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The Senate passed the bill last night, but at least Lindsey Graham, Rick Scott, Tom Scott and Ben Sasse had a chance to make-believe they are dutiful limited-government conservatives forced into compromising their principles by circumstance beyond their control. Never mind that they voted yes. Never mind that they could have voted no without jeopardizing the bills passage. Never mind, because the plays the thing.

Still, if we understand their complaint as one of incentives, its worth dwelling on. Incentives are central to the economic ideology that has animated the Republicans since forever. That ideology holds that markets are efficient and know better than government how to allocate labor and resources for the benefit of the greater good. Government interference, even in its blandest form, is akin to Communism or sacrilege, depending on how much Heavenly import you imbues markets with.

Its always been debatable whether the Republicans really believe what they say they really believe about the markets. (Leftists call it neoliberalism and blame both parties equally for its global economic dominance.) Whats not debatable is that the Republicans find ways around their principles when a Republican sits in the White House while rediscovering the zeal of the freshly converted when its a Democrat.

Deficits were no big deal during Reagans time. Deficits were the end of the world during Bill Clintons time. Deficits were nothing to worry about when George W. Bush was president. Deficits were so dangerous the Republicans could not in good conscience help Barack Obama lead the country out of the Great Recession. Now, deficits are trivial again. Theyll be apocalyptic with the next Democratic president.

Whether in good faith or bad, however, markets were still more credible than an activist government. Most people most of the time still thought equal opportunity for businesses was the same as equal opportunity for their fellow Americans. Belief in market ideology was so strong it shaped how people engaged the debate over welfare.

Some said the rich were greedy and held workaday Americans in contempt. Thats why they hated social insurance programs like food stamps, Medicaid and jobless benefits. That couldnt be right, said the market faithful, who have made up a majority of Americans for half a century. The welfare debate wasnt about the bigotry of the aristocracy against the plebes. It was about efficiency. It was about incentives. To think otherwise was to think the unthinkable: class war in a classless society.

Like I said, Graham and his cohort were plainly incoherent last night. I still dont know what they were talking about. But there is one interpretation that makes sense to me as Americans enter into a period of mass death and astronomic unemployment. (Below is todays jobless claims report in graph form courtesy ofBloomberg News.)

That interpretation is this: The rich can be trusted with public money, but not so everyone else. Its OK to give Boeing tens of billions of dollars in relief aid. Its OK to give corporations access to unlimited and cheap money from the Federal Reserve. But its not OK to give normal people an extra $600 a week, people who are at the same time being coaxed by billionaires into going back to work even at the risk of death.

When most people most of the time had ample faith in markets, and when the ideology of markets was credible, it was difficult to see the rank bigotry the very rich often express toward the not very rich. (Not being very rich means you obviously dont deserving being very rich, which means you are richly deserving of your suffering.)

But I think that faith is waning. Unemployment rose to more than 3.3 millionin a week. Deaths from the coronavirus pandemic hit 1,000today. Markets are not going to save us. Indeed, the billionaires who control markets could make things so much worse. (They could literally kill people.) In a way, its fitting that Graham and others were incoherent. Their incoherence reflects a once-powerful ideology in deep decay.

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Republicans cant suppress their contempt for working Americans amid the coronavirus pandemic - AlterNet

But the numbers look very different when isolating Republican respondents. The poll shows that 90% of Republicans trust Trump compared to 84% who trust the CDC. Just 13% of Republicans said they trust the national medias information about the coronavirus.

Among Democrats, 14% said they trust Trump while 72% said they trust the national media. More than 90% of Democrats said they trust the CDC and medical professionals.

This trend is significant, because Trumps claims about the pandemic have often been at odds with medical professionals. An earlier NBC News/Wall Street Journal pollfound that Republicans were largely not worried about the virus and did not plan to change their lifestyle to protect themselves.

Trump repeatedly spread misinformation as he sought to downplay the virus for weeks while it spread around the globe.

We have it very well under control, Trump saidon Jan. 30 as the virus took hold in the U.S. We have very little problem in this country at this moment.

In February, the presidentclaimedthat it looks like by April the virus will be gone.

In theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away, he argued.

Later that month, Trump assured the public that the numbers are going to get progressively better as we go along.

By late February, he turned his attention to accusing Democrats of pushing a hoaxby hyping the threat posed by the virus and falsely blamedformer President Barack Obama for his own administrations delays in testing.

Even as the country struggled to ramp up testing, Trump falsely insistedthat the number of cases was going very substantially downnot up. He also insisted that a vaccine would be available very quickly,even though experts said one would come in12 to 18 months.

As the number of confirmed casesbegan to heavily trend upward in March, Trump insistedthat the virus was no worse than the flu, even though it is much deadlier and more contagious. Heclaimedthat he was not concerned at all only two weeks ago.

Over that stretch, Trump repeatedly liedabout the availability of tests, botched his announcement of a European travel banand falsely claimed that his handling of the crisis had an approval rating close to 80%.

Trump finally changed his tune and acknowledgedthat the situation was bad in mid-March, but in recent days the president beganto argue that restrictions imposed to try to contain the spread of the virus were worse than the death toll from the disease itself.

During a news briefing on Tuesday, Trump set an Easter deadline to ease restrictions intended to contain the spread but got pushback from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Thats really very flexible, Fauci told reporters. You need to evaluate the feasibility of what youre trying to do.

Trump insisted at an earlier news conference that Fauci doesnt not agree with his plan to lift restrictions in an effort to boost the economy, but The Washington Postreported that Fauci had stressed to officials that restrictions should be more severe not less.

It would be a major mistake to suggest any change of course when it comes to containment, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told The Post. I just spoke with Dr. Fauci. He believes that, if anything, we should be more aggressive and do more ... You cant have a functioning economy if you have hospitals overflowing. People arent going to go to work like that.

Journalists worried that Republican subservience to Trump during a deadly pandemic could lead to dangerous consequences.

They trust Trump more than the CDC or their own governors, MSNBC host Joy Reidtweeted. Theyre taking their cues on how to protect their health and that of their families from him, not from experts or even their own governors. This cult of personality is literally endangering people.

The Republican Party has become a Trump cult, New York Times columnist Wajahat Aliadded. People will be harmed by his incompetence and recklessness. Conservatives who know better speak up. Save lives.

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Republicans trust Trump for accurate information on COVID-19 over the CDC despite his false claims - Raw Story

"This is not like the financial meltdown, where you had banks that made bad decisions and asked the government to bail them out," said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). "We are basically telling people not to go out, not to spend money at these stores, and in some jurisdictions, not go to work. ... It's an unprecedented challenge."

Republicans are eager to make that argument as they embark on a wide-ranging rescue mission and fend off charges that theyre ditching their free-market principles. Senior administration officials have been careful not to refer to President Donald Trumps plan as a bailout a tacit acknowledgement that the proposal could spark a revolt while being politically toxic for the GOP down the road. Some outside conservative groups are already urging lawmakers on Capitol Hill to reject direct aid for industries.

But at least for now, Republicans are mostly brushing aside long-held cost concerns in order to salvage the economy and perhaps Trumps reelection, as well as their own.

Rep. Andy Biggs. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo

The term bailout does give everyone pause, and justifiably so, said Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.

But even Biggs, who voted against the Houses $100 billion coronavirus bill last week, didnt entirely shut the door on supporting the next round of stimulus. We do want this country to be strong, he said. You have to consider future generations.

Particularly in the face of an extraordinary public health crisis which Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.) compared to World War II lawmakers are calculating that there is a far greater risk if they dont take aggressive steps to protect the economy.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Tuesday pitched Senate Republicans on whats likely to be a $1 trillion package, with around $500 billion in direct cash payments for individuals as well as money for emergency loans for small businesses hit by the economic slowdown and assistance for the airline industry.

GOP Rep. Peter King of New York, who backed the 2008 financial industry rescue, said he is inclined to support whatever Trump and GOP leadership come up with, even if its not ideal.

In ordinary times, some would have those concerns, about the cost and the deficit, King said. But, he added, in times of crisis, you cant let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Trumps strong support for a stimulus package could also provide Republicans with some much-needed political cover especially if it means resuscitating the economy, which was supposed to be the GOPs crown jewel in the 2020 elections.

Last Friday, the Capitol was at a standstill waiting for Trump to tweet his support for the Houses coronavirus relief bill, which expands access to free testing, provides $1 billion in food aid and extends sick leave benefits to vulnerable Americans. When Trump finally did, all but 40 Republicans ended up voting for the legislation.

But some GOP lawmakers were frustrated that they voted in the early hours of Saturday morning on a bill they didnt have time to fully read. And the legislation was so hastily written that the chamber had to pass 90 pages of technical corrections on Monday.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Mnuchin sought to alleviate some concerns during a conference call with ranking members and GOP caucus leaders on Tuesday during which they walked lawmakers through the changes and vowed to be more inclusive in the next phase of their economic response. But Republicans also recognize the sense of urgency and the need to act fast.

Rep. Tom Cole. | Matt Rourke/AP Photo

Would you like to slow it down? Yeah, were talking about a lot of money here. But were also talking about an unprecedented challenge to the economy, said Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the House Rules Committee, who was on the call. The sheer speed with how this virus spreads requires a speedy response.

Having lived through [Troubled Asset Relief Program] calls and TARP meetings, Cole added, theres just not been the level of acrimony.

The GOPs early embrace of a pricey stimulus package caps a transformation of the party that has been three years in the making. Trump has kept a firm grip on the GOP, overseeing a massive tax cut and putting the deficit on track to surpass $1 trillion.

There are still a number of fiscal hawks and conservative hard-liners who have pushed back against deficit-busting bills and they are certain to raise concerns during the coming debate.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is vowing to offer an amendment to cut spending from other programs for every dollar added in stimulus spending, while the Club for Growth and other conservative groups backed by megadonor Charles Koch are urging lawmakers to reject any tax-payer funded bailouts that provide direct relief to industries hit by the coronavirus.

Rep. Louie Gohmert. | Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) even threatened to hold up quick passage of the Houses revised coronavirus bill, though he eventually backed off. Still, his antics sparked some concern among Republicans that the partys right flank will get in Trumps ear and sour him on the idea of a massive economic relief plan.

What we do have to worry about is Louie Gohmert, a few others, getting to Fox News, said one GOP lawmaker. If momentum [against it] builds up on its own, the president may turn on it.

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is undeterred, vowing to press ahead with the stimulus package at warp speed.

These are not ordinary times. This is not an ordinary situation, the Kentucky Republican told reporters. So it requires extraordinary measures.

John Bresnahan contributed to this report.

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Republicans suddenly find a bailout they can back - POLITICO

Americas catastrophically inadequate response to the coronavirus can be attributed largely to bad short-term decisions by one man. And I do mean short-term: At every stage, Donald Trump minimized the threat and blocked helpful action because he wanted to look good for the next news cycle or two, ignoring and intimidating anyone who tried to give him good advice.

But heres the thing: Even if he werent so irresponsibly self-centered, he has denuded the government of people who could be giving good advice in the first place.

Trump disbanded the National Security Councils pandemic response team in 2018, although he now, with his characteristic refusal to accept responsibility for anything, says that he knew nothing about it. And he has in general staffed his administration with obsequious toadies who never tell him anything he doesnt want to hear.

Whats now becoming clear is that when it comes to dealing with the economic fallout from COVID-19, the situation may be even worse. There are still some competent professionals holding senior positions at federal health agencies, who could give Trump good advice if he were willing to listen. But serious economic thinking has effectively been banned from this administration, if not the whole Republican Party. As far as I can tell, the Trump team is utterly incapable of formulating a coherent response to the gathering economic crisis.

As a result, there are only two potential loci of intelligent economic policymaking left in Washington. One is the Federal Reserve; the other is the congressional Democratic leadership. At this point, in other words, its pretty much up to Jay Powell, the Fed chairman, and Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House; the question is whether Trump and Senate Republicans will let them save the economy.

Powell, of course, slashed interest rates and announced a large asset-buying program on Sunday. He was right to do so. But its painfully obvious that these moves wont be sufficient, indeed will probably do little to stop the economys tailspin. Remember, in 2007-8 the Fed cut rates five times as much as it did Sunday, and it still wasnt able to prevent the worst slump since the Great Depression.

In fact, Powell himself basically acknowledged as much, declaring that he and his colleagues dont have the tools to reach those most in need of help, and that fiscal responses are critical.

Fiscal responses, of course, have to come from Congress. True, in another time, under another president, the White House would have played a crucial role in shaping crisis legislation. But last week, as the House drafted and then passed an economic relief bill one that was helpful, if still clearly inadequate it was almost entirely a Democratic effort. Democratic staff members put together the key elements of the bill paid sick leave for many (though not enough) workers, enhanced unemployment benefits, increased federal contributions for Medicaid and more.

True, Steve Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, negotiated with Pelosi, basically to make the bill a bit worse. But Democrats set the shape of the bill, even as Trump was proposing the grandiose notion of a payroll tax holiday, which has been panned even by conservative economists.

As Greg Mankiw, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under George W. Bush, wrote, a payroll tax cut makes little sense in this circumstance, because it does nothing for those who cant work. President Trump should shut-the-hell-up.

And while the White House was basically out of the loop, Republican senators have been actively obstructionist, offering no serious proposals of their own but holding up a vote on the House bill, even though that bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.

Why are Republicans useless at best in the face of an economic crisis? As Ive pointed out before, there are many competent center-right economists, but the GOP not just Trump, but the whole party doesnt want their advice. It prefers hacks and propagandists, the people Mankiw famously called charlatans and cranks, whose only idea is tax cuts. The party truly has nobody left who is capable of putting together a plausible economic rescue package.

The Senate probably will eventually pass Pelosis bill. But with all signs pointing to a steep economic dive, we need a much bigger stimulus package perhaps along the lines being developed by Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader as soon as possible. This package shouldnt include tax cuts; it should focus overwhelmingly on cash grants, perhaps a basic grant to every legal resident plus additional grants to those in special need.

And since theres nobody left in the GOP who can put together a coherent stimulus plan, Democrats will have to do the job, perhaps with help from the Federal Reserve intervention to stabilize highly stressed financial markets.

I admit to being somewhat worried that Democrats wont go big enough. But my bigger worry is that Republicans will undermine their efforts. Its now up to Powell and Pelosi to rescue the economy, and Trump and company need to get out of their way.

Paul Krugman, Ph.D., winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, is an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times.

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Paul Krugman: Will Republicans allow Powell and Pelosi to save the economy? - Salt Lake Tribune

If the slow-on-the-uptake response to COVID-19 by the White House seems a little familiar to you, you're definitely not imagining it. As if we're caught in some sort of "Groundhog Day" loop in the time-space continuum, we've absolutely been here before. Cue "I Got You Babe" on the alarm clock.

I realize too many Americans have gnat-like attention spans and even shorter memories, so I'll be specific. Beyond several details, the Trump presidency is looking an awful lot like the second term of the George W. Bush presidency. To his credit, Mike Pence hasn't shot anyone in the face, but we're seeing a traffic jam of similar events: a crisis with a growing death toll, a painfully tone-deaf, slow and inept government response, a financial meltdown and an out-of-control budget deficit. (Trump promised to eliminate the deficit.) Only now, it's all happening at the same time.

The Republican-led geyser of insanity that landed in our laps between 2005 and 2009 is back for an encore, and it's horrifying.

Do we seea pattern here yet?

We'd have to be blind not to. For reasons that will forever confound historians, 62 million Americans, many of whom were still tangled in the nets of the previous Republican catastrophes, decided it'd be a great idea to"own the libs" by giving the Republican Party another chance at running the federal government, not to mention Congress. This time, however, they landed on a candidate with zero experience, zero aptitude for government work, zero regard for anything other than his own popularity and, as a bonus, a history of personal financial disasters including bankrupted casinos, a fraudulent university and an even more fraudulent charitable foundation.

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Trump voters justified this choice by suggesting that an obnoxious, undisciplined "businessman" whosold steaks in Sharper Image mall stores was fully qualified to run the world's most powerful government (which isn't at all like a business). This was like shoving a carnie who runs the Tilt-a-Whirl into the cockpit of a Space-X rocket. Maybe he'll stir things up, they thought, choosing to experiment with the presidency by handing an erratic weirdo the nuclear codes. What could possibly go wrong? For starters, the rocket is nosediving, and we're all passengers, including the voters who put us here.

We tried to warn the Red Hats. We tried to remind themwhat happened the last time around. But rather than employing basic common sense or, at the very least, a Google search for what went down during the previous, slightly less moronic Republican administration, they decided to jam their faces into the GOP propeller blades once again, and here we are. Ned "The Head" Ryerson should be along any second now, refusing to abide social distancing.

Whether it was refusing to acknowledge the onset of the virus or closing down the pandemic response unit a couple of years ago, the Trump White House bungled this from the beginning, likely worsening the death toll and precipitating the collapse of the financial markets. Meanwhile, Trump's tax cuts ended up benefiting Trump's wealthy Mar-a-Lago guests far more than the "forgotten" men and women of America and there was no way to pay for them, adding still more billions to the deficit. We've also seen this dynamic play out at the state level, for example with former Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback and his tax cut "experiment," which nearly bankrupted the state rather than creating the explosive economic growth he promised.

Say what you will about the Democratic Party, but history has illustrated that Democratic presidents are infinitely better at governing than any recent Republican. I mean, it's shocking that the party that wants to drown government in the bathtub doesn't know how to govern, nor is interested in learning. But notice how Trump and Bush each eagerly embraced "big government" when their asses and legacies were on the line.

Trump arrived in Washington believing he could tweet, blurt foul nicknames and show off his executive orders like a big boy, and everything would work out great. It turns out that being president requires more vision, discipline and actual knowledge than he thought, and that's just the very basic skill set.

Much to Trump's surprise, when the disasters stacked up, he couldn't bullshit his way through like he's done so many times before. If it weren't for his life support system at Fox News Channel, not to mention his loyalists on CapitolHill, Trump would've been forced to resign after Charlottesville if he had even been elected in the first place, which would have beendoubtful without the late Roger Ailes, Mitch McConnell and, yes, Vladimir Putin. They'll all try like hell now, but I wonder whether they can put President Humpty back together again.

During his inaugural address, Trump referred to the Obama years as "American carnage," and promised to make America great again. It turns out, a "no drama" competent family man who kicked off the heretofore longest economic expansion in history wasn't anything close to being American carnage that was another Trump lie, eagerly swallowed by his own people. It turns out that while there's always room for improvement, economic growth, job creation and other indicators were equal to or more robust during the so-called "carnage" under Obama.

Indeed, carnage is what we're seeing now as we wake up to our shocking new normal for the foreseeable future. But even before the COVID-19 crisis, even before the financial crisis, there was the "Trump Crisis" the daily institution-crushing mayhem erupting from Trump's phone, from federal investigators and from the fast-moving process of turning the executive branch into a subsidiary of the Trump Organization. It was only a matter of time before Trump's flimsy, brittle presidency, built on make-believe and held together with masking tape and spit by Fox News, fell apart. Sadly, we're all getting hit by the debris from the crash.

This November, and probably four years after that, I suspect millions of Americans will make the same dumb error in judgment all over again, voting for this incapable poseur despite the madness, even while they themselves are impacted more than most by Trump's amateurish blundering. And the endless loop will continue: A Republican president craps his cage, a Democrat cleans up the mess, short-attention-span voters elect another Republican, and we repeat.

The only way to break this cycle is to take a step back, turn off the Fox News fairy tales about big hands and perfect hair, and reprioritize the question of who ought to be leading the country. As we covered last week, those leaders should never again be slack-jawed morons you hypothetically want to "have a beer with," and they definitely shouldn't be loudmouth wannabe mobsters turned game-show hosts. We're dangerously close to fighting the next pandemic with Brawndo unless this ridiculousness is finally shocked out of our system.

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GOP Groundhog Day: Why do we keep electing Republicans? They're no good at this - Salon