The old saw about being able to walk and chew gum simultaneously is often aimed at institutional Washington. In fairness to the confection industry, the joke is heard frequently when Uncle Sam is jawing on Presidential Election Brand gum. But in equal fairness to Uncle Sam, given the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic, public-health and social consequences, he clearly is being asked to juggle at the same time as he walks and chews.
All things considered, though, there are some absolute essentials on the public docket, and Sam needs to focus — or else we are all in the soup. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell is right: The Administration and Congress must produce economic recovery legislation now, before the election. Millions of people — the hardworking first-round economic casualties of the virus who lost personal-service jobs — cannot pay the rent, buy food and afford medical care, and they need to get back to work safely. Untold millions more could fall behind before any recovery legislation passed after the election could finally have real impact.
That is the obvious part, but there is much more to do. Beyond recovery legislation, we need accurate and consistent guidance from the two presidential candidates seeking the highest office in the land about how we can contain the pandemic and get the economy working again, providing prosperity for all Americans.
Tonight’s debate is the last best chance for the American public to hear the candidates’ concrete plans for how they would handle the unprecedented challenges before us — the once-in-100-years global health crisis, the steepest and fastest economic recession since the 1930s, and the historic protests for social justice.
While most citizens shelter for safety from the coronavirus, the fundamental rules of the US health care system may be uprooted in court. The range of possible outcomes is wide and unpredictable. Rather than trying to make this into a political opportunity, both candidates should seek and offer a contingency plan to resolve this dispute and maintain affordable coverage for all while building a better system for a calmer future.
And while we design a patient-centered health care system, we need pandemic preparedness for the next crisis. Forces like urban sprawl, eco-tourism, countless refugees without adequate sanitation, and climate change will make replays of this coronavirus increasingly likely in the future. The candidates need to demonstrate that they are drawing the plans for preparedness post-COVID-19, which will help to calm a nervous populace even today. These plans need to address international cooperation for worldwide early warnings; stockpiling policy; possession of, or ability to obtain on short notice, physical facilities for treatment and separation of the infected and their contacts; and capacity to develop and deploy massive testing, contact tracing systems, and new multipathogen vaccines and therapeutics for likely future viral outbreaks.
Long-term recovery after the pandemic will require strengthening the drivers of economic growth. That means renewing our education system — from pre-K through postsecondary — which was already shaky before the pandemic and its limits on in-person interaction. It means development of our workforce, including training of the many workers who have been displaced from hands-on service jobs, and who can learn new skills while they seek new jobs in a changed economy. It means development and deployment of cutting-edge technology, including broadband access for all students and workers in every corner of the country. And it means repaired and expanded infrastructure to deliver the goods and the power, and move the workers when they are again able to commute and travel to do their jobs.
And although fighting the economic fallout of the pandemic is essential, that does not make it free. Even before COVID-19 broke out early this year, likely budget outcomes were unsustainable, with debt growing faster than the economy, rising unsustainably with no end in sight.
The pandemic has tacked trillions onto that forecast. Before the end of this decade, the debt will reach its highest level (relative to the nation’s GDP, out of which that debt must be serviced) ever — as high as it was at the end of our national nightmare of World War II.
Our leaders seeking the presidency need to begin to map a way out, even before the worst is over. Such a plan could include segregating the new recovery debt from normal government finances into a single separate financial entity; financing the recovery debt with bonds of the longest maturity — a 40- or even 50-year maturity if possible; and paying the interest through an addition to current revenues — a tax increase — that would be cleanly segregated from other revenues.
A clearly articulated agenda of identifying and surmounting the roadblocks to economic recovery, public health and peaceful community is required and would surely be rewarded. The last debate is an important if not the last widely viewed opportunity for the contenders to deliver.
Joseph J. Minarik is Director of Research at the Committee for Economic Development of The Conference Board. He was Chief Economist at the Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton administration.