Stephen Berry and Zach Cooper, of the Yale Public Health and Economics Departments, say that Congress isn’t doing enough on the pandemic. They have specific suggestions:
- If You Want to Save the Economy, Stop the Pandemic
That’s the title, but it’s a good suggestion. More:
- In the face of competing proposals, our suggestion is to do all of them.
- Widespread testing with and without contact tracing
- Production of enormous quantities of masks and personal protective equipment to allow daily life to resume in relative safety
- Effective treatments
- Multiple routes to vaccines
They figure it would cost a half-trillion dollars, and that that would be a good thing no matter what.
Joe Biden talked yesterday (or sometime, it gets fuzzy) about his economic policies. His task forces, which included Bernie supporters (am I allowed to say that here?) and Warren supporters (ETA, thank you Betty!), produced six:
- Combating the climate crisis and pursuing environmental justice
- Protecting communities by reforming our criminal justice system
- Building a stronger, fairer economy
- Providing a world-class education in every zip code
- Achieving universal, affordable, quality health care
- Creating a 21st century immigration system
Each task force provided an overview and a list of recommendations. The overviews come first, then the recommendations. A lot of recommendations.
It’s smart to bring the Berners and Warren supporters in. I haven’t worked through the policies in detail, but they generally look good.
Open thread!