- Jun 6, 2007
- 852
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The Democrats and Republicans both have a good case for their priorities in the next Corona-Virus Relief bill. The Republicans are right the Federal government should give protections to businesses and individuals against negligence and tortious lawsuits over Covid 19; Federal Law trumps State Law so Congress can really stop a liability Tsunami from sweeping the nation here It seems fair the proposed overall standard that if businesses followed Federal (e.g. OSHA) and State law they cannot be sued. The effort needs to block a large category of potential plaintiffs, no customer or patient should be able to sue any business over negligence here, this is a pandemic this is no business's fault. Employees are a different story, employers that egregiously did not care about the health of their employees should face a reckoning; the federal government should allow employees to sue employers even if they followed federal and state guidelines if the employer did not have and enforce policies and procedures in place to flag employees that "clearly" had symptoms of covid 19 or in fact tested positive for the disease and prohibited them from working and warned co-workers that were in contact with an employee who tested positive and that the employer was aware of so that these at risk colleagues could make arrangement to protect their families. However, for such employee lawsuits only the estate of deceased employees from Covid 19 and deceased members of their households from covid 19 and employees who incurred significant long-term health damage from the disease and similarly members of their household should be able to sue and suing for "punitive" and "pain and suffering" damages should be prohibited, compensatory damages only should be permitted; Congress should allow such gross negligence lawsuits to deter such egregious disregard for employee health by a minor number of employers that the America people have heard of in anecdotal reports. Democrats and their Labor allies should not be opposed to this negligence liability protection because unless robust liability protections are garnered there is going to be a lot of businesses sued and these businesses are going to be struggling to come up with the money to pay the liability cost and this will result in job losses and lower wage increases for labor plus the consequence that America's businesses will be permanently saddled with higher insurance costs to protect against like lawsuit liability in the future which again will reverberate to employees in the form of lower wages and lost jobs!
Democrats policy initiative they espoused immediately after passage of the last Corona-virus relief bill, the PPP Two bill, where they were seeking $500 billion for the states and counties, the bi-partisan Governors proposal, is essentially reasonable, their expansion of this policy to a trillion dollar multi-year state/county relief package definitely " isn't"; the country is broke future generations of Americans will be paying this bill we, the American people living today, are morally and ethically duty bound to keep the price tags of these CARES Act laws as low as possible. It is part of the hallmark of America's values that we economically help our communities hit by a natural disaster, Covid 19 qualifies, with recovering from the loss; the pandemic crisis this year has and will bring a dramatic loss in tax revenue to states and counties, so the Federal government should try to make up the lions share of this loss. Given that the Federal Government will come in with a large size helping hand Democrats have to understand that the Federal government cannot completely bank roll these municipalities it cannot afford to. Democrats have to accept what financial experts are telling us about the economic fallout of Covid 19 , so our nation's various levels of government can function responsibly, this disease has and will inflict material long-term damage on our economy a significant number of small, medium and large business will not survive, the bankruptcies have already begun. The point is that this damage means state and local governments will be getting less tax revenue for the foreseeable future so these governments will have to do significant belt tightening including hiring freezes unless absolutely a critical hire until the economy regrows to replace the business and wage income loss! On the other side of this if President Trump thinks it's a good position on this issue to just tell the American people that he cannot help their states and counties because Democrats in some of America's municipalities mismanage their finances by doing things like giving too generous of retirement benefits by providing defined pension plans he is going to be in for a rude awakening come November 3 when voters penalize him at the polls especially considering that if Washington doesn't throw a lifeline here to the state's and counties prior to election day communities across America are going to see dramatic numbers of teachers, police officers and firefighters laid-off because there is no money in local government coiffeurs to pay for them.
In a prior relief bill Washington gave relief to home owners with Federal backed mortgages these Americans can delay paying their mortgage up to a year because of the corona-virus. As written earlier this is a half of a policy, the Federal government should extend the forbearance to all mortgages and resolve the question of whether a balloon or partial payment is due at the end of forbearance, the Federal Government could bring this about by restricting foreclosures, credit reporting and late fees and penalties. Congress's actions here were a great relief for homeowners but how about renters, a lot of renters are really hurting; thirty million people in America lost their job over the past six week because of the corona-virus this means many of these Americans just do not have the money to pay their rent these peoples right to a home should equate to home owners right to a home that got the mortgage forbearance. This is a difficult issue a relief effort here could run into astronomical cost numbers and massive fraud could ensue but I think the Federal government being faithful to American values where we're there for one another in times of crisis dictates a meaningful effort here by Congress and the President! Another important perspective on this issue was referenced by an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer yesterday titled "Plans to prevent coming wave of evictions" which alluded to the high number of evictions America could be seeing as a result of Covid 19 it said housing advocates in Philadelphia predict an "avalanche of evictions" and it identified the health problems that will stem from the increase of homelessness. Not only will the public see an increase of covid 19 cases and mental illness and drug and alcohol addiction in this sector of the American population but this population will be a significant source of spread of this disease they will have a high infection rate and they hang out in convenience stores and public transit hubs and pan handle thereby exposing others to the virus! There is no ideal or perfect program here but the Federal Government would be making a good effort if they came up with a program like the following. The program is limited to those people that have filed at least one unemployment claim from March 1 thru the date the next relief bill containing the program is signed into law and the claim was approved. The rent assistance would be for up to $1000.00/ month up to four months ending September of this year and up to $1500.00/month same conditions for a claimant that has a spouse or at least one dependent as determined by their 2018 0r 2019 tax filings; the landlord would have to accept whatever stipend they got from the government as payment in full for the respective month that the stipend covered meaning, in part, the landlord could not try to evict over any shortfall or take any shortfall from any deposit the landlord held on the lease when the lease ends. The way it would work is that the unemployed worker would go onto a Federal government website to sign up for the program the UE worker would provide their social security number that way the Federal Government could determine quickly and accurately whether they are on the UE insurance rolls for the prescribed time if they are they select the months they want rent assistance they fill in their rent obligation and how much they paid toward that obligation they would give their landlords name and address this is an important facet of the program the software for the website would give them options for their residence one option would be the address they provided when they signed up to make their UE claim and recent address(s) that a credit check would provide over the last year the applicant would be limited to selecting the options provided by the software as their current residence, this is an important feature of the program which would aid in stopping fraud. Landlords would sign on to the Federal Government website and make an application for this program where they would provide the tenants social security number the months the tenant has agreed to participate in the program the address of the leased property the rent obligation, rent already paid by tenant the eligible subsidy whether $1000/month or $1500/month and the total amount of the assistance from this program for the landlord. This is another critical aspect of the program after the Federal government staff checks the Landlord's application and determines the tenant has joined the program, the address of the lease property looks legitimate its is one in the Federal governments records as accurate and the economic figures are accurate the staff approves the application but sends it to the IRS for the IRS to create a refundable tax credit code for the amount of assistance approved in the application after the IRS provides that code that information is sent back to the landlord and the tenant. When the landlord is doing its 2020 taxes it can utilize and if need be seek to receive the refundable tax credits (RTC) the IRS can easily make a form that provides for documentation and tabulation for the RTCs; the RTC is important because fraud could be rampant with this program where unscrupulous landlords manipulate the system to get rent stipends they are not entitled to the RTC gives the Federal government time to investigate fraud and where it is found to lie void the RTCs after a fair hearing of course. To stop tenants from utilizing this program who can afford to pay their own rent have the IRS make a tax form for 2020 for individuals and couples whose taxable income is over $45,000/year and $65,000/year respectively where if 25 % of their taxable income was over the rent they actually paid for the year they have to reimburse the Federal government for the difference of that amount up to the limit of the RTC they received under this program.
Congress should also do something to facilitate resolution of this insurance issue conflict brought about by the pandemic. A lot of small businesses have insurance which provides for business interruption coverage but not pandemic protection coverage. These small businesses argue that the government shutting down the economy amounts to business interruption which should be covered by their insurance the insurance carriers argue that the shutdown stems from a pandemic so it should not be covered. Why doesn't Congress limit the amount a policy holder can collect on this coverage over the shut down of their business by the government to ten times the yearly premium for the respective insurance plan plus legal fees to the insurance holder; these insurance companies have claim reserves and various mechanisms for hedging risk they can afford to provide some protection for small businesses here. Cutting the award will give both sides a super incentive to settle the case because the legal fee bill of such a trial makes litigation senseless. It would be a disgrace if members of Congress and the President act as agents for the legal profession on this issue who stand to make a boat load of money over legal fees from this controversy. With all this money flowing out the Treasury doors essentially helping Main Street Congress could do some things to help business like extend the IRS 100% bonus depreciation program past 2022 extend it thru 2025; this will also help the economy incentivizing businesses to make capital expenditures which they can expense off their revenue helps to generate business and hiring which the country will need. With thirty million Americans having lost their job with this pandemic, the vast vast majority of these people also have received the double whammy of losing their health insurance and yes pursuant to America's laws, the individual insurance exchanges need to be opened up to these individuals as well as Medicaid insurance. Of course, most of these people because of the low income that will be their status as a result of their lay off they will be eligible for the Affordable Care Act subsidies that will help them buy health insurance on the exchanges. I don't know why Congress and the President doesn't conduct a quick study to determine if it would be more cost effective for the Federal government to pay ninety percent of the COBRA cost to keep these employees on their former employer's plans for six months under the COBRA program compared to insuring these employees thru the ACA and set-up such a program for this pandemic crisis. It just seems to me in a general sense that my employer health insurance overall premium costs is less than if I would buy an individual policy on the exchanges and I would expect it is similar for most people.
The public hears talk from Washington that Congress has to with urgency pass a big infrastructure spending bill. That doesn't make any sense at all even under the best of circumstance meaningful infrastructure projects take at minimum two years from passage of the funding bill to large scale actual work being done with the pandemic and how it affects how people and businesses operate an infrastructure effort would get mired in the mud. Congress should not be blowing precious capital expenditure dollars rushing to produce a bill that could be signed quickly for the optics; they should be holding hearings and determining what outlays can the industry digest so as to not jack up the prices so that the U.S. taxpayer gets poor value for their spent tax dollars. Hold hearings to determine what do different parts of the country need and what the priority should be from a wisdom standpoint, good governance should be the order! Republican politicians that want a wage tax holiday you need to hold your horses, the American people were not born yesterday we know what you right wing politicians are all about our memories aren't broken we know that on Social Security you want to have personal 401 K like accounts and cut Seniors checks and we know that on Medicare you want to privatize the system give seniors a health insurance voucher and tell them they can handle getting health insurance for themselves. You want to cut the wage tax so Americans will get used to getting bigger pay checks and then dangle in front of their face they can keep their bigger checks if they just go along with gutting Social Security and Medicare. The American people don't want your scheming here if you want to give middle class Americans a tax break great lower the tax rate for the respective brackets for a time and do what you did for the 2017 tax reform law you mandated employers reduce the withholding amounts in a speedy time frame!
Democrats policy initiative they espoused immediately after passage of the last Corona-virus relief bill, the PPP Two bill, where they were seeking $500 billion for the states and counties, the bi-partisan Governors proposal, is essentially reasonable, their expansion of this policy to a trillion dollar multi-year state/county relief package definitely " isn't"; the country is broke future generations of Americans will be paying this bill we, the American people living today, are morally and ethically duty bound to keep the price tags of these CARES Act laws as low as possible. It is part of the hallmark of America's values that we economically help our communities hit by a natural disaster, Covid 19 qualifies, with recovering from the loss; the pandemic crisis this year has and will bring a dramatic loss in tax revenue to states and counties, so the Federal government should try to make up the lions share of this loss. Given that the Federal Government will come in with a large size helping hand Democrats have to understand that the Federal government cannot completely bank roll these municipalities it cannot afford to. Democrats have to accept what financial experts are telling us about the economic fallout of Covid 19 , so our nation's various levels of government can function responsibly, this disease has and will inflict material long-term damage on our economy a significant number of small, medium and large business will not survive, the bankruptcies have already begun. The point is that this damage means state and local governments will be getting less tax revenue for the foreseeable future so these governments will have to do significant belt tightening including hiring freezes unless absolutely a critical hire until the economy regrows to replace the business and wage income loss! On the other side of this if President Trump thinks it's a good position on this issue to just tell the American people that he cannot help their states and counties because Democrats in some of America's municipalities mismanage their finances by doing things like giving too generous of retirement benefits by providing defined pension plans he is going to be in for a rude awakening come November 3 when voters penalize him at the polls especially considering that if Washington doesn't throw a lifeline here to the state's and counties prior to election day communities across America are going to see dramatic numbers of teachers, police officers and firefighters laid-off because there is no money in local government coiffeurs to pay for them.
In a prior relief bill Washington gave relief to home owners with Federal backed mortgages these Americans can delay paying their mortgage up to a year because of the corona-virus. As written earlier this is a half of a policy, the Federal government should extend the forbearance to all mortgages and resolve the question of whether a balloon or partial payment is due at the end of forbearance, the Federal Government could bring this about by restricting foreclosures, credit reporting and late fees and penalties. Congress's actions here were a great relief for homeowners but how about renters, a lot of renters are really hurting; thirty million people in America lost their job over the past six week because of the corona-virus this means many of these Americans just do not have the money to pay their rent these peoples right to a home should equate to home owners right to a home that got the mortgage forbearance. This is a difficult issue a relief effort here could run into astronomical cost numbers and massive fraud could ensue but I think the Federal government being faithful to American values where we're there for one another in times of crisis dictates a meaningful effort here by Congress and the President! Another important perspective on this issue was referenced by an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer yesterday titled "Plans to prevent coming wave of evictions" which alluded to the high number of evictions America could be seeing as a result of Covid 19 it said housing advocates in Philadelphia predict an "avalanche of evictions" and it identified the health problems that will stem from the increase of homelessness. Not only will the public see an increase of covid 19 cases and mental illness and drug and alcohol addiction in this sector of the American population but this population will be a significant source of spread of this disease they will have a high infection rate and they hang out in convenience stores and public transit hubs and pan handle thereby exposing others to the virus! There is no ideal or perfect program here but the Federal Government would be making a good effort if they came up with a program like the following. The program is limited to those people that have filed at least one unemployment claim from March 1 thru the date the next relief bill containing the program is signed into law and the claim was approved. The rent assistance would be for up to $1000.00/ month up to four months ending September of this year and up to $1500.00/month same conditions for a claimant that has a spouse or at least one dependent as determined by their 2018 0r 2019 tax filings; the landlord would have to accept whatever stipend they got from the government as payment in full for the respective month that the stipend covered meaning, in part, the landlord could not try to evict over any shortfall or take any shortfall from any deposit the landlord held on the lease when the lease ends. The way it would work is that the unemployed worker would go onto a Federal government website to sign up for the program the UE worker would provide their social security number that way the Federal Government could determine quickly and accurately whether they are on the UE insurance rolls for the prescribed time if they are they select the months they want rent assistance they fill in their rent obligation and how much they paid toward that obligation they would give their landlords name and address this is an important facet of the program the software for the website would give them options for their residence one option would be the address they provided when they signed up to make their UE claim and recent address(s) that a credit check would provide over the last year the applicant would be limited to selecting the options provided by the software as their current residence, this is an important feature of the program which would aid in stopping fraud. Landlords would sign on to the Federal Government website and make an application for this program where they would provide the tenants social security number the months the tenant has agreed to participate in the program the address of the leased property the rent obligation, rent already paid by tenant the eligible subsidy whether $1000/month or $1500/month and the total amount of the assistance from this program for the landlord. This is another critical aspect of the program after the Federal government staff checks the Landlord's application and determines the tenant has joined the program, the address of the lease property looks legitimate its is one in the Federal governments records as accurate and the economic figures are accurate the staff approves the application but sends it to the IRS for the IRS to create a refundable tax credit code for the amount of assistance approved in the application after the IRS provides that code that information is sent back to the landlord and the tenant. When the landlord is doing its 2020 taxes it can utilize and if need be seek to receive the refundable tax credits (RTC) the IRS can easily make a form that provides for documentation and tabulation for the RTCs; the RTC is important because fraud could be rampant with this program where unscrupulous landlords manipulate the system to get rent stipends they are not entitled to the RTC gives the Federal government time to investigate fraud and where it is found to lie void the RTCs after a fair hearing of course. To stop tenants from utilizing this program who can afford to pay their own rent have the IRS make a tax form for 2020 for individuals and couples whose taxable income is over $45,000/year and $65,000/year respectively where if 25 % of their taxable income was over the rent they actually paid for the year they have to reimburse the Federal government for the difference of that amount up to the limit of the RTC they received under this program.
Congress should also do something to facilitate resolution of this insurance issue conflict brought about by the pandemic. A lot of small businesses have insurance which provides for business interruption coverage but not pandemic protection coverage. These small businesses argue that the government shutting down the economy amounts to business interruption which should be covered by their insurance the insurance carriers argue that the shutdown stems from a pandemic so it should not be covered. Why doesn't Congress limit the amount a policy holder can collect on this coverage over the shut down of their business by the government to ten times the yearly premium for the respective insurance plan plus legal fees to the insurance holder; these insurance companies have claim reserves and various mechanisms for hedging risk they can afford to provide some protection for small businesses here. Cutting the award will give both sides a super incentive to settle the case because the legal fee bill of such a trial makes litigation senseless. It would be a disgrace if members of Congress and the President act as agents for the legal profession on this issue who stand to make a boat load of money over legal fees from this controversy. With all this money flowing out the Treasury doors essentially helping Main Street Congress could do some things to help business like extend the IRS 100% bonus depreciation program past 2022 extend it thru 2025; this will also help the economy incentivizing businesses to make capital expenditures which they can expense off their revenue helps to generate business and hiring which the country will need. With thirty million Americans having lost their job with this pandemic, the vast vast majority of these people also have received the double whammy of losing their health insurance and yes pursuant to America's laws, the individual insurance exchanges need to be opened up to these individuals as well as Medicaid insurance. Of course, most of these people because of the low income that will be their status as a result of their lay off they will be eligible for the Affordable Care Act subsidies that will help them buy health insurance on the exchanges. I don't know why Congress and the President doesn't conduct a quick study to determine if it would be more cost effective for the Federal government to pay ninety percent of the COBRA cost to keep these employees on their former employer's plans for six months under the COBRA program compared to insuring these employees thru the ACA and set-up such a program for this pandemic crisis. It just seems to me in a general sense that my employer health insurance overall premium costs is less than if I would buy an individual policy on the exchanges and I would expect it is similar for most people.
The public hears talk from Washington that Congress has to with urgency pass a big infrastructure spending bill. That doesn't make any sense at all even under the best of circumstance meaningful infrastructure projects take at minimum two years from passage of the funding bill to large scale actual work being done with the pandemic and how it affects how people and businesses operate an infrastructure effort would get mired in the mud. Congress should not be blowing precious capital expenditure dollars rushing to produce a bill that could be signed quickly for the optics; they should be holding hearings and determining what outlays can the industry digest so as to not jack up the prices so that the U.S. taxpayer gets poor value for their spent tax dollars. Hold hearings to determine what do different parts of the country need and what the priority should be from a wisdom standpoint, good governance should be the order! Republican politicians that want a wage tax holiday you need to hold your horses, the American people were not born yesterday we know what you right wing politicians are all about our memories aren't broken we know that on Social Security you want to have personal 401 K like accounts and cut Seniors checks and we know that on Medicare you want to privatize the system give seniors a health insurance voucher and tell them they can handle getting health insurance for themselves. You want to cut the wage tax so Americans will get used to getting bigger pay checks and then dangle in front of their face they can keep their bigger checks if they just go along with gutting Social Security and Medicare. The American people don't want your scheming here if you want to give middle class Americans a tax break great lower the tax rate for the respective brackets for a time and do what you did for the 2017 tax reform law you mandated employers reduce the withholding amounts in a speedy time frame!
