Think This Pandemic Is Bad? We Have Another Crisis Coming.

[Zorro]

Addressing climate change is a big-enough idea to revive the economy.

On the last Friday in March, I lost hope.

I have always believed in America: not in our inherent goodness — I am too black for that — but in our sheer animal will to survive. Crisis after crisis, our country has evolved to meet the moment, even if that meant changing the way we thought the world worked or striving to upend the imbalance of power. But on that Friday, I was on my couch working when the messages started to pour in. Friends sent me video after video of Republican senators debating stimulus measures to address the coronavirus crisis, standing in the Senate chamber, saying that the Green New Deal — a proposal that I helped create — was the reason millions of Americans would not receive the help that they need.

I was furious. Of the nearly $2 trillion in aid proposed in that first version of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, known as the CARES Act, $500 billion went toward a business-relief fund with little to no oversight. Fifty-eight billion of this was earmarked for airlines, and a lax definition of eligible businesses created a loophole for oil and gas. The bill included no climate protections, so the claim that it was being held up over Green New Deal provisions was absurd. And the changes proposed by Democrats — emissions reductions for airlines, limiting bailouts for fossil fuel industries, protections for airline workers — were modest.

The senators I saw did not mention those things. Nor did they mention that the airlines had requested $50 billion after spending $45 billion on stock buybacks over the past five years. They did not mention that emissions reductions requested would not be required until 2025 or that when they were, the reductions would be less than 3 percent per year. And no one stood up and asked why corporations should be exempt from loan terms when the rest of us are not. Why is it “opportunism” when we try to design policy that would address more than one problem at a time, but it’s “efficiency” when businesses do the same? (The final version of the CARES Act does not provide targeted funding for fossil fuels and reduced the aid for passenger airlines to $25 billion. None of the climate policies mentioned were included in the final version of the bill.)

Covid-19 and the economic collapse it has caused have laid bare how connected our problems are. Congress and the Federal Reserve are not going to lay out trillions of dollars, over and over, in perpetuity. Refusing to include measures related to climate and environmental justice in economic stimulus packages related to the coronavirus is not neutral when there is no guarantee of other opportunities to do so later. We need to design the stimulus not only to help the U.S. economy recover but to also become more resilient to the climate crisis, the next multitrillion-dollar crisis headed our way.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/opinion/climate-change-covid-economy.html

[JudyM]

1. K&R.

Important.

[PurgedVoter]

2. I belive in the inherent goodness of America.

I am reacting to the beginning of an excellent article but I have to take some exception to it. I belive in the inherent goodness of America, but not perhaps for the reasons you think. My family had a black maid who worked herself to the bone to support all of the poor children in her neighborhood. I did not know that I knew a saint until she had passed away. My mother, in her constant search for a spiritual guru, never realized that a real one visited her house twice a week.

I have met black church ladies who forgave Trump. I have worked with black men who continued on and remained constructive despite lower pay, lower respect and lower prospects.

The heritage that racist white folk in the south go on about is in fact a wonderful heritage. Music, originated by black people. Dance, originated by black people. Food, once again originated by black people. I hold doors for and walk among better people than I will ever be. Many of those people are black. The are a minority, but they are a majority of my faith in the goodness of America.

There are jerks in all races and cultures. My own demographic, sadly, still supports Trump. If we look at just white men as America, then I have to question the inherent goodness of America. There have been a lot of great men from my demographic, but they were outnumbered strongly.

If we look at the melting pot, we can find the goodness of America. United we stand tall. Divided we fall from grace.

Except for the conservatives. Those people suck.