Chaos in Washington

 

 

The president rolled out some of his long-expected pardons this week which included more than 25 individuals. These were unlike any previous presidential pardons.  A pardon is usually given to right an overly zealous prosecution, an unfair sentence or for issues of ill health.  Often the person has indicated contrition over a misdeed and appreciated the relief from the sentence. Sometimes convictions are over turned after evidence of good citizenship.  Occasionally there are revocations or commutations after release from previous convictions. The Department of Justice has a process through which pardon applications are received formally by petition and reviewed by a petition attorney. The claim is reviewed and, if found to be of merit, it is passed on to the executive for decision. Pardons are often granted at the end of a year or the final term of a president. Well, this year the president has not followed the set process and seems to be intent on reversing the convictions which came about as a result of the Mueller Investigations. He has reversed the convictions of Flynn, Manafort, Stone, Papadopoulos and van der Zwaan from that investigation, even though several had pled guilty. He also reversed the convictions of several Congressmen who had been convicted of criminal activity and his daughter Ivanka’s father-in-law who had been prosecuted for criminal acts years before by Chris Christie. 

The commonality for each of these pardons was that the individuals had been loyal to and supportive of the president. The administration did not go through the Justice Department and it appears that Justice was not even consulted. He has also risked an international incident by pardoning 4 Blackwater security guards who were convicted of wantonly firing into a crowd of civilians in Baghdad and killing women and children. The US government promised Iraq that these men would be convicted. Education Secretary DeVos’ brother Erik Prince owned the Blackwater company at that time. Once again, this president has gone around established precedent, something he appears to relish. This power is permitted by the Constitution, but these actions appear to be an over-reach and not what the founders intended.  There is now discussion in Congress about how restraints can be placed on this power within constitutional guidelines. I guess time will tell if it can be constrained. As is often seen here, it is not what one did but who one knows and the convicted person does not even have to try to appear remorseful about their errant deeds. Once again, the specter of autocracy rears its head. 

The president has finally signed the massive 900-Billion-dollar COVID relief bill (part of a much larger total financing bill) even though, as he stated, the $600 relief checks amounts are too little and should be $2000.  His Treasury Secretary – Steven Mnuchin – has been negotiating with Congress since last Spring and supposedly with decisions made with the president’s knowledge. His earlier threat to not sign this bill has had Washington in turmoil since the middle of last week as so many important measures, including continued funding for the government, continued unemployment benefits and aid to states for COVID vaccination programs were in this bill. A Federal shutdown was to start this week if the bill was not passed into law. Some programs (such as unemployment benefits) have, in fact, ended as they were set to cease on Saturday, so even though this was finally signed, they will lose a week of benefits. The President also vetoed the Defense Authorization Bill which funds the military; a Congressional vote on the necessary override is scheduled for Monday.

The lame duck president is now demanding new laws be passed concerning portions of the COVID relief bill which he did not like.  There is some confusion about just what his understanding of the process is; he appeared to be trying to get line-item vetoes of certain provisions along with demanding the $2000 amount. This cannot be done without re-writing and passing the bill all over again. Now, it appears that he has asked for a study of voter fraud, increasing the distribution to checks of $2000 instead of the $600 stimulus checks in the relief bill and some restriction of internet businesses since he did not like Twitter labeling his tweets as false. (This follows the long-voiced concerns of conservatives that their posts are more severely monitored – which has not been proven by independent researchers.) If you were a renter fearing eviction or a worker who has lost their job and their insurance, I am certain that you would have little time for such executive tantrums.

What does all of this mean in the long run?  Democrats started out in the Spring with the Heroes Act - a 3 trillion-dollar plus bill which provided relief for states, extended cash payments and unemployment benefits which was passed in the House in May, but despite many sessions of negotiations, it was never brought up in the Senate by Speaker Mitch McConnell. Republicans claimed it was too expensive and was just being done to bolster Democrat chances in the upcoming fall election. This just passed bill was supported as a way to assist the two Georgia Republican Senatorial candidates who are facing running off elections after not meeting a 50% threshold in the general election. The compromise was a result of actions by a bi-partisan group of legislators called the Problem-Solvers conference who worked out the details of the 900-billion-dollar deal with leaders of both houses and Secretary Mnuchin. This was quite a bit less that the 3 trillion-dollar deal originally passed by the House but more than the 500 million dollars that Leader McConnell had held out for months as his limit. It is still not yet clear how much this will assist the many small businesses and restaurants which have gone out of business due to restrictions on public gatherings, although there are some provisions for small businesses.  

Many of the limitations in the original relief bill allowed money to go to large corporations but quite often small businesses could not meet these parameters due to such things as a low number of employees or their payroll did not meet levels. Direct money for states was carved out as a stand-alone and has not been passed as that was another sticking point for Republicans who preferred to have states declare bankruptcy. There were some large corporations who applied for and received millions of dollars but were shamed into returning the money received under the paycheck protection plan.  Some have claimed that since all of the money in the original relief bill was not spent, that the funds should be returned to the Treasury as unnecessary. 

The problem of support for small businesses is not easily solved.  McKinsey reports that many businesses in the European Union (EU) think that they will no longer be in business after another year under the pandemic. Many of them have received some supports from their governments.  However, many of the European countries shut down earlier and government money was provided earlier. Generally, the economy in both the EU and the US is not recovering. The US economy is better now than 6 months ago, but we still have an overall unemployment rate of 6.7%, down from 14.7% in the spring with 10.7 million officially unemployed people, although the long-term number is probably around 20 million people. This does not count all of the people who have dropped out of the workforce, such as mothers who stopped working in order to care for children who are being schooled in virtual classrooms. Black unemployment was 10.3% in November while the rate for Hispanics was 8.4%. According to Bloomberg, 110,000 restaurants either have already closed or are expected to fail this year and most will not return. These businesses were a great source of income for students or part-timers and now this option will no longer be available.

To get control of the economy, we must first get control of the pandemic.  If we had adhered to a strong national shut-down in the early days of the pandemic we might not be where we are now with the huge numbers of deaths, afflicted people and the economy in free fall. Unfortunately, it appears that the COVID numbers will get worse for a while before we can turn a corner even though we now have vaccines. Experts are expecting that holiday travel will be responsible for a new uptick in cases soon.  We currently are close to 20 million cases in the US. Currently the US is averaging a death every 30 seconds from COVID and it has become the leading cause of death for 2020.

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New COVID numbers: (12/27/20) New York Times

Total US Cases:19,161,100.  Total new cases: 225,930.  Total deaths: 333,197 Total new deaths: 1,646.

Maryland total cases:265,440.  New cases: 2,280.  Total deaths: 5,680. Total new deaths: 21.

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Well, we are approaching the end of 2020.  It is a year that I wish we had not had to experience and one that I hope we never experience again in my lifetime or that of my grandchildren.  I do believe that if we had listened to the science, this pandemic would not have been as bad, but we cannot deal in hindsight.  I remind everyone that until we have widespread vaccinations that wearing masks, social distancing and washing hands are still in order.

Take a look at the Washington Post best editorial cartoons from 2020 here

Best wishes to everyone for a better 2021.  I am anticipating the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and a fresh outlook on governing for the people.

“Til next week – peace!