Virus Relief Bill Remains Up In Air As Negotiations Resume

Speaker 1: 00:00 In spite of meeting over the weekend, congressional leaders have failed to reach an agreement on the new coronavirus relief bill on Friday, federal unemployment benefits of $600 a week came to an end, leaving millions who have lost their jobs due to the pandemic facing of frighteningly uncertain future. Joining us to talk about the impasse and why our congressional representatives cannot reach a deal on this vitally important measure is democratic Congressman Mike Levin, who represents the 49th district in San Diego County. Thank you for joining us, Congressman Levin. Thank you, Alison. So now the most highly publicized part of this bill is the, is the federal unemployment relief, which has helped millions of people stay afloat financially. What does democratic house speaker Nancy Pelosi say justifies her decision to turn down the Republicans offered to extend that $600 per week for a week while negotiations continue? Speaker 2: 00:51 Well, Alison it's incredibly difficult because there's so much at stake. Um, millions of children for example, are food insecure, millions and millions of families at risk of eviction. And now for the 19th straight week over 1 million Americans applied for unemployment insurance. And as I'm sure you, you saw last week, our nation's GDP saw the biggest quarterly drop on record. So, uh, it's a crucial that we have, uh, a scientific approach, both to the health, uh, and, uh, public health and, and, uh, testing and contact tracing, uh, strategy. Uh, and then we also have a thoughtful, rational, uh, way to deal with the economic crisis. And, and that's what we need to, uh, crush this virus to try to open our economy as safely as we can to send our children to school as quickly and as safely as we can. And we put our proposal out the hero's Zack over 11 weeks ago, and it was comprehensive. Speaker 2: 01:53 It had quite a bit in there for, uh, not only testing and tracing, but also for state and local government to support our heroes. That's why we called it. The heroes act, if you think of our teachers or firefighters or, uh, you know, all those that make our cities work. Uh, and, uh, we also, uh, you know, need to put money in the pockets of the American people. Uh, but for again, for 11 weeks, Mitch McConnell is the one who insisted on a pause and now those critical lifelines that families depend on are expiring or have expired. Our economy continues to be in crisis and the virus continues to be very problematic in terms of the infection rate hospitalization. Uh, and it's just simply unacceptable that in the last 11 weeks, McConnell not only failed to act, but failed to coordinate at all, uh, seemingly with the administration, Speaker 1: 02:44 You, you mentioned a thoughtful outcome, but for people who are losing those $600 per week, this is like a crisis on Friday. We spoke to two San Diego who would be impacted by the federal unemployment benefit, not being extended. Let's just here. One of them is Patrick, who is a professional stagehand. Speaker 2: 03:01 If this benefit isn't continued, I will have to start thinking about taking away from my retirement fund. I will probably have to take away from it to stay alive because I don't want to be homeless. And I, you know, I'm 63 years old, it's a little late to start looking for another line of work when I'm just so close to retirement, as it is Speaker 1: 03:25 Your constituents, you know, are, are definitely feeling like, uh, speed is of the essence at this point. And so I just want to go back to that initial question about why the speaker turned down, the Republicans offered to extend it. Speaker 2: 03:38 If treasury secretary Minutian were listening in, he would probably fall asleep claim that the $600 a week that I believe his name was Patrick, that we'd just listened to. And so many of our constituents in the millions of jobs workers have been receiving Minutian would say that's too generous and a disincentive to going back to work, and we don't need it for a week. Alison, our bill extended it through the end of the year. Uh, and, uh, we need to be serious about this a week is, uh, for me, is, is an insult to all those people like Patrick, that we just heard from who desperately need this help. In fact, they new study released by Yale last week, uh, found no evidence that pandemic unemployment benefits were a disincentive to going back to work. I have heard anecdotal evidence, but the data in this case, in the new study that we saw from Yale suggest that's not the case. In fact, it showed that groups facing the larger increases in benefit generosity, experienced slight gains in employment. Speaker 1: 04:41 Would Democrats, would, would you be open then to some kind of a decreased amount? Speaker 2: 04:47 Alison, I don't think the Senate has any bill that they have proposed, whether this heals act, that's what they call their McConnell's bill. The, the proposal, it doesn't have 51 votes in the Senate and the president and the, uh, uh, Senate can't get on the same page. The president has insisted on new money for an FBI headquarters. The Senate disagrees with that McConnell has insisted on a corporate liability shield, but the administration says that they don't need a corporate liability shield. Again, they've had 11 weeks since we passed our bill, the heroes act, which will actually do the job and they haven't gotten their act together. And to this day, they still don't have a bill that can get 51 votes in the Senate. So we're going to continue to fight Alison, this is a crisis. It is not ending tomorrow or next week, and we can't treat it as anything other than the crisis that it is. Speaker 1: 05:40 So could you expand on this corporate liability issue, which is a big one for Republicans protecting businesses from liability of their employees, contract crew, and a virus on the job? What, why do Democrats like yourself think it's important to hold the line on that? Speaker 2: 05:55 Well, I think it's important that we, uh, think about not only the employer, but the employee and some of the more recent articles I've read on this suggests that an employer could in turn, go after an employee for making a, a claim of, uh, getting, uh, COVID at work though in California. I do know that, uh, you know, the state legislature to move forward with that presumption, that the employee, if they are at work and they get COVID for purposes of, uh, uh, workers' compensation, uh, they can file a claim. And that presumption will be that the employee, uh, did get COVID at work. So I think we are willing to have a discussion, particularly as it pertains to things like schools, because it's so critically important. We all agree to get schools open. We may disagree on, uh, you know, the exact details of, uh, how you define safely reopening. Uh, but, uh, I think we're open to that sort of discussion for things like schools, uh, but to provide a blanket immunity to all employers and perhaps even allow employers to turn around and Sue their employees. That's something that's simply, uh, not, uh, something we're going to agree to. Okay. Speaker 1: 07:09 Another sticking point I understand is the money for States and local governments. Why, why is that important to Democrats Speaker 2: 07:15 Like yourself? So in our district, Alison, we've got a nine cities and there are nine, uh, mayors, six Republicans, three Democrats, they all signed a letter saying they needed federal assistance, both for the direct expenses related to COVID, but also for revenue recovery, this pandemic has taken a huge toll on revenues in our cities, things like transit, occupancy taxes. If you think about our region as being one so heavily dependent on tourism and the massive hit, uh, that, uh, COVID has, uh, uh, dealt to tourism. Uh, so this is not partisan. And unfortunately at first, uh, McConnell had said, well, let's just let States go bankrupt. And perhaps they thought it was only a blue state, you know, thing where it was New York, New Jersey. Uh, well, no, there are red States. There are blue States, there are red governors, there are blue governors, they all need help. Speaker 2: 08:12 It's academic has taken a massive economic toll. So our bill has 875 billion for state local tribal and territorial governments. And importantly, it includes a provision that I fought very hard for, which is for smaller cities. In other words, cities of under 500,000, uh, to receive some of those funds as well. When we pass the care Zack at the end of March, that included 150 billion for state and local, that money is largely gone, largely been spent at the state and County level, but for the smaller cities, they got no direct funding. You had to be a city of over 500,000. So the city of San Diego got money. But for example, the, of Oceanside got nothing only passed through the County and a different County is a pass through the funds different ways. So I didn't think that was fair. And we fought and we got in the heroes, Zack that state and local money, why the administration has been so inflexible on that, it's just beyond me. Speaker 2: 09:16 And my great hope is that we can work together just as we had with the first four, uh, COVID relief bills in a bipartisan by camera way and get this fifth one over the finish line. But in order for it to pass in the Senate, it is clear to me that there are enough Republican senators who want to do nothing, nothing at all that, uh, to get 51 votes McConnell is going to need to work with Democrats to work across the aisle. And that's what we're committed to do for a bill. That's actually up to the job of dealing with the crisis that we face and saving lives and livelihoods. And that's what we're going to do Speaker 1: 09:51 Now today, sec, speaker Pelosi and treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin, and white house, chief of staff, Mark Meadows, uh, met again, they met over the weekend. We heard there was some progress made, but what are the main sticking points at this point? Speaker 2: 10:06 I think there are several, uh, beyond just the, uh, uh, expanded unemployment insurance. Uh, there's also the, uh, you know, direct cash payments. There there's a what to do about the paycheck protection program, additional assistance for small business. Uh, but critically, there are things like the 25 billion that we have asked for and put in the heroes, Zack, uh, for the us postal service, it is deeply disconcerting to see this administration, uh, undermine the us postal service. We've now read reports in recent days, uh, mail being slowed down, uh, deliveries that normally would take days taking weeks. Uh, and that's particularly of concern given, uh, the election coming up and that you shouldn't have to choose between your health and safety and your, uh, vote. And, uh, we need to make every effort to try to support the us postal service, not to starve it. Uh, moreover the 3.6 billion that we included, uh, in the heroes act for election security. Speaker 2: 11:06 That number was one from the nonpartisan Brennan center at NYU law school. That's what they said we needed in order to have a safe election, to give secretaries of state, uh, the resources, to be able to protect our voters and, uh, and make sure that everybody, uh, who, uh, wants to vote, who is legally eligible to vote is able to do so safely. It's really not that hard. And it's deeply disconcerting when the present United States tries to make false claims about vote by mail, uh, or, uh, you know, most recently something that even the Republicans pushed back on, which is, you know, his saying that he wants to delay the time, the day of the election. So we are in very scary territory and the heroes act that we passed again, 11 weeks ago in the house would do the job with 25 billion for the postal service and 3.6 billion for the election. Speaker 1: 12:01 So what's your opinion on this $1,200 stimulus check to be sent to all Americans. Do you think those who are still employed need that money or could it be better used elsewhere? Speaker 2: 12:11 Well, I think there's general consensus that, uh, another round of direct cash payments is likely in the works. I don't think that, uh, is, uh, one of the great areas of disagreement. I do think there's a lot more disagreement around, uh, the future of the expanded unemployment insurance, uh, and, uh, what to do, uh, about small businesses and state and local and, uh, postal service. So I do think that there is general consensus that another, uh, direct cash payment would be in the best central purpose of our, uh, economic stability, uh, as, uh, you know, we've seen the unbelievable Q2, uh, GDP number, and we know that we need to continue to stimulate the economy during this time. Speaker 1: 12:55 There is great concern about increasing the national debt further. Where do you stand on that? Speaker 2: 13:00 Well, I am concerned as well. Uh, I was also concerned when the first thing that the Republicans did when they took over the house in 2016 is passed a massive tax cut where 83% of the benefit went to the top 1% and added almost $2 trillion to the debt. So I find it fairly hypocritical for them now to be so concerned with the data after, you know, adding 2 trillion to it, a pre COVID with, with the, uh, 2017 tax cut, moreover, um, you know, I, I think longterm, uh, we are going to have to figure out a way to get back towards, uh, fiscal solvency, but the challenge that we have a university of Chicago study awhile ago suggested that 42% of the jobs lost, uh, during COVID would not be coming back in the calendar year 2020, uh, and that if we did not substantially invest in, uh, everything we could do to put people back to work and to prevent another great depression in effect, um, that is for today with the rates being what they are that is money well spent doing nothing would be even worse would cause even greater havoc and devastation either way. Speaker 2: 14:14 We're going to have a big problem with our deficit to GDP ratio being as high as it's ever been estimates of around $4 trillion this year for the deficit and our debt, you know, 28 to $30 trillion, uh, is the projections that I've seen. Uh, the analysis suggests that it's going to take many, many years for us to dig out of this hole. Speaker 1: 14:36 Finally, how long do you think the two sides can afford to continue this standoff before the, the damage of holding off becomes too great? Speaker 2: 14:43 Well, the damage is, uh, already, uh, to great Alison and, uh, I wish that our friends in the Senate had come together a lot earlier. Again, they wasted 11 weeks while we had passed our bill. Uh, and during that time clearly had no consensus with the administration on how best to move forward. And the president was pushing a payroll tax cut, uh, and that is a nonstarter among both Republicans and Democrats. Meanwhile, the bill that the Senate did come out with, I don't even think had the 51 votes in the Senate. Uh, so, uh, I, I am deeply frustrated that, uh, the Senate sat on this, uh, in specifically McConnell for 11 weeks without putting together a comprehensive plan that could actually pass the Senate. I'm on 24 hour notice to head straight, back to Washington, as soon as we made sufficient progress on the negotiations. Uh, and again, because of what is at stake, uh, I hope that it happens this week. Speaker 1: 15:40 We've been speaking with Congressman Mike Levin of the 49th district here in San Diego County, a Democrat. Thank you very much Congressman level. Speaker 2: 15:48 Thank you, Alison. Appreciate you.