TRUMP'S WORST ATTACK ON WORKERS

Donald Trump campaigned as an insurgent outside of the political establishment who would restore the long-neglected working class. That was a lie. As president, he’s turned his back on working people, governing instead as a lackey for billionaires, CEOs, and corporations. Even during a public health and economic crisis, Trump has left working people in the dust.

Consider his signature tax law, sold as a benefit to working people. More than 60 percent of its benefits have gone to people in the top 20 percent of the income ladder. In 2018, for the first time in American history, billionaires paid a lower tax rate than the working class.

Trump said every worker would get a $4,000 raise, but nothing trickled down. Instead, corporations spent their tax savings buying back shares of their own stock, boosting executive bonuses and doing nothing for workers. To make matters worse, some of the richest corporations are paying nothing in federal income taxes, despite making billions in profits.

Meanwhile, Trump’s corporate lobbyists and industry shills have systematically dismantled worker protections – rolling back child labor protections, undoing worker safeguards from exposure to cancerous radiation, gutting measures that shield workers from wage theft, and eliminating overtime for 8 million workers.

Trump has even asked the Supreme Court to take away the health insurance of 23 million American workers by invalidating the Affordable Care Act – in the middle of a global health crisis, no less! If Trump gets his way, protections for people with pre-existing conditions will be eliminated.

Oh, and remember his promise to rein in drug prices so working people can afford the meds they need? Well, forget it. Remdesivir, a drug to reduce the severity of COVID-19, from pharma giant Gilead, was developed with $70 million of taxpayer funding, yet Trump is letting the company charge $3,000 per treatment. And he is omitting pricing protections from federal contracts to develop drugs for Covid-19 – making it likely that life-saving treatments and vaccines will be out of reach for people in need.

Donald Trump doesn’t give a fig for working-class Americans. He even wants to end the extra unemployment benefits that countless Americans are depending on to get through this crisis.

So whose side is Trump really on?

Well, here’s a clue: Tucked away on page 203 of the COVID stimulus package backed by Trump, is an obscure provision that delivers a whopping $135 billion in tax breaks to millionaire real estate developers and hedge fund managers. One real estate tycoon who stands to profit handsomely from the provision is none other than the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner.

In total, the cash secretly spent on tax cuts for millionaires in the COVID-19 package is more than three times as much money as was included for emergency housing and food relief.

Kushner isn’t the only Trump insider getting paid off during the pandemic. Forty lobbyists with ties to Donald Trump have helped clients secure more than $10 billion in federal COVID aid. And if Trump succeeds in getting the Supreme Court to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the richest 0.1 percent of Americans will get an average additional tax cut of $198,000 each per year.

Donald Trump is no working-class champion. He’s a corporate con man – the culmination of a rigged-for-the-rich system that’s shafting working Americans at every turn.

Robert Reich

July 28, 2020

The Real Choice: Social Control or Social Investment

Some societies center on social control, others on social investment.

Social-control societies put substantial resources into police, prisons, surveillance, immigration enforcement, and the military. Their purpose is to utilize fear, punishment, and violence to divide people and keep the status quo in place — perpetuating the systemic oppression of Black and brown people, and benefiting no one but wealthy elites.

Social-investment societies put more resources into healthcare, education, affordable housing, jobless benefits, and children. Their purpose is to free people from the risks and anxieties of daily life and give everyone a fair shot at making it.

Donald Trump epitomizes the former. He calls himself the “law and order” president. He even wants to sic the military on Americans protesting horrific police killings. 

He has created an unaccountable army of federal agents who go into cities like Portland, Oregon – without showing their identities – and assault innocent Americans.

Trump is the culmination of forty years of increasing social control in the United States and decreasing social investment – a trend which, given the deep-seated history of racism in the United States, falls disproportionately on Black people, indigeneous people, and people of color.

Spending on policing in the United States has almost tripled, from $42.3 billion in 1977 to $114.5 billion in 2017.

America now locks away 2.2 million people in prisons and jails. That’s a 500 percent increase from 40 years ago. The nation now has the largest incarcerated population in the world.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has exploded. More people are now in ICE detention than ever in its history.

Total military spending in the U.S. has soared from $437 billion in 2003 to $935.8 billion this fiscal year.

The more societies spend on social controls, the less they have left for social investment. More police means fewer social services. American taxpayers spend $107.5 billion more on police than on public housing.

More prisons means fewer dollars for education. In fact, America is now spending more money on prisons than on public schools. Fifteen states now spend $27,000 more per person in prison than they do per student.

As spending on controls has increased, spending on public assistance has shrunk. Fewer people are receiving food stamps. Outlays for public health have declined.

America can’t even seem to find money to extend unemployment benefits during this pandemic.

Societies that skimp on social investment end up spending more on social controls that perpetuate violence and oppression. This trend is a deep-seated part of our history.

The United States began as a control society. Slavery – America’s original sin – depended on the harshest conceivable controls. Jim Crow and redlining continued that legacy.

But in the decades following World War II, the nation began inching toward social investment – the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act, and substantial investments in health and education.

Then America swung backward to social control.

Since Richard Nixon declared a “war on drugs,” four times as many people have been arrested for possessing drugs as for selling them. 

Of those arrested for possession, half have been charged with possessing cannabis for their own use. Nixon’s strategy had a devastating effect on Black people that is still felt today: a Black person is nearly 4 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession than a white person, even though they use it at similar rates.

Bill Clinton put 88,000 additional police on the streets and got Congress to mandate life sentences for people convicted of a felony after two or more prior convictions, including drug offenses. 

This so-called “three strikes you’re out” law was replicated by many states, and, yet again, disproportionately impacted Black Americans. In California, for instance, Black people were 12 times more likely than white people to be incarcerated under three-strikes laws, until the state reformed the law in 2012. Clinton also “reformed” welfare into a restrictive program that does little for families in poverty today. 

Why did America swing back to social control?

Part of the answer has to do with widening inequality. As the middle class collapsed and the ranks of the poor grew, those in power viewed social controls as cheaper than social investment, which would require additional taxes and a massive redistribution of both wealth and power.

Meanwhile, politicians whose power depends on maintaining the status quo, used racism – from Nixon’s “law and order” and Reagan’s “welfare queens” to Trump’s blatantly racist rhetoric – to deflect the anxieties of an increasingly overwhelmed white working class. It’s the same old strategy. So long as racial animosity exists, the poor and working class won’t join together to topple the system that keeps so many Americans in poverty, and Black Americans oppressed.

The last weeks of protests and demonstrations have exposed what’s always been true: social controls are both deadly and unsustainable. They require more and more oppressive means of terrorizing communities and they drain resources that would ensure Black people not only survive, but thrive. 

This moment calls on us to relinquish social control and ramp up our commitment to social investment.

It’s time we invest in affordable housing and education, not tear gas, batons, and state-sanctioned murder. It’s time we invest in keeping children fed and out of poverty, not putting their parents behind bars. It’s time to defund the police, and invest in communities. We have no time to waste.

Robert Reich

July 21, 2020

Trump Rushed to Reopen America. Now Covid is Closing in on Him

Donald Trump said last Thursday’s jobs report, which showed an uptick in June, proves the economy is “roaring back”.

Rubbish. The Labor Department gathered the data during the week of June 12, when America was reporting 25,000 new cases of Covid-19 per day. By the time the report was issued last week, that figure was 55,000.

The economy isn’t roaring back. Just over half of working-age Americans have jobs now, the lowest ratio in over 70 years. What’s roaring back is Covid-19. Until it’s tamed, the economy doesn’t stand a chance.

The surge in cases isn’t because America is doing more tests for the virus, as Trump contends. Cases are rising even where testing is declining. In Wisconsin, cases soared 28% over the past two weeks, as the number of tests decreased by 14%. Hospitals in Texas, Florida and Arizona are filling up with Covid-19 patients. Deaths are expected to resume their gruesome ascent.

The surge is occurring because America reopened before Covid-19 was contained.

Trump was so intent on having a good economy by Election Day that he resisted doing what was necessary to contain the virus. He left everything to governors and local officials, then warned that the “cure” of closing the economy was “worse than the disease.” Trump even called on citizens to “liberate” their states from public health restrictions.

Yet he still has no national plan for testing, contact tracing and isolating people with infections. Trump won’t even ask Americans to wear masks. Last week, Democrats accused him of sitting on nearly $14 billion in funds for testing and contact tracing that Congress appropriated in April.

It would be one thing if every other rich nation in the world botched it as badly as has America. But even Italy – not always known for the effectiveness of its leaders or the pliability of its citizens – has contained the virus and is reopening without a resurgence.

There was never a conflict between containing Covid-19 and getting the economy back on track. The first was always a prerequisite to the second. By doing nothing to contain the virus, Trump has not only caused tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths but put the economy into a stall.

The uptick in jobs in June was due almost entirely to the hasty reopening, which is now being reversed.

Arizona’s Republican governor, Doug Ducey initially refused to order masks and even barred local officials from doing so. Last week he closed all gyms, bars and movie theaters. The governors of Florida, Texas and California have also reimposed restrictions. Officials in Florida’s Miami-Dade county recently approved reopening of movie theaters, arcades, casinos, concert halls, bowling halls and adult entertainment venues. They have now re-closed them.

And so on across America. A vast re-closing is underway, as haphazard as was the reopening. In the biggest public health emergency in US history, in which nearly 130,000 have already lost their lives, still no one is in charge.

Brace yourself. Not only will the virus take many more lives in the months ahead, but millions of Americans are in danger of becoming destitute. Extra unemployment benefits enacted by Congress in March are set to end July 31. About one in five people in renter households are at risk of eviction by September 30. Delinquency rates on mortgages have more than doubled since March.

An estimated 25 million Americans have lost or will lose employer-provided health insurance. America’s fragile childcare system is in danger of collapse, with the result that hundreds of thousands of working parents will not be able to return to work even if jobs are available.

What is Trump and the GOP’s response to this looming catastrophe? Nothing. Senate Republicans are trying to ram through a $740 billion defense bill while ignoring legislation to provide housing and food relief.

They are refusing to extend extra unemployment benefits beyond July, saying the benefits are keeping Americans from returning to work. In reality, it’s the lack of jobs.

Trump has done one thing, though. He’s asked the Supreme Court to strike down the Affordable Care Act. If the court agrees, it will end health insurance for 23 million more Americans and give the richest 0.1% a tax cut of about $198,000 a year.

This is sheer lunacy. The priority must be to get control over this pandemic and help Americans survive it, physically and financially. Anything less is morally indefensible.

Robert Reich

July 5, 2020

America is Exceptional in All the Wrong Ways

As our incompetent president flounders in the face of crises – leading the worst coronavirus response in the industrialized world, and seeking to crush nationwide protests for black lives – the hard truth about this country comes into focus: America is not exceptional, but it is the exception.

No other industrialized nation was as woefully unprepared for the pandemic as was the United States. With 4.25% of the world population, America has the tragic distinction of accounting for about 30% of pandemic deaths so far.

Why are we so different from other nations facing the same coronavirus threat? Why has everything gone so tragically wrong in America?

Part of it is Donald Trump. 

He and his corrupt administration repeatedly ignored warnings from public health experts and national security officials throughout January and February, only acting on March 16th after the stock market tanked. Researchers estimate that nearly 36,000 deaths could have been prevented if the United States had implemented social distancing policies just one week earlier.

No other industrialized nation has so drastically skirted responsibility by leaving it to subordinate units of government – states and cities – to buy ventilators and personal protective equipment.

In no other industrialized nation have experts in public health and emergency preparedness been muzzled and replaced by political cronies like Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who in turn has been advised by campaign donors and Fox News.

In no other industrialized nation has Covid-19 so swiftly eviscerated the incomes of the working class. Around the world, governments are providing generous income support to keep their unemployment rates low. Not in the U.S. Nearly 40 million Americans have lost their jobs so far, and more than 30% of American adults have been forced to cut back on buying food and risk going hungry.

At best, Americans have received one-time checks for $1,200, about a week’s worth of rent, groceries and utilities. After a massive backlog, people finally started collecting their expanded unemployment benefits – just in time for the expansion to expire with little to no chance of being renewed.

In no other nation is there such chaos about reopening. While Europe is opening slowly and carefully, the U.S. is opening chaotically, each state on its own. Some are lifting restrictions overnight.

And not even a global pandemic can overshadow the racism embedded in this country’s DNA. Even as black Americans are disproportionately dying from coronavirus, they have nonetheless been forced into the streets in an outpouring of grief and anger over decades of harsh policing and unjust killings. 

As protests erupted across the country in response to more police killings of unarmed black Americans, the protesters have been met with even more police violence. Firing tear gas into crowds of predominantly black protesters, in the middle of a pandemic caused by a respiratory virus that is already disproportionately hurting black communities, is unconscionably cruel.

Indeed, a lot of the responsibility rests with Trump and his hapless and corrupt collection of grifters, buffoons, sycophants, lobbyists and relatives.

But the problems at the core of our broken system, laid bare by this pandemic, have been plaguing this country long before Trump came along.

America is the only industrialized nation without guaranteed, universal healthcare.

No other industrialized nation insists on tying health care to employment, resulting in tens of millions of U.S. citizens losing their health insurance at the very moment they need it most.

We’re the only one out of 22 advanced nations that doesn’t give all workers some form of paid sick leave.

Average wage growth in the United States has long lagged behind average wage growth in most other industrialized countries, even before the pandemic robbed Americans of their jobs and incomes. Since 1980, American workers’ share of total national income has dropped more than in any other rich nation.

And America also has the largest CEO-to-worker pay gap on the planet. In 1965, American CEOs were paid 20 times the typical worker. Today, American CEOs are paid 278 times the typical worker.

Not surprisingly, American workers are far less unionized than workers in other industrialized economies. Only 10.2 percent of all workers in America belong to a union, compared with more than 26% in Canada, 65% in Sweden, and 23% in Britain. With less unionization, American workers are easily overpowered by corporations, and can’t bargain for higher wages or better benefits.

So who and what’s to blame for the largest preventable loss of life in American history?

It’s not just Trump’s malicious incompetence.

It’s decades of America’s failure to provide its people the basic support they need, decades of putting corporations’ bottom lines ahead of workers’ paychecks, decades of letting the rich and powerful pull the strings as the rest of us barely get by.

This pandemic has exposed what has long been true: On the global stage, America is the exception, but not in the way we would like to believe.

Robert Reich

June 23, 2020

Dying to Work

Most of Europe and all fifty states of the US are in various stages of “reopening.” But why, exactly?

The pandemic is still with us. After the first tentative steps to ease the lockdown in Germany – the most successful large European country to halt the spread of the virus thanks to massive testing – the disease has shown signs of spreading faster.

At least Germany is opening slowly and waiting until almost no new cases are occurring there, as is the rest of the EU.  

By contrast, the United States – with the highest death rate and most haphazard response to Covid-19 of any advanced nation – is opening chaotically, each state on its own. Some states are lifting restrictions overnight, although relatively few tests for the virus have been conducted. 

Researchers expect the reopenings to cause thousands of additional deaths.

Two weeks after Texas Governor Greg Abbott began reopening the state’s economy, Texas experienced the single-highest rise in casessince the beginning of the pandemic. Since Nebraska reopened May 4, Covid-19 cases in Colfax County alone have surged 1,390 percent

Experts warn that Dallas, Houston, Southeast Florida’s Gold Coast, the entire state of Alabama and several other places in the South that have rapidly reopened their economies are in danger of a second wave of coronavirus infections over the next four weeks.

Last week, Ford Motor reopened its large North American assembly plants. The following day Ford closed and then reopened its Chicago Assembly plant twice in less than 24 hours after two workers tested positive for Covid-19. On Then Ford temporarily shut its Dearborn, Michigan Truck plant after an employee tested positive, then promptly resumed operations.

So why “reopen” so abruptly, when Covid-19 continues to claim lives?

The main reason given is to get the economy moving again. But this begs the question of why an economy exists in the first place, other than to promote the wellbeing of people within it.

Both Ford plants are vital to its profitability, and Ford’s profitability is important to jobs in the Midwest. But surely the wellbeing of Ford workers, their families, the people of Chicago and Dearborn and others in the Midwest are more important.  

A related argument is that workers are clamoring to return to their jobs. “People want to get back to work,” Trump has asserted repeatedly since March. Fox News host Sean Hannity claims people are “dying to get back to work,” seemingly unaware of the irony of his words.

Polls suggest otherwise. Americans whose jobs require them to leave home express trepidation about doing so; 60 percent fear exposing their families to COVID-19.

Many Americans must return to work because they need the money, but this doesn’t have to be the case. Rich economies can support their people for years if necessary. During World War II, America shut down most of its economy for nearly four years.

The obstacle right now is a lack of political will to provide such support, at least until enough testing and tracing provide reasonable evidence the pandemic is contained.

Although nearly half of all U.S. households report that they’ve lost employment income since mid-March, the extra jobless benefits enacted by Congress are only now starting to trickle out. Both Trump and Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell refuse to extend them beyond July 31, when they’re scheduled to end.

Meanwhile, states are denying benefits to anyone whose company has called them back.

Finally, Trump and his enablers argue that reopening is a matter of “freedom.” He has called on citizens to “liberate” their states from public-health restrictions, and Fox News personalities have decried what they call denials of “basic freedoms.”

Armed protesters have stormed the Michigan state capitol demanding the “freedom” to work. At the Kentucky statehouse, protesters shouted “We want to work!” and “We’re free citizens!”

But the supposed “freedom” to work is a cruel joke when people are forced to choose between putting food on the table or risking their lives. It’s the same perverse ideology that put workers in harm’s way in the dawn of the industrial age, when robber barons demanded that workers be “free” to work in dangerous factories twelve hours a day.

In truth, there is no good reason to reopen when the pandemic is still raging – not getting the economy moving again, or workers clamoring to return to work, or the cost of extended income support, or because workers should be “free” to endanger themselves.

Let’s be clear. The pressure to reopen the economy is coming from businesses that want to return to profitability, and from Trump, who wants to run for reelection in an economy that appears to be recovering.

Neither is reason enough. 

Robert Reich

May 26, 2020

A Tale of Two Pandemics

No description of the coronavirus is more misleading than calling it “the great equalizer.”

The horrific truth is that Native Americans, Latinos, and African-Americans are dying at much higher rates than white people - and we don’t know the half of it because the CDC hasn’t released any racial data about the virus; we don’t know if they’re even collecting it.

But the picture emerging from cities, states, and reservations is that of an atrocity.

In Milwaukee County, black people make up just 26% of the county’s population but account for almost half the county’s cases, and a staggering 81% of its deaths.

Louisiana, Illinois, and Michigan are no different: black people make up less of the overall population, but account for vastly more of both cases and deaths.

In San Francisco, Latinos account for just 15% of the population but make up 31% of the city’s confirmed cases, and account for over 80% of the city’s hospitalized coronavirus patients. And in the country’s epicenter of New York City, the virus is twice as deadly for Latinos as for white people.

Native Americans are also dying in wildly disproportionate numbers. The Navajo Nation, with about 175,000 residents, has more cases of COVID-19 than nine entire states. And more deaths than 13 states.

You’ve heard how governors are fighting over aid? Well, tribal leaders are getting even less.

So why are these communities suffering the worst of this pandemic?

For one, black people and Latinos are more likely to work in “essential” positions that require them to put their health at risk – a study by the New York City comptroller found that 75% of the city’s frontline workers are people of color.

On top of that, black people and Native Americans experience higher levels of preexisting conditions like asthma and diabetes that make contracting the virus more deadly.

Of course they don’t just happen to have these illnesses – this is the system: it’s decades of segregated housing, pollution, lack of access to medical care, and poverty in action.

But the virus isn’t just discriminating by race. It’s also disproportionately affecting the working class and poor of every kind.

In New York City, the five ZIP codes with the highest rates of positive tests for the coronavirus have an average per capita income of *under* $30,000 – while residents in the five zip codes with the lowest rates have an average income of over $100,000.

And that’s just where there’s testing. Remember how early on we heard about celebrities testing positive? If not happiness, at least money can buy a diagnosis. New York just rounded its death toll up by a few thousand people who were never even tested.

Studies show that lower-income people are more likely to have chronic health conditions that make the virus more deadly.

They’re less likely to receive sufficient medical care or might lack access altogether.

And they’re more likely to work in frontline “essential” jobs that put their health at risk.

A study found that only 3% of lower income workers are working from home during the pandemic, compared to almost half of upper middle income workers.

Any rush to “open the economy” is really about forcing working class and poor people back into harm’s way while the rich and affluent can safely work from home.

For as many workers risking their lives for meager paychecks, still more are now unemployed and on the brink of financial obliteration.

Less than half of Americans can afford a $1,000 emergency, and nearly 75% live paycheck to paycheck. Piecemeal unemployment benefits and one-time payments aren’t going to buoy Americans through the next great depression.

We are all weathering the same storm, but we are not all in the same boat.

Systematic inequality in America has produced two very different pandemics:

In one, billionaires are sheltering in place on their yachts in the Caribbean, and wealthy families are safely quarantining in multimillion-dollar mansions.

In the other boats sit people risking their lives for their jobs and people without incomes going hungry, a disproportionate number of whom are people of color, and all of whom deserve better.

This is a tale of two pandemics. There is nothing “equal” about it.

Robert Reich

May 20, 2020

The Real Reason Trump Wants to Reopen the Economy

Donald Trump is getting nervous. Internal polls show him losing in November unless the economy comes roaring back.

So what is Trump’s reelection strategy? Ignore the warnings of public health experts and reopen the economy at all costs.

 Here’s his lethal 4-part plan:

Step 1: Remove income support, so people have no choice but to return to work.    

Trump’s Labor Department has decided that furloughed employees “must accept” an employer’s offer to return to work and therefore forfeit unemployment benefits, regardless of the risk of returning to work before it’s safe.

Forcing people to choose between contracting a potentially deadly virus or losing their livelihood is inhumane. It’s also nonsensical. Our collective  health in this pandemic depends on as many workers as possible staying home.

Step 2: Hide the facts.
No one knows how many Americans are infected because the Trump administration continues to drag its heels on testing. As of May 5th, only 7.5 million tests have been completed in a population of over 330 million Americans.

Is this what Jared Kushner meant by a “great success story?”

Florida, one of the last states to issue a shelter-in-place order and one of the first to reopen, has stopped releasing medical examiners’ statistics on numbers of coronavirus victims because the numbers are higher than the state’s official count.

But it’s impossible to fight the virus without adequate data. Anthony Fauci, the administration’s leading infectious disease expert, warns that reopening poses “a really significant risk” without a huge ramp up in testing.

Not surprisingly, the White House has blocked Fauci from testifying before the House.

Trump fired Health and Human Services Inspector General Christi Grimm after she released a report detailing widespread shortages of testing and PPE at hospitals across the country. His handpicked replacement will now handle a whistleblower complaint filed by Dr. Rick Bright, the ousted director of the office involved in developing a coronavirus vaccine. 

Dr. Bright’s complaint alleges the administration repeatedly ignored his warnings about critical supply shortages and removed him from his position because he refused to adopt scientifically unproven treatments for the virus.

Step 3: Push a false narrative about “freedom” and “liberation.”

Weeks ago, Trump called on citizens to “LIBERATE” states like Michigan, whose Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, imposed strict stay-at-home rules.

Michigan has the third-highest number of Covid-19 deaths in America, although tenth in population. When Whitmer extended the rules to May 28, gun-toting protesters rushed the state house chanting “Lock her up!”

Rather than condemn their behavior, Trump suggested Whitmer “make a deal” with them.

Meanwhile, Attorney General William Barr has directed the Justice Department to take legal action against any state or local authorities imposing lockdown measures that “could be violating the constitutional rights and civil liberties of individual citizens.”

Making this about “freedom” is absurd.

Freedom does not mean you have the right to endanger the lives of others through your own irresponsibility and ignorance.

Freedom is not forcing people back to work in unsafe environments to boost billionaires’ stock portfolios.

Freedom is meaningless for people who have no choice but to accept a job that puts their life at risk.

Step 4: Shield businesses against lawsuits for spreading the infection.

Trump is pushing to give businesses that reopen a “liability shield” against legal action by workers or customers who get infected by the virus.

He says he’ll use the Defense Production Act to force meat processing plants to remain open, despite high rates of Covid-19 infections and deaths among meatpackers. “That’ll solve any liability problems,” Trump said.

Mitch McConnell insists that the next stimulus bill include legal immunity for corporations that cause workers or consumers to become infected.

“We have a red line on liability,” McConnell says. “It won’t pass the Senate without it.”

But how can the economy safely reopen if companies don’t have an incentive to keep people safe? It can’t, and it wont.

Which leads me to my final point: 

Here’s the truth: The biggest obstacle to reopening the economy is the pandemic itself.

Any rush to reopen without adequate testing and tracing – a massive increase from what we’re doing now – will cause even more deaths and a longer economic crisis.

The first responsibility of a president is to keep the public safe. But Donald Trump couldn’t care less.

He’s trying to force the economy to reopen to boost his electoral chances, and he’s selling out Americans’ health to seal the deal. No matter the cost, Donald Trump’s chief concern is and will always be himself.

Robert Reich

May 12, 2020