulnerable demographics , including low-income voters , and benefited Republicans and Democrats equally .
It ’ s powerful support for the argument that mail-in voting should be universally accessible for the November elections .
The following piece , making that argument , was originally published on April 8 , 2020 .
The political climate in the US is tumultuous .
The Covid-19 pandemic hangs over everything even as a dozen other issues @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democratic Party , and a corrupt , impeached president — compete for our scant remaining attention .
Into that muddle , I would like to introduce what I hope is a note of clarity , a fixed point around which all Americans of good faith ought to be able to rally .
To wit : Americans need to have safe , free , and fair federal elections in November .
The date of the election is in law and can ’ t be changed without an act of Congress .
The country is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and a chaotic election viewed by large swathes of the population as illegitimate could tip it over into a full-fledged constitutional crisis or even violence .
This is a make-or-break issue for the country .
There is no way to stop Trump from characterizing the election as compromised ; he accuses opponents of fraud in all elections , whether he wins or not .
He has already tried to cheat in the 2020 election — got impeached for it just a couple of months/centuries ago — and will undoubtedly continue trying , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democrats .
He assumes Democrats will do the exact same thing : cheat and accuse him of cheating .
His tweet in early April captured his argument succinctly : And where Trump goes , right-wing state media , led by Fox , dutifully follow .
They will back him up with conspiracy theories about voter fraud that at least some large part of the core conservative base will believe .
But what happens around the margins matters .
Committed partisans will line up the same way regardless of the fact that voting is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state , has a 100 percent vote-by-mail system . )
But that leaves a large , fuzzy , semi-engaged class of voters whose opinion of the election will be shaped by their personal experience and the signals they receive from trusted sources about the validity of the process .
The best way for Democrats to ensure that November ’ s elections are viewed as free and fair amid a coronavirus pandemic is to make them so .
The best way to make them so , in the time remaining , is to implement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ extended deadlines , serviced by a funded and functional Postal Service .
( This is not the only reform needed , but it is the backbone . )
The only way for Democrats to secure that policy is to make it non-negotiable bottom line — a condition of voting through any further stimulus bills .
This would be a tough political strategy to follow through on , running counter to national Democrats ’ institutional timidity and fears about holding up cash and unemployment for those who really need it .
They would be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ endlessly by the centrist pundits whose opinions they so prize .
But it is the right thing to do on the merits , so they should do it , and defend it without apology .
This ought to be a messaging war they can win .
If not , what good are they ?
It might seem obvious to say that free and fair elections are important in a democracy .
But this year , they are by no means assured .
Without reform , elections will be an entirely foreseeable disaster Experts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or more , and even after that , it ’ s possible that the virus could periodically return in various cities or regions , occasioning new stay-at-home orders .
Even South Korea and Singapore , places where the virus response has been considered exemplary , which thought they might be reaching the far end , are now reinstituting social distancing measures .
Without a vaccine , there is no certain plan , anywhere in the world , for how to emerge on the other side of this thing .
Compared to those two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has been a fiasco .
The US has more than 12,000 reported deaths , the third-highest count in the world after Italy and Spain .
The US is woefully behind in testing and tracking , the two key tools for bringing the virus under control .
And there is still no coherent federal plan to secure needed medical supplies , ramp up testing , or bring social distancing to a safe end .
It may simply not be safe to go out and vote in person , among crowds of other people , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the elections will thrust a choice upon millions of Americans , especially those from the most vulnerable populations ( the elderly , people of color , people with chronic medical conditions ) : vote and put your safety at risk , or skip voting to stay safe .
No democracy worth the name can allow that to happen .
Republicans have recently become convinced that voting by mail is corrupt and a partisan issue Voting by mail is not designed to give one party or the other an advantage .
“ It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Amber McReynolds , CEO for the National Vote At Home Institute , “ it ’ s about making sure every voter can vote in a secure , effective , and safe way.
” ( More on this below . )
Nonetheless , it is clear that someone or some organization on the right has recently been working to convince Republicans otherwise .
When Democrats suggested voting reform for the phase 3 stimulus bill , Trump warned of “ levels of voting that if you ’ d ever agreed to it , you ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this country again.
” In a recent interview discussing Georgia ’ s upcoming primary election , state House Speaker David Ralston conceded that , if every voter got a mail-in absentee ballot , it “ will certainly drive up turnout , ” but that would be “ extremely devastating to Republicans and conservatives in Georgia.
” Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander contended that forcing voters to risk their lives is preferable to voting by mail .
“ Around the world we ’ ve had people in new democracies go to vote when their lives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vote was so precious , ” said the mordant lawmaker .
“ Most Americans would be very skeptical of significant changes in our ability to go cast a ballot in person , certainly at this point.
” The House ’ s foremost Trump supplicant , Thomas Massie , even tweeted that “ universal vote by mail would be the end of our republic as we know it.
” The Washington Post ’ s Dave Weigel reports several more examples of Republicans across the country attacking mail-in voting — mainly , it seems , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ including Democrats , support it .
When pressed , conservatives will generally say that they oppose mail-in voting because of the potential for fraud .
But it ’ s clear that what they really fear is more people ( the wrong people ) voting .
Voting by mail is not partisan The US Election Assistance Commission releases a yearly Election Administration and Voting Survey ( EAVS ) .
The 2018 edition reports on the state of mail-in voting and early voting : As the 2017 EAVS report showed , the percentage of Americans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doubled from 24.9 million in 2004 to 57.2 million in 2016 , to roughly two out of every five ballots cast .
By 2018 , the percentage voting by mail reached almost 26 percent , more than one out of every four American voters .
The trend is particularly pronounced in the West , where 68 percent of voters voted by mail in 2018 .
Analysts expected those numbers to rise in 2020 .
Since 2018 , Michigan , Pennsylvania , and Virginia have moved to no-excuse absentee ballots , California has shifted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ half its population , and Hawaii has gone 100 percent .
Gerry Langeler , director of communications and research at the National Vote at Home Institute , told me that , in the absence of the virus , they were expecting mail-in voting numbers to hit the mid-70s in the West and around 30 percent nationally in 2020 .
( Now , with the virus , no one knows for sure . )
That ’ s almost a third of the population , and not all in blue states .
Utah has a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had to opt in ; the final county did so last year .
( This Washington Monthly story recounts the patient expansion . )
“ Being a very red state , ” Utah director of elections Justin Lee told Weigel , “ we haven ’ t seen anything that helps one party over another at all.
” Red Nebraska allows any county with 10,000 residents or less to shift to mail-in voting .
“ Rural parts of the country benefit tremendously from this kind of system , ” says McReynolds ; it can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polling places .
In the 2018 election , statewide voter turnout in Nebraska averaged 58 percent ; turnout in the four counties with mail-in voting averaged 71 percent .
In red North Dakota , 31 of 53 counties have shifted to mail-in voting .
Even red Texas allows no-excuse access to mail-in absentee ballots ... for voters 65 and older .
( Like Medicare , but for accessible voting ! )
Another fan : Donald Trump , who voted absentee in Florida a few weeks ago .
Mail-in voting has increased turnout in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in blue states , and there is no evidence that it has increased turnout disproportionately among Democratic voters .
Rather , vote-by-mail primarily seems to increase turnout among low-propensity voters without strong partisan attachments ( unaffiliated voters , or UAFs ) .
It was long conventional wisdom in US politics that UAFs tended to vote Democratic when they showed up , because UAFs tend to be clustered in vulnerable populations .
But as long-time political strategist and analyst Celinda Lake says , “ that can include people of color in inner cities , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in trailer parks in North Carolina.
” It was Trump himself , she says , who overturned the conventional wisdom .
In 2016 , increased turnout brought UAFs off the sidelines into his camp , not Clinton ’ s .
The same could happen in 2020 .
After all , the group among which mail-in voting seems to most increase turnout is voters 65 and older .
That is not exactly a stalwart Democratic demographic .
There ’ s just no evidence that mail-in voting disproportionately benefits Democrats .
A February 2020 survey @ @ @ @ @ @ @ concluded that , “ if they all voted in 2020 , non-voters would add an almost equal share of votes to Democratic and Republican candidates.
” Regardless , that shouldn ’ t be the point .
“ This intertwining of election policies and procedures with partisan outcomes not helpful to anybody , ” says McReynolds .
“ It ’ s who votes , not who wins.
” With mail-in voting , more people vote .
And they love it .
Rozan Mitchell , previously election director of Salt Lake County , told the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ realize how important that was to some people , that they could take that ballot they got in the mail , sit down at the kitchen table , and really study out the issues .
I feel like vote-by-mail voters are much more informed than the average voter who would just show up on Election Day.
” No county or state that has adopted mail-in voting , red or blue , wants to go back .
Voting by mail is not corrupt Trump keeps saying that voting by mail makes cheating easy .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ it makes cheating incredibly difficult .
Phil Keisling , the former Oregon secretary of state who introduced that state ’ s mail-in voting system , explains why : Vote-by-mail makes wholesale fraud all but impossible .
Voters hand mark paper ballots and receive a stub with a code that allows them to track their ballot as it proceeds through the system and ensure that it is properly tallied .
It is a trackable paper system — just what election security experts recommend .
( As long as it is done well , of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this system doesn ’ t take place in a private polling booth , people tend to imagine lurid scenarios whereby abusive husbands , controlling pastors , or other bad actors control or otherwise influence other people ’ s votes .
So it ’ s important to note is that in well-designed mail-in voting systems , anyone who wants to can , any time before election day , go to a polling place , report that their vote was coerced ( or just mistaken ) , and request a replacement ballot .
There are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any such problems , but they just don ’ t seem to happen on any appreciable scale .
( Here the conservative Heritage Foundation struggles to build a pair of dubiously sourced stories from 20 years ago into a case that mail-in voting causes fraud ; you can decide whether it ’ s convincing . )
The only serious modern case of election chicanery associated with mail-in voting was perpetrated by , you guessed it , Republicans .
As the New York Times reported , Republican nominee Mark Harris contracted with operative L. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ blatant even his son thought he should step down over it .
And it wasn ’ t voter fraud , it was GOP operatives defrauding voters , mishandling absentee ballots in an election they were supposed to be fairly administering .
And they were caught !
This isn ’ t the place to completely rehash the case for vote-by-mail ; I explained it more fully in a post from 2017 and another from 2018 .
Suffice it to say , mail-in voting systems have a well-established record , are used regularly by tens @ @ @ @ @ @ @ consistently boost turnout , and are enduringly popular where they have been implemented .
And there is simply no other way to ensure everyone access to voting without forcing them into crowded polling places .
Democrats should go to the mat for voting reform Democrats have limited leverage in Washington , DC , right now , but they do have some .
It ’ s clear by now that the $ 2 trillion recovery package that Congress passed last week is simply not going to be enough .
Unemployment is skyrocketing to its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ faster than it ever has , and the virus hasn ’ t even arrived in many places in earnest .
There will be much more economic pain and dislocation ahead , and demand for Congress to do more .
Already talk of a phase 4 stimulus has begun .
Democrats don ’ t seem to have internalized this , but Republicans need the next stimulus bill more than they do .
Trump can spin every day from his press briefings , and he has a massive media machine that will work to shield @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thousands of deaths and a historic depression are what they are .
Political science shows that voters tend to hold the party in power responsible for their circumstances , especially in the run-up to an election .
( Though as political scientist Larry Bartels , the source of much of that research , told me , “ no one really knows whether past experience is relevant in our current circumstances.
” ) If there ’ s no additional stimulus after phase 3 , the suffering will be vast and unrelenting and Republicans are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ blame .
They know this .
So whether they admit it or not , they need to pass another stimulus bill .
Democrats control the House of Representatives , so no bill passes unless they agree .
That gives them leverage .
I wrote a long post about some of the things that ought to be included in such a bill ( or bills ) , focusing on long-term investments to accelerate the shift to clean energy .
But if I had to pick one issue that Democrats should absolutely insist on — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ should refuse to pass a bill — it would be voting reform .
Vote-by-mail is not a silver bullet or the only voting reform needed .
Senators Amy Klobuchar and Ron Wyden have introduced a bill with a package of emergency voting reforms .
The Defending Democracy Program has a good list of reforms , including curbside voting ( for those with no permanent address ) and a number of security measures like post-election audits .
The Brennan Center for Justice has its own list , with considerable overlap .
( Lake also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ states , including Utah , have used to boost turnout .
But most reformers agree that universal mail-in voting is the core of a safe and secure election system .
It ’ s the simplest and most reliable way to ensure that everyone can participate , especially at a time when going to the polls could be dangerous .
Democrats should insist on it .
Holding the line will require unusual spine from Democrats As Axios documents , there are various voting reforms being contemplated in various states in response to the novel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ likely to get in on the action .
But the basic security of federal elections can not be left entirely to state governments .
Republicans claim to oppose the Klobuchar/Wyden bill because of federalism .
States are in charge of election law , they say ; no “ one size fits all ” approach will work .
But the bill , like the voting reform bill from House Democrats last month , doesn ’ t dictate specific procedures or staffing , it simply imposes a few baseline conditions that must be met for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fair .
One is universal access to mail-in voting .
Regardless , Republicans are likely to fight federal voting reform with everything they have , if only because they instinctively fight everything Democrats want these days .
And as usual , they will have a coordinated media machine behind them to attack and browbeat their opponents .
They will accuse Democrats of trying to rig elections .
They will accuse Democrats of “ playing politics , ” holding up needed stimulus for unrelated partisan reasons .
They will spin the mainstream media into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ squabble rather than a fight over basic voting rights .
All of that is as predictable as the sun rising .
The phase 3 stimulus fight did not offer much reason to hope that Democrats are willing to stand up to that kind of ( by now , numbingly familiar ) bullying .
When they pushed back on the ludicrous corporate giveaway the Republican Senate put forward , conservatives immediately drove “ Democrats delay recovery ” headlines into the media and Democrats immediately started sweating .
They let DC media get to them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to manipulate DC media .
( Trump himself has literally mocked reporters for being such suckers for every “ new tone.
” ) Still , the stakes are too high this time .
The more chaos and uncertainty there is as November approaches , the more opportunities there will be for cheating and the less the American public will trust election results .
If the country wants to conduct free and fair elections , it needs to start preparing now .
Procedures need to be put in place ; people need to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be bulked up .
( The Center for Civic Design has a great tool kit for scaling up mail-in voting ; the National Vote at Home Institute has detailed plan for taking mail-in voting national by November ; the National Task Force on Election Crises has its own set of Covid-19 related suggestions , also featuring universal mail-in voting . )
Democrats need to prepare themselves for the fight of their lives .
Any pro-social policy will be wrested from the hands of recalcitrant Republicans in the Senate through political force .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of chicken , not the collaborative bipartisan process of Democratic reveries .
They will need a thick skin and uncharacteristic unity .
But they have some power if they are willing to use it .
If Democrats don ’ t get a fair shot at competing in November — in a political system already so heavily tilted against democracy and against Democrats — all their dreams of action on climate change , health care , and immigration reform will come to nothing , and the country they were elected to serve could very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They must hold the line on free and fair elections .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

Update, May 4: New research from a group of political scientists affirms that mail-in voting in Colorado raised turnout more than 10 points among the most vulnerable demographics, including low-income voters, and benefited Republicans and Democrats equally. It’s powerful support for the argument that mail-in voting should be universally accessible for the November elections. The following piece, making that argument, was originally published on April 8, 2020.
The political climate in the US is tumultuous. The Covid-19 pandemic hangs over everything even as a dozen other issues — an oil crisis, a divided Democratic Party, and a corrupt, impeached president — compete for our scant remaining attention.
Into that muddle, I would like to introduce what I hope is a note of clarity, a fixed point around which all Americans of good faith ought to be able to rally.
To wit: Americans need to have safe, free, and fair federal elections in November.
The date of the election is in law and can’t be changed without an act of Congress. The country is in a fragile, distrustful place already, and a chaotic election viewed by large swathes of the population as illegitimate could tip it over into a full-fledged constitutional crisis or even violence. This is a make-or-break issue for the country.
There is no way to stop Trump from characterizing the election as compromised; he accuses opponents of fraud in all elections, whether he wins or not. He has already tried to cheat in the 2020 election — got impeached for it just a couple of months/centuries ago — and will undoubtedly continue trying, even as he ramps up accusations against Democrats. He assumes Democrats will do the exact same thing: cheat and accuse him of cheating.
His tweet in early April captured his argument succinctly:
Republicans should fight very hard when it comes to state wide mail-in voting. Democrats are clamoring for it. Tremendous potential for voter fraud, and for whatever reason, doesn’t work out well for Republicans. @foxandfriends — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 8, 2020
And where Trump goes, right-wing state media, led by Fox, dutifully follow. They will back him up with conspiracy theories about voter fraud that at least some large part of the core conservative base will believe.
But what happens around the margins matters. Committed partisans will line up the same way regardless of the fact that voting is not partisan (Utah, a red state, has a 100 percent vote-by-mail system.) But that leaves a large, fuzzy, semi-engaged class of voters whose opinion of the election will be shaped by their personal experience and the signals they receive from trusted sources about the validity of the process.
The best way for Democrats to ensure that November’s elections are viewed as free and fair amid a coronavirus pandemic is to make them so. The best way to make them so, in the time remaining, is to implement universal access to postage-paid mail-in ballots with extended deadlines, serviced by a funded and functional Postal Service. (This is not the only reform needed, but it is the backbone.)
The only way for Democrats to secure that policy is to make it non-negotiable bottom line — a condition of voting through any further stimulus bills. This would be a tough political strategy to follow through on, running counter to national Democrats’ institutional timidity and fears about holding up cash and unemployment for those who really need it. They would be attacked ruthlessly by the right and mau-maued endlessly by the centrist pundits whose opinions they so prize.
But it is the right thing to do on the merits, so they should do it, and defend it without apology. This ought to be a messaging war they can win. If not, what good are they?
It might seem obvious to say that free and fair elections are important in a democracy. But this year, they are by no means assured.
Without reform, elections will be an entirely foreseeable disaster
Experts say social distancing could last six months or more, and even after that, it’s possible that the virus could periodically return in various cities or regions, occasioning new stay-at-home orders. Even South Korea and Singapore, places where the virus response has been considered exemplary, which thought they might be reaching the far end, are now reinstituting social distancing measures. Without a vaccine, there is no certain plan, anywhere in the world, for how to emerge on the other side of this thing.
Compared to those two countries, the US’s response has been a fiasco. The US has more than 12,000 reported deaths, the third-highest count in the world after Italy and Spain. The US is woefully behind in testing and tracking, the two key tools for bringing the virus under control. And there is still no coherent federal plan to secure needed medical supplies, ramp up testing, or bring social distancing to a safe end.
It may simply not be safe to go out and vote in person, among crowds of other people, in November.
For those curious about the person in this picture: Jennifer Taff requested but never received an absentee ballot. She spent hours in line to vote despite the risk to herself and her father who has lung cancer: "I'm disgusted."https://t.co/PE5Z04jZEw pic.twitter.com/XWYI1gnpg0 — Don Moynihan (@donmoyn) April 8, 2020
Unless changes are made, the elections will thrust a choice upon millions of Americans, especially those from the most vulnerable populations (the elderly, people of color, people with chronic medical conditions): vote and put your safety at risk, or skip voting to stay safe.
No democracy worth the name can allow that to happen.
Republicans have recently become convinced that voting by mail is corrupt and a partisan issue
Voting by mail is not designed to give one party or the other an advantage. “It’s not partisan,” says Amber McReynolds, CEO for the National Vote At Home Institute, “it’s about making sure every voter can vote in a secure, effective, and safe way.” (More on this below.)
Nonetheless, it is clear that someone or some organization on the right has recently been working to convince Republicans otherwise.
When Democrats suggested voting reform for the phase 3 stimulus bill, Trump warned of “levels of voting that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
In a recent interview discussing Georgia’s upcoming primary election, state House Speaker David Ralston conceded that, if every voter got a mail-in absentee ballot, it “will certainly drive up turnout,” but that would be “extremely devastating to Republicans and conservatives in Georgia.”
Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander contended that forcing voters to risk their lives is preferable to voting by mail. “Around the world we’ve had people in new democracies go to vote when their lives were at risk because the right to vote was so precious,” said the mordant lawmaker. “Most Americans would be very skeptical of significant changes in our ability to go cast a ballot in person, certainly at this point.”
The House’s foremost Trump supplicant, Thomas Massie, even tweeted that “universal vote by mail would be the end of our republic as we know it.”
The Washington Post’s Dave Weigel reports several more examples of Republicans across the country attacking mail-in voting — mainly, it seems, because groups they view as liberal, including Democrats, support it.
When pressed, conservatives will generally say that they oppose mail-in voting because of the potential for fraud. But it’s clear that what they really fear is more people (the wrong people) voting.
Both fears are misplaced.
Voting by mail is not partisan
The US Election Assistance Commission releases a yearly Election Administration and Voting Survey (EAVS). The 2018 edition reports on the state of mail-in voting and early voting:
All states allow for some form of by-mail voting and in-person early voting for at least some segments of their domestic civilian population, although how that happens in practice varies widely. Three states [Colorado, Oregon, and Washington] administer their elections entirely by mail and four states have all-by-mail voting in select local jurisdictions. About one-quarter of states require in-person early voters to provide an excuse. Almost one-third of states have vote centers or allow voters to cast ballots at any polling place in their jurisdiction.
As the 2017 EAVS report showed, the percentage of Americans early, absentee, or mail voting doubled from 24.9 million in 2004 to 57.2 million in 2016, to roughly two out of every five ballots cast.
By 2018, the percentage voting by mail reached almost 26 percent, more than one out of every four American voters.
The trend is particularly pronounced in the West, where 68 percent of voters voted by mail in 2018.
Analysts expected those numbers to rise in 2020. Since 2018, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Virginia have moved to no-excuse absentee ballots, California has shifted to 100 percent mail-in voting for over half its population, and Hawaii has gone 100 percent. Gerry Langeler, director of communications and research at the National Vote at Home Institute, told me that, in the absence of the virus, they were expecting mail-in voting numbers to hit the mid-70s in the West and around 30 percent nationally in 2020. (Now, with the virus, no one knows for sure.)
That’s almost a third of the population, and not all in blue states. Utah has a 100 percent mail-in voting system. Counties had to opt in; the final county did so last year. (This Washington Monthly story recounts the patient expansion.)
“Being a very red state,” Utah director of elections Justin Lee told Weigel, “we haven’t seen anything that helps one party over another at all.”
Red Nebraska allows any county with 10,000 residents or less to shift to mail-in voting. “Rural parts of the country benefit tremendously from this kind of system,” says McReynolds; it can save rural residents from long drives to polling places. In the 2018 election, statewide voter turnout in Nebraska averaged 58 percent; turnout in the four counties with mail-in voting averaged 71 percent.
In red North Dakota, 31 of 53 counties have shifted to mail-in voting. Even red Texas allows no-excuse access to mail-in absentee ballots ... for voters 65 and older. (Like Medicare, but for accessible voting!)
Another fan: Donald Trump, who voted absentee in Florida a few weeks ago.
President Trump: "I think mail-in voting is horrible, it's corrupt."
Reporter: "You voted by mail in Florida's election last month, didn't you?"
Trump: "Sure. I can vote by mail"
Reporter: "How do you reconcile with that?"
Trump: "Because I'm allowed to." pic.twitter.com/Es8ZNyB3O1 — MSNBC (@MSNBC) April 7, 2020
Mail-in voting has increased turnout in those red states just as it has in blue states, and there is no evidence that it has increased turnout disproportionately among Democratic voters.
Rather, vote-by-mail primarily seems to increase turnout among low-propensity voters without strong partisan attachments (unaffiliated voters, or UAFs).
It was long conventional wisdom in US politics that UAFs tended to vote Democratic when they showed up, because UAFs tend to be clustered in vulnerable populations. But as long-time political strategist and analyst Celinda Lake says, “that can include people of color in inner cities, but it can also include white people in trailer parks in North Carolina.” It was Trump himself, she says, who overturned the conventional wisdom.
In 2016, increased turnout brought UAFs off the sidelines into his camp, not Clinton’s. The same could happen in 2020. After all, the group among which mail-in voting seems to most increase turnout is voters 65 and older. That is not exactly a stalwart Democratic demographic.
There’s just no evidence that mail-in voting disproportionately benefits Democrats. A February 2020 survey of 12,000 non-voters by the Knight Foundation concluded that, “if they all voted in 2020, non-voters would add an almost equal share of votes to Democratic and Republican candidates.”
Regardless, that shouldn’t be the point. “This intertwining of election policies and procedures with partisan outcomes not helpful to anybody,” says McReynolds. “It’s who votes, not who wins.”
With mail-in voting, more people vote. And they love it. Rozan Mitchell, previously election director of Salt Lake County, told the Monthly: “I didn’t realize how important that was to some people, that they could take that ballot they got in the mail, sit down at the kitchen table, and really study out the issues. I feel like vote-by-mail voters are much more informed than the average voter who would just show up on Election Day.”
No county or state that has adopted mail-in voting, red or blue, wants to go back.
Voting by mail is not corrupt
Trump keeps saying that voting by mail makes cheating easy. That is false. In fact, it makes cheating incredibly difficult. Phil Keisling, the former Oregon secretary of state who introduced that state’s mail-in voting system, explains why:
Mail-based voting systems today are far less risky than most polling place elections, precisely because they distribute ballots (and electoral risk) in such a decentralized way. To have any reasonable chance of success, an organized effort to defraud a mail-based system and its safeguards must involve hundreds (if not thousands) of separate acts, all of them individual felonies, that must both occur and go undetected to have any chance of success. Contrast that to the risks inherent in polling place elections that increasingly rely on direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting systems and proprietary software systems that both record and tally votes. A single successful software hack potentially could affect thousands of votes. It’s the difference between “retail” fraud and “wholesale” fraud.
Vote-by-mail makes wholesale fraud all but impossible. Voters hand mark paper ballots and receive a stub with a code that allows them to track their ballot as it proceeds through the system and ensure that it is properly tallied. It is a trackable paper system — just what election security experts recommend. (As long as it is done well, of course; design matters.)
Because this system doesn’t take place in a private polling booth, people tend to imagine lurid scenarios whereby abusive husbands, controlling pastors, or other bad actors control or otherwise influence other people’s votes. So it’s important to note is that in well-designed mail-in voting systems, anyone who wants to can, any time before election day, go to a polling place, report that their vote was coerced (or just mistaken), and request a replacement ballot. There are mechanisms in place to record and track any such problems, but they just don’t seem to happen on any appreciable scale. (Here the conservative Heritage Foundation struggles to build a pair of dubiously sourced stories from 20 years ago into a case that mail-in voting causes fraud; you can decide whether it’s convincing.)
The only serious modern case of election chicanery associated with mail-in voting was perpetrated by, you guessed it, Republicans. As the New York Times reported, Republican nominee Mark Harris contracted with operative L. McCrae Dowless Jr. in a scheme so blatant even his son thought he should step down over it. And it wasn’t voter fraud, it was GOP operatives defrauding voters, mishandling absentee ballots in an election they were supposed to be fairly administering. And they were caught!
This isn’t the place to completely rehash the case for vote-by-mail; I explained it more fully in a post from 2017 and another from 2018. Suffice it to say, mail-in voting systems have a well-established record, are used regularly by tens of millions of Americans without incident, consistently boost turnout, and are enduringly popular where they have been implemented.
And there is simply no other way to ensure everyone access to voting without forcing them into crowded polling places.
Democrats should go to the mat for voting reform
Democrats have limited leverage in Washington, DC, right now, but they do have some.
It’s clear by now that the $2 trillion recovery package that Congress passed last week is simply not going to be enough. Unemployment is skyrocketing to its highest levels ever, GDP is falling faster than it ever has, and the virus hasn’t even arrived in many places in earnest. There will be much more economic pain and dislocation ahead, and demand for Congress to do more. Already talk of a phase 4 stimulus has begun.
Democrats don’t seem to have internalized this, but Republicans need the next stimulus bill more than they do. Trump can spin every day from his press briefings, and he has a massive media machine that will work to shield him from accountability, but hundreds of thousands of deaths and a historic depression are what they are. Political science shows that voters tend to hold the party in power responsible for their circumstances, especially in the run-up to an election. (Though as political scientist Larry Bartels, the source of much of that research, told me, “no one really knows whether past experience is relevant in our current circumstances.”)
If there’s no additional stimulus after phase 3, the suffering will be vast and unrelenting and Republicans are likely to catch the brunt of the blame. They know this. So whether they admit it or not, they need to pass another stimulus bill.
Democrats control the House of Representatives, so no bill passes unless they agree. That gives them leverage.
I agree with @ewarren that our response to the COVID-19 crisis must include a robust plan to protect the right to vote, and in fact, make it easier to vote.https://t.co/bgWZomzt3j — Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) April 7, 2020
I wrote a long post about some of the things that ought to be included in such a bill (or bills), focusing on long-term investments to accelerate the shift to clean energy. But if I had to pick one issue that Democrats should absolutely insist on — one package of reforms without which they should refuse to pass a bill — it would be voting reform.
Vote-by-mail is not a silver bullet or the only voting reform needed. Senators Amy Klobuchar and Ron Wyden have introduced a bill with a package of emergency voting reforms. The Defending Democracy Program has a good list of reforms, including curbside voting (for those with no permanent address) and a number of security measures like post-election audits. The Brennan Center for Justice has its own list, with considerable overlap. (Lake also emphasized same-day registration, a reform many states, including Utah, have used to boost turnout.
But most reformers agree that universal mail-in voting is the core of a safe and secure election system. It’s the simplest and most reliable way to ensure that everyone can participate, especially at a time when going to the polls could be dangerous. Democrats should insist on it.
Holding the line will require unusual spine from Democrats
As Axios documents, there are various voting reforms being contemplated in various states in response to the novel coronavirus — and many more states are likely to get in on the action. But the basic security of federal elections cannot be left entirely to state governments.
Republicans claim to oppose the Klobuchar/Wyden bill because of federalism. States are in charge of election law, they say; no “one size fits all” approach will work. But the bill, like the voting reform bill from House Democrats last month, doesn’t dictate specific procedures or staffing, it simply imposes a few baseline conditions that must be met for the election to count as free and fair. One is universal access to mail-in voting.
Regardless, Republicans are likely to fight federal voting reform with everything they have, if only because they instinctively fight everything Democrats want these days. And as usual, they will have a coordinated media machine behind them to attack and browbeat their opponents. They will accuse Democrats of trying to rig elections. They will accuse Democrats of “playing politics,” holding up needed stimulus for unrelated partisan reasons. They will spin the mainstream media into presenting the whole thing as a political squabble rather than a fight over basic voting rights.
All of that is as predictable as the sun rising.
The phase 3 stimulus fight did not offer much reason to hope that Democrats are willing to stand up to that kind of (by now, numbingly familiar) bullying. When they pushed back on the ludicrous corporate giveaway the Republican Senate put forward, conservatives immediately drove “Democrats delay recovery” headlines into the media and Democrats immediately started sweating. They let DC media get to them — and conservatives find it trivially easy to manipulate DC media. (Trump himself has literally mocked reporters for being such suckers for every “new tone.”)
This is an absolutely new message and new tone from Trump. https://t.co/bgVnEdKCK2 — Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) March 31, 2020
Still, the stakes are too high this time. The more chaos and uncertainty there is as November approaches, the more opportunities there will be for cheating and the less the American public will trust election results.
If the country wants to conduct free and fair elections, it needs to start preparing now. Procedures need to be put in place; people need to be hired; the Postal Service needs to be bulked up. (The Center for Civic Design has a great tool kit for scaling up mail-in voting; the National Vote at Home Institute has detailed plan for taking mail-in voting national by November; the National Task Force on Election Crises has its own set of Covid-19 related suggestions, also featuring universal mail-in voting.)
Democrats need to prepare themselves for the fight of their lives. Any pro-social policy will be wrested from the hands of recalcitrant Republicans in the Senate through political force. It will be a fight, a game of chicken, not the collaborative bipartisan process of Democratic reveries. They will need a thick skin and uncharacteristic unity. But they have some power if they are willing to use it.
If Democrats don’t get a fair shot at competing in November — in a political system already so heavily tilted against democracy and against Democrats — all their dreams of action on climate change, health care, and immigration reform will come to nothing, and the country they were elected to serve could very well come apart at the seams.
They must hold the line on free and fair elections.


vox--2020-05-04--“Leave no vacancy behind”: McConnell remains laser-focused on judges amid coronavirus

Even during the coronavirus pandemic , Mitch McConnell is laser-focused on one of his top priorities : advancing judges .
The Senate returns to the Hill this week following a month-long recess , despite concerns from the Capitol physician about testing shortages and coronavirus spread in DC .
While the coronavirus stimulus is a major reason for lawmakers ’ return , the current legislative agenda also includes a slate of unrelated priorities , including the confirmation hearing for a DC Circuit Court nominee .
Confirming judges , after all , is a major goal McConnell has had since the start @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — and it ’ s one that clearly hasn ’ t changed despite the ongoing global public health crisis .
“ My motto for the year is ‘ leave no vacancy behind , ’ ” McConnell said during an April appearance on The Hugh Hewitt Show .
“ That hasn ’ t changed .
The pandemic will not prevent us from achieving that goal.
” This emphasis is emblematic of McConnell ’ s approach to the judiciary throughout Trump ’ s tenure thus far : Armed with a Republican majority in the Senate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rules of the upper chamber — such as the amount of time required for debate on each nominee — the Kentucky lawmaker has helped shepherd through judges in rapid succession .
As of this week , McConnell has helped confirm 51 circuit court judges and 139 district court judges while Trump has been in office .
That ’ s a notable uptick in pace , particularly when it comes to the former : During President Barack Obama ’ s two terms in office , the Senate confirmed 55 circuit court judges in total @ @ @ @ @ @ @ push to remake the federal judiciary are far-reaching : Many of Trump ’ s judicial nominees are white , male , and relatively young — and once approved , they ’ re set for lifetime appointments on the bench .
McConnell ’ s decision to move forward with judicial nominees this week — including an expected Senate Judiciary hearing on DC Circuit Court nominee Justin Walker — is the latest indication of how committed he is to this effort .
Walker ’ s hearing is far from the only thing on this week @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hearings to examine the Covid-19 testing response and the coronavirus ’ s impact on the aviation industry , though no hearings or votes focused explicitly on the next wave of stimulus are currently scheduled .
Still , the fact that a judicial nominee is even on the docket , when the Senate ’ s full focus could be on coronavirus , has raised Democratic ire .
“ Senator McConnell ought to focus the Senate ’ s work on the crises caused by COVID-19 , not right-wing judges or fulfilling his ‘ pre-existing partisan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any harm done to the American people , ” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer ( D-NY ) said in a statement last week .
A hearing on a judicial nominee is one of several things on the Senate agenda this week A Senate Judiciary confirmation hearing is just one of several items laid out in McConnell ’ s Senate agenda — and it ’ s notable that lawmakers will be focused on this issue at all given the current pandemic .
As NBC News reported , a committee hearing this week is expected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — a Kentucky district court judge who previously clerked for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh — to the DC Circuit .
It ’ s a move that ’ s garnered pushback from leading Democrats , including the ranking members of top committees , who ’ ve questioned why hearings unrelated to the coronavirus need to happen right now .
“ Pursuant to your decision to convene the Senate during the week of May 4th , despite the public health emergency in Washington , D.C. , we respectfully urge you to have the Senate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of all COVID-related legislation enacted by Congress , ” the ranking members wrote in an April 28 letter to McConnell .
Walker — who was deemed “ not qualified ” for the District Court judgeship by the American Bar Association last year — would be taking up one of two remaining Circuit Court vacancies if he ’ s confirmed , NBC News noted .
This hearing , however , is among a host of items on the Senate agenda .
There is also a confirmation vote scheduled for the inspector general of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ confirmation hearings for the inspector general for pandemic recovery at the Treasury Department and the director of national intelligence , among others .
Additionally , the Health and Education Committee will hold a hearing with the director of the National Institutes of Health to examine the state of Covid-19 testing in the US ; the Commerce Committee is scheduled to speak with airline industry representatives about the economic effects of coronavirus .
Concerns about the consideration of judicial nominees in this moment hasn ’ t been limited to Democrats .
According to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( R-AK ) raised this very issue during a recent GOP conference call .
“ As much as judges are important , what people want us to be focused on is Covid , ” she said .
The next steps forward on stimulus are still hazy The Senate is coming back to the Capitol as lawmakers continue to work on the next coronavirus stimulus package .
The House , meanwhile , has opted not to return just yet , given guidance from the Capitol physician about the increased risk members and staff could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus .
Presently , Democrats and Republican leadership have laid out pretty different approaches to the upcoming stimulus .
As Vox ’ s Ella Nilsen reported , Democrats are eager to focus on additional aid for states and cities , and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said the bill would “ probably [ include ] a number equivalent to what we have done for small businesses.
” That would be significant : Thus far , lawmakers have approved upwards of $ 700 billion for small-business loan programs .
Republicans , meanwhile , have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , citing concerns about the national debt among their arguments for resisting the proposal .
McConnell has more recently acknowledged that state funding will likely be necessary , though his initial push has centered on liability protections for businesses that could face lawsuits because of the potential impact on workers and customers during the pandemic .
Republicans and Democrats are expected to continue their negotiations on the legislation in the coming weeks .
More than 30 million Americans have filed for unemployment insurance in the past six weeks , a sign that workers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ comprehensive legislative response .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

Even during the coronavirus pandemic, Mitch McConnell is laser-focused on one of his top priorities: advancing judges.
The Senate returns to the Hill this week following a month-long recess, despite concerns from the Capitol physician about testing shortages and coronavirus spread in DC. While the coronavirus stimulus is a major reason for lawmakers’ return, the current legislative agenda also includes a slate of unrelated priorities, including the confirmation hearing for a DC Circuit Court nominee.
Confirming judges, after all, is a major goal McConnell has had since the start of President Donald Trump’s term — and it’s one that clearly hasn’t changed despite the ongoing global public health crisis.
“My motto for the year is ‘leave no vacancy behind,’” McConnell said during an April appearance on The Hugh Hewitt Show. “That hasn’t changed. The pandemic will not prevent us from achieving that goal.”
This emphasis is emblematic of McConnell’s approach to the judiciary throughout Trump’s tenure thus far: Armed with a Republican majority in the Senate and the ability to blow up longstanding rules of the upper chamber — such as the amount of time required for debate on each nominee — the Kentucky lawmaker has helped shepherd through judges in rapid succession.
As of this week, McConnell has helped confirm 51 circuit court judges and 139 district court judges while Trump has been in office. That’s a notable uptick in pace, particularly when it comes to the former: During President Barack Obama’s two terms in office, the Senate confirmed 55 circuit court judges in total.
The implications of McConnell’s push to remake the federal judiciary are far-reaching: Many of Trump’s judicial nominees are white, male, and relatively young — and once approved, they’re set for lifetime appointments on the bench.
McConnell’s decision to move forward with judicial nominees this week — including an expected Senate Judiciary hearing on DC Circuit Court nominee Justin Walker — is the latest indication of how committed he is to this effort.
Walker’s hearing is far from the only thing on this week’s agenda. Also scheduled are hearings to examine the Covid-19 testing response and the coronavirus’s impact on the aviation industry, though no hearings or votes focused explicitly on the next wave of stimulus are currently scheduled.
Still, the fact that a judicial nominee is even on the docket, when the Senate’s full focus could be on coronavirus, has raised Democratic ire.
“Senator McConnell ought to focus the Senate’s work on the crises caused by COVID-19, not right-wing judges or fulfilling his ‘pre-existing partisan wish-list’ of protecting big business from any harm done to the American people,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a statement last week.
A hearing on a judicial nominee is one of several things on the Senate agenda this week
A Senate Judiciary confirmation hearing is just one of several items laid out in McConnell’s Senate agenda — and it’s notable that lawmakers will be focused on this issue at all given the current pandemic.
As NBC News reported, a committee hearing this week is expected to center on the confirmation of Walker — a Kentucky district court judge who previously clerked for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh — to the DC Circuit. It’s a move that’s garnered pushback from leading Democrats, including the ranking members of top committees, who’ve questioned why hearings unrelated to the coronavirus need to happen right now.
“Pursuant to your decision to convene the Senate during the week of May 4th, despite the public health emergency in Washington, D.C., we respectfully urge you to have the Senate focus on COVID-19 related matters and oversight of all COVID-related legislation enacted by Congress,” the ranking members wrote in an April 28 letter to McConnell.
Walker — who was deemed “not qualified” for the District Court judgeship by the American Bar Association last year — would be taking up one of two remaining Circuit Court vacancies if he’s confirmed, NBC News noted.
This hearing, however, is among a host of items on the Senate agenda. There is also a confirmation vote scheduled for the inspector general of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as well as confirmation hearings for the inspector general for pandemic recovery at the Treasury Department and the director of national intelligence, among others.
Additionally, the Health and Education Committee will hold a hearing with the director of the National Institutes of Health to examine the state of Covid-19 testing in the US; the Commerce Committee is scheduled to speak with airline industry representatives about the economic effects of coronavirus.
Concerns about the consideration of judicial nominees in this moment hasn’t been limited to Democrats. According to the New York Times, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) raised this very issue during a recent GOP conference call. “As much as judges are important, what people want us to be focused on is Covid,” she said.
The next steps forward on stimulus are still hazy
The Senate is coming back to the Capitol as lawmakers continue to work on the next coronavirus stimulus package. The House, meanwhile, has opted not to return just yet, given guidance from the Capitol physician about the increased risk members and staff could face when it comes to contracting the coronavirus.
Presently, Democrats and Republican leadership have laid out pretty different approaches to the upcoming stimulus. As Vox’s Ella Nilsen reported, Democrats are eager to focus on additional aid for states and cities, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said the bill would “probably [include] a number equivalent to what we have done for small businesses.” That would be significant: Thus far, lawmakers have approved upwards of $700 billion for small-business loan programs.
Republicans, meanwhile, have chafed at doing another expansive stimulus package, citing concerns about the national debt among their arguments for resisting the proposal. McConnell has more recently acknowledged that state funding will likely be necessary, though his initial push has centered on liability protections for businesses that could face lawsuits because of the potential impact on workers and customers during the pandemic.
Republicans and Democrats are expected to continue their negotiations on the legislation in the coming weeks. More than 30 million Americans have filed for unemployment insurance in the past six weeks, a sign that workers and businesses still desperately need a more comprehensive legislative response.
But first, judges.