This is the second in a series of essays from a California perspective on the challenges and opportunities presented by the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown in five key areas: (1) public health; (2) politics; (3) the economy; (4) climate change; and (5) US-China relations. Part 1 addressed public health and politics. Part 2 addresses the economy and climate change.

America looks nothing like it did two months ago. On March 1, the economy was humming along with unemployment below four percent and the stock market at record highs. Fewer than 100 coronavirus cases and a handful of deaths had been recorded in a few cities across the land. President Trump assured us that he had “things totally under control.” “Everything will be fine,” he said. His top economic adviser Larry Kudlow declared: “We have contained this. I won’t say airtight, but pretty close to airtight.”[i]

Yet to anyone paying close attention, dark clouds hung over the horizon. After a decade of economic expansion following the Great Recession, signs of slowing growth and a possible recession were starting to appear. Federal budget deficits were skyrocketing - in part to pay for a $2 trillion tax cut for the wealthy, productivity growth was in decline, America’s trade deficit was at an all-time high, wealth and income inequality was escalating faster than the rest of the world, housing affordability and homelessness were worsening, and America’s infrastructure was crumbling. China, Italy, and other countries in Asia and Western Europe were fully engaged in national efforts to control what was already being called a pandemic. That was before the coronavirus attacked our shores.

Two months later, more than a million coronavirus cases have been recorded in the U.S., far and away the most of any nation and a third of the world’s total. More than 65,000 Americans have died from the virus, a quarter of deaths worldwide. Epidemiologists estimate that the true number could be ten million cases and 80,000 deaths in the U.S. Another 30 million Americans have filed for unemployment, numbers not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. America’s airline and hospitality industries are nonexistent. Millions of small businesses have closed. Americans are hunkering down for the long haul.

Congress responded quickly to this economic disaster with a four-part emergency relief package called the CARES Act whose $2.7 Trillion price tag is more than triple the size of the stimulus bill passed in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown. These relief measures should help keep the economy afloat while we recover from the pandemic. More will undoubtedly be needed, especially to help beleaguered health and safety workers fighting on the front lines against this pandemic.[ii]

With the prospect of unemployment in the 20-30 percent range and trillions of dollars in debt piling up, talk has naturally turned towards reopening the economy as soon as possible. However, under the most optimistic of scenarios, the AC economy (after the coronavirus) will probably not return to BC (before the coronavirus) levels of employment and productivity until a vaccine has been successfully mass-produced, which public health experts say will take 18 to 24 months or more. Even two years is optimistic given that no vaccine has ever been produced before in less than four years.[iii]

Even as we scramble to keep the economy on life support over the next year or so, we also need to plan for the period when social distancing constraints are lifted and the economy can go full tilt. Rather than returning to normal, our goal should be to build a more sustainable and equitable economy that is more resilient to pandemics, climate change, and whatever else comes our way. In terms of energy and climate change policy, California has already shown the way forward. In terms of equity, America must look to its own history for inspiration.

Meanwhile, what will the next year or so look like until a vaccine is available?

Short-term: The “Hammer and Dance”

In the words of pandemic expert Donald G. McNeil Jr., reopening America’s economy is going to be a “Hammer and Dance” with the hammer being the lockdown and the dance the reopening that will take place one step at a time. If we reopen too hastily and an unacceptable spike in new coronavirus cases or deaths occur, we will need to revert to lockdowns.[iv] This Hammer and Dance will likely go on in one form or another until a vaccine is widely available.

Scott Gottlieb, a physician and public health expert who served as Trump’s first FDA Commissioner and a conservative resident fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, is the lead author of a comprehensive roadmap to end social distancing and reopen the American economy. Gottlieb was the rare Trump appointee to win plaudits from both the right and the left. His roadmap divides the coronavirus crisis into the current lockdown phase followed by three phases of gradual reopening to guide state and local officials in their decisions on how and when to reopen their communities.[v]

On April 16, 2020, the White House issued “Opening Up America Again” Guidelines which mirrored Gottlieb’s phasing structure, calling for states to gradually reopen their economies only if they meet certain Gating Criteria: (1) a 14-day decline in flu-like and confirmed coronavirus cases; (2) a robust testing program for at-risk healthcare workers, including emerging antibody testing; and (3) a healthcare system that can quickly supply personal protective equipment (PPE) and critical medical equipment, as well as handle surge ICU capacity. States are also expected to have plans in place to protect the health and safety of workers in critical industries, workers and residents in senior care facilities, transit employees and users, to provide public advice for social distancing and face-covering protocols, and to monitor conditions and take immediate steps to limit and mitigate rebounds or new outbreaks by restarting a phase or returning to earlier phase.[vi]

The White House Gating Criteria omitted Gottlieb’s recommendation for a more aggressive testing regime to test all potential coronavirus patients, including random tests, and a more robust contact tracing surveillance and quarantine program allowing public health authorities to require individual quarantine. The White House Guidelines also allow certain business activities such as large events to take place in earlier phases.

Many public health experts went further than the White House Guidelines, recommending that states should not reopen until they are close to the bottom of the back-side of the bell shape curve of new cases and have the ability to test front line workers and grocery workers as well as randomized individuals in the population at large, not just healthcare workers and hospitalized patients. This would require several million tests per week, not thousands per week.[vii]

Even as the White House Guidelines were being criticized for not being strict enough, the President was fanning the flame of right-wing protests against continued lockdown of any kind and enabling some governors to reopen without a plan based on data and science. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp – the same guy who implausibly tried to defend Georgia’s belated lockdown by claiming he didn’t know until April that Covid-19 could be spread by people who were asymptomatic - announced that he was ready to open up the entire state on Friday, April 24, even though at that time, Georgia had the twelfth most confirmed coronavirus cases and eleventh most deaths of any state and had yet to show a sustained decline in cases for more than a few days, let alone two weeks as specified in the White House Gating Criteria. To the contrary, Georgia was still experiencing an increase in both cases and deaths as late as April 22. President Trump reversed himself and sharply criticized Governor Kemp for not following the White House Guidelines.

In contrast to Governor Kemp’s open-now-at-any-cost approach, California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Reopening Plan (announced on April 14, 2020) did not specify a date for reopening. Shelter-in-place orders will remain in effect for what could be weeks, until the state observes a flattening or reduction in hospitalizations and ICU bed occupations by COVID-19 patients. Newsom laid out six indicators that California and other western states will look for before stay-at-home orders and other interventions can be slowly removed: (1) the ability to monitor through testing, contact tracing, isolating and supporting those who are positive or exposed; (2) the ability to prevent infection in people who are at risk for more severe COVID-19; (3) the ability of the hospital and health systems to handle surges; (4) the ability to develop therapeutics to meet the demand; (5) the ability for businesses, schools and childcare facilities to support physical distancing; and (6) the ability to determine when to reinstitute measures, such as the stay-at-home orders, if necessary.

By taking the virus seriously early on and following public health recommendations, California has performed remarkably well on a per capita basis compared to other states in slowing the spread of coronavirus cases and deaths, particularly considering that California had many more passenger flights and contacts with China and experienced the earliest coronavirus case reported in the U.S.[viii] Most western states have also performed relatively well which could be attributed, at least in part, to their lower density populations.

Meanwhile, Governor Newsom intends to build up California’s infrastructure to respond to coronavirus and “modify” stay-at-home orders, rather than allowing residents back onto the streets all at once, which has the potential to cause another surge in coronavirus cases. “There’s no light switch here. It’s more like a dimmer,” Newsom said. When residents do return to work and the outside world, restaurants may receive orders to reduce the number of tables where they allow seating, to provide disposable menus or that waitstaff wear gloves and masks. Workplaces may have to redraw floor plans to ensure social distancing, and some businesses may receive guidance to take the temperatures of their customers or employees before they enter.

“Face coverings will likely be common in public,” said Dr. Sonia Angell, director of the California Department of Public Health.

Public gatherings over the summer are also “unlikely,” Newsom said.

“The prospect of mass gatherings is negligible at best until we get to herd immunity and until we get to a vaccine,” the governor said.

While students may potentially return to school in the fall, classrooms may see students staggered into different cohorts that meet in the morning and afternoon, or other interventions to physically distance students.

Schools, parks and public places will require “massive deep cleaning.” Newsom and Angell said stay-at-home orders are not sustainable for the state, between impacts on the economy, poverty rates and health care in state. Modifying stay-at-home orders is intended for a bridge phase until more widespread testing and a vaccine are developed. Newsom has appointed a blue-ribbon panel chaired by Tom Steyer to help plan the state’s business and jobs recovery.

Public health expert Dr. David Katz has argued for a reasonable middle ground between overly aggressive and indiscriminate re-openings and overly restrictive and indiscriminate lockdowns, a strategy that he calls “total harm minimization.” In an interview summarized in New York Times Opinion columnist Thomas L. Friedman’s op-ed, “We Need Herd Immunity from Trump and the Coronavirus,” Dr. Katz explained his view that lower risk individuals should be allowed to go back to work and move about more freely, while continuing to protect more vulnerable individuals.

“You might think that health professionals are at one extreme of opinion, concerned only about the virus and favoring locking everything down, but that was not the view I encountered,” said Katz. “The view was far more centrist: respect for the infection, but equal respect for the high cost of closing down everything — to their patients, of course, but also to themselves and their families. Many were acutely concerned about layoffs, unemployment, and real desperation affecting siblings or close friends.”[ix]

The best strategy, argues Katz, starts with data: “More and more data are telling us that Covid-19 is two completely different diseases in different populations. It is severe and potentially lethal to the old, the chronically ill and those with pre-existing conditions. It is, however, rarely life-threatening, often mild — and often even asymptomatic — among those under 50 or 60 in generally good health.” Through proper testing, including random samplings of the U.S. population for both infection and immunity, we should be able to execute a strategy that saves the most lives and health through “vertical interdiction,” meaning “sheltering the vulnerable, while allowing those who can return to the world most safely to do so — thereby restoring the economy, supply chains, and services, while cultivating the collective protection of herd immunity that leads to the ‘all clear,’” said Katz. “That’s how we get our lives back without waiting on the long and uncertain timeline of vaccine development.”[x]

Regardless of which state you live in or the precise rhythm and nature of your city’s “Hammer and Dance”, the back and forth between lockdown and seasonal spread of the virus will likely go on until a vaccine is widely available. As Senator Elizabeth Warren suggests, to be successful in striking the right balance between public health and economic concerns we must change the anti-government culture that has permeated American politics for the last forty years since President Reagan proclaimed the worst words in the English language were “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” That’s wrong, she says. The worst words are “We’re in a crisis with no government leadership or plan to get us out of it”.[xi]

There is no question that we need the President to be the Commander in Chief of a national response, including overseeing and directing the supply chain to make sure that we can manufacture the critical medical and other supplies for this pandemic in the U.S.A., instead of foreign imports. However, one aspect of the pandemic that government cannot do much about, aside from increasing broadband availability in underserved rural and poor communities, is the social isolation that many people are now experiencing.[xii] Isolation leads to physical and mental ailments, raising the risk of death of all causes, including coronavirus. It probably doesn’t help that government orders require “social distancing.” We probably should use the term “physical distancing” instead, and encourage safe, social networking through virtual means. After all, humans are genetically disposed to feel safety and meaning in groups, going back to how early humans had to survive in the wilderness.

Another area that government could do better is how we treat “essential workers”, such as hospital workers, EMTs, grocery store cashiers, butchers, bakers, truck drivers, farm workers, warehouse workers, electric linemen and utility workers, waste collectors, public safety workers, etc., etc. We call these people “heroes” but treat them as disposable. The least that we can do as we ride out this pandemic is to provide these workers living wages, healthcare, and the critical tools and equipment they need to do their jobs safely.[xiii]

When the Hammer and Dance cycle of lockdowns, openings and emergency relief packages are over and a Covid-19 vaccine is finally available, our goal should not be to return to normal. Rather we should aim to build an economy that is more resilient to pandemics and supply chain disruptions, more sustainable and efficient in its use of resources, more adaptable to climate change, and more equitable in its treatment of the middle class and working poor.

Long term: Building a More Resilient, Sustainable and Equitable Economy

A decade ago, when I was a member of the Sacramento City Council, I had the opportunity to spend some time with Thomas Friedman during his visit to Sacramento (at the invitation of then-Mayor Kevin Johnson) to promote more sustainable energy and environmental policies to combat climate change and protect national security. Friedman was right then and he is right now to assert that America should invest in three major areas to build the foundations of a stronger, more resilient and sustainable economy in the wake of the pandemic: 1) cheaper, domestically produced, low- and zero-carbon energy, so we are less vulnerable to foreign oil and climate change; 2) expanded high-speed internet connectivity, so everyone can participate in the innovation economy; and 3) expanded domestic manufacturing capacity, so we are not as dependent on foreign supply chains.[xiv]

Regarding high-speed internet connectivity, Friedman cites the example of Tikkun Olam Makers (TOM), a network in Israel used to make prosthetic and medical devices for Covid-19 response, e.g., face masks, shields, etc. What is needed is a new loan program similar to the Rural Electrification Act to promote high speed broadband everywhere and lead to more decentralized manufacturing everywhere through a network of open-source makers, e.g., using 3D printers.

With respect to expanding domestic manufacturing capacity, Friedman recommends the deployment of more affordable tools of invention, design and manufacturing so we can build our own capacity to build medical and other important supplies and not rely so much on Chinese or other overseas imports. To the extent it is necessary for the U.S. to outsource some of this supply chain, it would be beneficial to redirect such investments to our own backyard in Mexico, Guatemala, and other less developed countries in Central and South America. Not only would keeping the supply chain in our own hemisphere reduce shipping costs, it would reduce the risk of supply disruptions by hostile governments. Despite America’s profiteering tendencies towards Latin America over the years, Mexico and most Central and South American countries have generally maintained very close, productive, and peaceful ties with the U.S. Another benefit would be to create more jobs in those countries that have been the source of the most undocumented immigrants to the U.S., lessening the pressure on poor families to migrate to the U.S. to find employment.

Let’s explore in further detail the need for a low carbon energy policy, as well as a fourth component that should be integral to our targeted post-pandemic investment strategy: reducing health, wealth and education inequality, so that the working poor and middle class can enjoy more of the benefits and freedoms that our prosperity has afforded the wealthy.

Developing cheaper, domestically produced, low- and zero-carbon energy

California has shown that the road to zero carbon is not only possible; it is good for both the environment and the economy. In 2006, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed AB 32, California’s landmark Global Warming Solutions Act, requiring the state to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by 30 percent (back to 1990 levels) by 2020. At the time, right-wing pundits mocked Schwarzenegger as a “Republican in Name Only” and called the state’s goal a pipe dream that would bankrupt the state and cause a mass exodus of business.

In fact, under Governor Jerry Brown’s leadership, California reached the 30 percent reduction goal four years ahead of time in 2016, even as its economy grew by 26 percent despite the Great Recession. The next milestones are 40 percent GHG reduction by 2030 and the elimination of all carbon by 2045. Meanwhile, California’s “cap and trade” market,[xv] renewal energy portfolio standards for utilities, fuel and emission standards for new vehicles, electric/zero emission vehicle mandates, solar home mandates, and other energy and environmental policies have helped reduce the state’s overall air pollutant emissions by 10 percent. On a “per Gross State Product” basis, emissions actually decreased by 30 percent.[xvi] During this same period, California’s energy use has also decreased on a per capita basis while economic growth increased.

The success of California’s climate change, renewable energy, and environmental policies harkens back to California’s energy revolution of the 1970s and 1980s. When the California Energy Commission was created in 1974, many experts were predicting the need for dozens of large nuclear and coal power plants up and down the state - just to keep up with electricity demand. Through a combination of smarter forecasting and assessment of the state’s energy needs, more energy conservation such as landmark building and appliance efficiency standards, and the development of renewable resources, especially wind and solar, California has successfully decoupled electricity growth from economic growth, allowing the state’s economy and population to soar while its electricity demand curve flattened. California never built those new nuclear and coal plants. Instead, it built thousands of megawatts of solar, wind, geothermal, small hydro, biofuel, and super-efficient cogeneration and combined cycle gas power plants and distributed energy grids, as well as tens of thousands more “negawatts” of energy efficiency measures. The future expansion of Tesla and other electric vehicle (EV) into the automobile and truck markets would allow a zero carbon electricity grid to power the transportation sector as well.

California is just one state, but it is also the sixth largest economy in the world. To limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoid the worst effects of climate change will require the entire world to do what California is doing. Even if we succeed, there will still be Category 6 hurricanes, coastal flooding, droughts, fires, and other extreme weather disruptions like we have never seen before. But it would give us more time to adapt our cities and towns, farms and forests, and coastal and inland areas to climate change.

In his op-ed “With the Coronavirus, It’s Again Trump vs. Mother Nature,” Friedman draws important parallels between the pandemic and climate change that highlight California’s pioneering energy and environmental policies and programs: “As we invest in infrastructure to stimulate our economy out of this corona crisis, we should be doing it to make our society more resilient against both pandemics and climate change. We should use tax incentives to make it incredibly beneficial for every utility to decarbonize their power generation and shift to wind, solar and other renewables. Once the grid is carbon-free or close to it, every electric car becomes carbon-free, every electric-powered building becomes carbon-free and every electric-powered factory becomes carbon-free. That makes us physically more fit and economically more resilient.”[xvii]

Friedman also decries the lack of presidential leadership, dissecting President Trump’s narcissistic, uninformed, reckless, and myopic approach to both the pandemic and climate change.

“We have a president who is enamored with markets but ignorant of Mother Nature, and we have paid a steep, steep price for that — and will pay an even bigger price when it comes to climate change, if Trump remains in charge.

Early on, Trump clearly spent his days watching the markets and downplaying the virus’s potential for rapid spread. If the markets were doing well for investors, Trump thought it meant that he was doing well containing Mother Nature’s Covid-19 disease — one of many Darwinian engines she employs to mercilessly sort out the weak from the fit.

“Trump thought that closing off flights from China was enough to stem this growing epidemic and calm the markets — without the mass testing, surveillance and quarantines of the infected that South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore employed to great success. You could hear that in the reckless, premature assurances by Kudlow, Kellyanne Conway and Trump himself that the virus had been contained.

“Trump even believed he could manipulate markets — which was why he sent Dobbs that autographed chart after HE announced a new policy measure. That for him was the true indicator of his performance against Mother Nature.

“It was his deadly mistake.

“Mother Nature was not impressed by Trump or his markets. Mother Nature, alas, doesn’t “open” her workday at 9:30 a.m. or close it at 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and then take weekends off. So precisely when Trump was autographing his one-day stock chart to be touted by the knuckleheads at Fox, Mother Nature was silently, relentlessly, mercilessly and exponentially spreading the coronavirus among us.”[xviii]

All of that was before Trump suggested in a bizarre White House briefing that injecting people with “disinfectant” and hitting the body “with a very powerful light” could kill the coronavirus.[xix] After that outburst, the President was forced to cancel his White House briefings until further notice.

Quoting environmentalist Rob Watson, Friedman reminds us that “‘Mother Nature is just chemistry, biology and physics.’. . . You cannot sweet-talk her. You cannot spin her. You cannot manipulate her. And you certainly cannot tell her, ‘Mother Nature, stop ruining my beautiful stock market.’ . . . But that is exactly what Trump did initially with the coronavirus — and is trying to do still with climate change.”

Eventually we will win the battle with the coronavirus, but as we begin to think about our next rounds of pandemic investments, we must also bear in mind how destructive climate change can be. Unlike viruses, it does not peak, flatten or disappear, and there is no vaccine. As Friedman says, “[t]here is no herd immunity to climate change. There are only endless impacts on the herd . . . when the Greenland and Antarctic ice melts, it’s gone, and we humans will have to contend with the implications of sea level rise, mass movements of populations and various kinds of extreme weather — wetter wets, hotter hots and drier dries — forever.”[xx]

Moreover, climate change and the coronavirus pandemic follow similar natural laws and have common mitigation strategies, namely taking early action to prevent a “runaway catastrophe . . . That is why the first rule of scientists for climate change mitigation happens to be the first rule for public health officials of Covid-19 mitigation: Manage the unavoidable so that you can avoid the unmanageable . . . Now that we have tasted Mother Nature’s wrath in the form of both Covid-19 and climate change, let’s get her on our side. She’s as happy to help as to destroy. Let’s use chemistry, biology and physics, not to mention sun and wind, to create the vaccines and power systems that immunize us from viruses and weather extremes — and not double down on bad habits that will only make us sick again.” [xxi]

Reducing health, wealth and education inequality

Why should we care about reducing health, wealth and education inequality?

Because socioeconomic inequality throughout the world and particularly in the U.S. has reached historic levels since the 1980s, a level not seen since pre-modern times. This level of inequality tends to lead towards authoritarian, nationalistic regimes, and xenophobic populism similar to the conditions that led to the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. Historically, no other socioeconomic system has proven to produce better outcomes than capitalism, but if we do not reduce inequality, capitalism may fail.

This pandemic has also laid bare the thin line that divides American workers from poverty. Even before unemployment hit historic figures during the pandemic, many Americans were already one paycheck, one sickness, or one accident away from poverty and disaster. The disparity in coronavirus cases and deaths has become particularly apparent among minorities and poor Americans. Undoubtedly, lingering forms of racial and ethnic discrimination are at play here. But what is also apparent is that Covid-19 has particularly insidious impacts on Americans who have underlying conditions such as high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, and stress – conditions that adversely all Americans at a higher rate than any other developed country. As a nation, Americans need to eat better, exercise more, smoke less, use fewer drugs, and generally lead healthier lives. These issues take on even greater importance for people who have inadequate healthcare insurance and who deal with the stress of living paycheck to paycheck. Wellness programs should be a part of every school and workplace, but we must also ensure that all Americans have affordable healthcare, shelter, and nutrition, regardless of their employment status.

In his latest book just published in March, CAPITAL AND IDEOLOGY, Thomas Piketty provides important historical context for assessing the income and wealth inequality we face today in America. His research shows that since 1980, large fortunes have grown three to four times faster than global economic growth. The gap between top fortunes continued to grow at the same rate even after the 2008 Great Recession. Between 1980 and 2018, the top one percent captured 27 percent of total income growth versus 12 percent for the bottom 50 percent. The trickledown effect of economic growth at the top end does not lead to gains for the bottom 50 percent, a distribution that is excessive and unsustainable.

For more than a century from 1865 until 1980, America led the world in progressive income and wealth taxation to prevent the over-concentration of wealth. After the excesses of the Gilded Age in the late 1800s/early 1900s and the Great Depression, America went even further. From 1932 to 1980, the top marginal income tax rate in the U.S. averaged 82 percent (compared to 89 percent in the UK and 58-60 percent in Germany and France). These figures do not include state or local taxes. Yet this high-tax period was also the period of highest economic growth and the greatest reduction in wealth inequality.

The conservative revolution led by Ronald Reagan in the U.S. and Margaret Thatcher in the U.K. put an end to this trend. Since the 1980s, the top marginal rate has plummeted from 82 to 30-35 percent in the U.S. and from 89 to 40-45 percent in the U.K, or roughly half of what it was in the prior fifty years. According to Piketty, the argument that the reduction in marginal tax rates is needed for economic growth and to compete in attracting entrepreneurs does not withstand scrutiny.

The time has come to reexamine the idea of progressive taxation on both income and wealth. Higher tax rates would actually encourage the wealthy to donate more of their wealth back into the community and encourage corporations to do more employee profit sharing.

Over the last 40 years, the U.S. has had a significantly worse trend than Europe and Japan in terms of the gap between rich and poor, in large measure because of the collapse of income and wealth going to the bottom 50 percent, which dropped from 20 to 12 percent during this same period. This gap has been exacerbated by a reduction in educational investment and accessibility of college for poor students.

Another interesting set of data from Piketty’s book shows how the income and educational levels of left and right parties have reversed in both the U.S. and Europe in recent years. From 1950 to 1980, Democrat, Social Democrat, Socialist, and Communist party voters in the U.S. and Europe were less educated and poorer in income and wealth while Republican/Conservative party voters skewed wealthier and more educated. However, after 1980 and especially since 2010, the trends have now reversed on all three measures: income, wealth and education. Democrats now skew more educated and wealthier and are seen as the elite despite Republican policies favoring the wealthy. The same trend is true in Europe with Social Democrats and Conservatives.

Two somewhat contradictory reasons have been posited for this anomaly: (1) Democrats/Social Democrats abandoned the working class by not negotiating anything for them in exchange for lower taxation and other corporate friendly policies; or (2) working class whites abandoned Democrats after Republicans/Conservatives successfully distracted them from their policies favoring the rich by emphasizing populist cultural/religious and anti-immigration issues and demonizing the elite who seemed to care only about their own children’s education. Regardless of the reason, parties on the left need to address these underlying conditions.

One person who has given a lot of thought to this topic is former Presidential candidate and author of THE WAR ON NORMAL PEOPLE (2019), Andrew Yang. Yang makes a compelling case for offering all adult Americans a “freedom dividend” or universal basic income (UBI) payment of $1,000 per month. This idea seemed marginal when he first introduced it, but with the pandemic bailout and emergency relief packages approaching the $3-4 trillion range and running into a myriad of bureaucratic barriers, people are starting to acknowledge the simplicity and elegance of Yang’s proposal.

Presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have also focused on inequality in their political careers. Both share the belief that as the recovery from the pandemic moves on, we must build upon the emergency relief packages to fund infrastructure and public works programs, cancel student debt, and federal investment in housing of all segments - urban, suburban and rural (not just homeless shelters, but workforce housing as well). Warren, in particular, says that the mortgage interest deduction and FNMA loans were great for the middle class for many years, but they are no longer enough.[xxii]

Last but not least, conservative New York Times Opinion columnist David Brooks has also weighed in on inequality, arguing that it is not so much the gap between the top one percent and the rest of us that matters as much as the gap between the top 20 percent and the bottom 80 percent. “We can reduce the opportunity gap if we follow the lessons of how well the City of Compton is doing compared to the neighboring Watts district of Los Angeles: First, the neighborhood is the unit of change. Social mobility rises village by village. Second, the people in the community have to be in charge. They need resources from the outside, but only local control does the trick. Third, spending money on preschool, apprenticeship and other human capital programs really works. The top 20 percent is not going to stop spending heavily on their kids. We have to give the bottom 80 percent the resources to do the same.”[xxiii]

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, we must not let the coronavirus crisis go to waste. As we roll out the next phases of the pandemic recovery plan, we should target investments in cheaper, domestically produced, low- and zero-carbon energy, expanded high-speed internet connectivity, expanded domestic manufacturing capacity, and programs to reduce our health, wealth and education inequality. Such investments will not only help dig us out of the economic hole we’re in, they will lay the foundation for an economy that is more resilient to future pandemics and supply chain disruptions, more sustainable and adaptable to climate change, and more equitable towards all of our citizens.

Endnotes

[i] A couple of weeks later on March 13, after fear of a mounting pandemic had spooked the stock market into a precipitous slide causing the Dow Jones index to drop a record 2,352 points the day before, Fox Business host Lou Dobbs celebrated the next day’s 1,985-point Dow Jones rise. He admired a chart that Trump had autographed to showcase the rise, as if Trump’s bombastic remarks were responsible for the rise. After the weekend, the Dow suffered another record drop, closing almost 3,000 points lower. Trump did not autograph that day’s chart.

[ii] The CARES Act provided one-time direct payments of $1,200 to individuals earning up to $75,000 and $600 per week supplemental unemployment benefits, including for self-employed gig workers who normally are not eligible for unemployment benefits. Additional Congressional relief packages included bailouts of airline and hospital companies that were hit particularly hard by the lockdown, as well as a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) targeted to smaller businesses, including nonprofits, to help keep employees on their payrolls. The demand for assistance under the PPP, which has been administered through banks, was so high that a second phase had to be rushed through Congress in late April to replenish the funds available. Unfortunately, loopholes in the initial bill allowed large publicly traded companies to soak up a large share of the funds intended for small businesses.

[iii] The record for creating a new vaccine is four years. Not only is it optimistic to cut this time in half, it would also require significant loosening of safety and testing requirements that may increase the risk of failure, such as the initial Salk vaccine for polio that accidentally spread a live virus, causing many people who took the initial batches of the vaccine to contract polio. If we can quickly overcome these obstacles, there is still the issue of how to safely and quickly produce 300 million vaccines. Our public health system’s performance related to coronavirus testing does not give one great confidence.

[iv] “The Daily Podcast”, New York Times, April 20, 2020.

[v] A number of other public health experts proposed similar metrics as Gottlieb. (See NYT Survey of Experts, by Donald G. McNeil Jr., 4/18/20.)

[vi] In the first phase of the White House Guidelines for reopening (for States and Regions that satisfy the Gating Criteria), individuals who are not considered vulnerable should go back to work in phases, if possible, but maintain social distancing and avoid socializing in groups of more than 10 people if social distancing not possible. Non-essential travel should be minimized. Employers should encourage telework and close common areas or enforce strict social distancing protocols. Schools and organized youth activities should remain closed and visits to senior living facilities and hospitals should be prohibited. Large venues (e.g., sit-down dining, theaters, sporting venues, places of worship) can operate under strict physical distancing protocols. Elective surgeries can resume on an outpatient basis. Gyms can open if they adhere to strict physical distancing and sanitation protocols. Bars should remain closed. (Ezra Klein Show, Vox Podcast with Scott Gottlieb 4/15/20.)

In Phase 2 (for States and Regions with no evidence of a rebound and satisfy Gating Criteria a second time), individuals should avoid socializing in groups of 50 or more, but non-essential travel can resume. Employers should continue to encourage telework and close common areas or enforce moderate social distancing protocols. Schools can reopen but visits to senior living facilities and hospitals should still be prohibited. Large venues can operate under moderate physical distancing protocols. Elective surgeries can resume on both outpatient and in-patient. Gyms can open if they adhere to moderate physical distancing and sanitation protocols. Bars may reopen and operate with diminished standing room occupancy where appropriate.

In Phase 3 (for States and Regions with no evidence of a rebound and satisfy Gating Criteria a third time), vulnerable individuals can resume public interactions but practice physical distancing and minimize exposure to social setting where distancing not practical. All individuals WHEN IN PUBLIC, should still maximize physical distancing and low risk populations should consider minimizing time spent in crowded environments. Employers can resume unrestricted staffing of worksites. Visits to senior living facilities and hospitals can resume. Those who interact with residents and patients must be diligent regarding hygiene. Large venues can operate under limited physical distancing protocols. Gyms can open if they adhere to standard sanitation protocols. Bars may operate with increased standing room occupancy where applicable.

[vii] See “Zeke Emanuel’s Exit Strategy” podcast on Vox’s Today Explained, April 16, 2020.

[viii] On Tuesday, April 14, 2020, California saw a 3.6% decrease in hospitalizations and a 0.1% drop in ICU bed occupancy, but it also saw its largest single-day jump in deaths on a single day (71).

[ix] “We Need Herd Immunity from Trump and the Coronavirus,” by Thomas Friedman, NYT, April 25, 2020.

[x] Ibid.

[xi] The lack of presidential leadership is illustrated by Trump’s vacillating stance toward the pandemic. He has lurched from complete denial (“One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear”) to “I am not responsible” to “We’re doing a great job” to “It’s going to disappear” to “It will go away” to awarding himself a 10 out of 10 to calling the unavailable tests “PERFECT” to claiming “We have it very well under control” to setting Easter, April 12, as the date to reopen the country “a beautiful time, a beautiful timeline” to boasting of high ratings as death projections soared. On March 31, Trump seemed to come to his senses: “This is going to be a very painful, very, very painful two weeks.” (See editorial by Thomas B. Edsall, NYT, 4/1/20; see also https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/13/21176535/trumps-worst-statements-coronavirus.) But then he continued to vacillate through April. Most recently on April 22, he denied the CDC Director’s prediction that there will be another coronavirus outbreak during the fall flu season.

[xii] See “The Loneliness Pandemic” podcast on Vox’s Today Explained with Ezra Klein, April 10, 2020.

[xiii] “All Praise, No Pay” podcast on Vox’s Today Explained with Sean Rameswaram, April 14, 2020.

[xiv] “Post-Pandemic, Here’s How America Rises Again,” Thomas L. Friedman, NYT Op-Ed, April 14, 2020. In that same op-ed, Friedman recommends a variable tariff on imported oil to ensure a minimum price of $40-50/barrel that will keep domestic production alive, protect electric vehicle production from low oil prices and wind and solar power from low natural gas prices. As a bonus, the variable tariff on imported oil would also produce substantial revenues that the government could invest in infrastructure or return to taxpayers in the form of reducing other taxes.

[xv] Cap and trade auctions for trading carbon and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emission credits have been established in California, the northeastern states, and many of the developed countries of the world. Typically, they work as follows. The government (or consortium of governments) sets a declining limit (or cap) on GHG in major polluting sectors such as power plants, manufacturing, commercial, etc. Within each sector, individual companies have corresponding caps. Periodically, the government oversees an auction in which companies that are below their cap can sell their excess credits to companies that need the credits to get under their assigned cap.

[xvi] Yale Alumni Magazine, “The Climate in California”, by Dylan Walsh (Jan 2020)

[xvii] “With the Coronavirus, It’s Again Trump vs. Mother Nature,” Thomas L. Friedman op-ed, NYT, March 31, 2020.

[xviii] Ibid. Friedman gives examples of Trump’s inconsistent approach to the coronavirus crisis:

“Jan. 22: President Trump is asked by CNBC: “Are there worries about a pandemic at this point?” Trump answers: “No. Not at all. And we’re, we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. … It’s — going to be just fine.”

Jan. 31: Moving to counter the spreading coronavirus outbreak, Trump bars entry by most foreign nationals who had recently visited China.

Feb. 25: Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, declares: “We have contained this. I won’t say airtight, but pretty close to airtight.”

March 9: Trump tweets: “Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of coronavirus, with 22 deaths.”

March 13: Fox Business host Lou Dobbs shows off on his program a chart of the day’s 1,985-point Dow Jones rise. The chart was autographed and sent by Trump, who seemed to suggest that his remarks were responsible for the rise, a day after the same index had dropped a record 2,352 points.

March 16: After the weekend, the Dow suffers another record drop, closing 2,997.10 points lower. Trump did not autograph that fever chart and send it to Dobbs.

March 31: The U.S. has more than 180,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, about 80,000 more than any other country.

Nov. 26, 2018: CNN reports that Trump “dismissed a study produced by his own administration … and more than 300 leading climate scientists, warning of the potentially catastrophic impact of climate change.” Asked why, Trump told reporters, “I don’t believe it.” Asked if he read it, Trump said, “some.”

March 30, 2020: This newspaper reports that Trump completed plans to scrap Obama-era automobile fuel efficiency standards that limited climate-warming tailpipe pollution — a move that will “allow cars on American roads to emit nearly a billion tons more carbon dioxide over the lifetime of the vehicles.”

[xix] April 23, 2020.

[xx] Ibid.

[xxi] Quoting Hal Harvey, Friedman’s op-ed explains: “Both the Covid-19 epidemic and climate change kick off compounding accelerants that can run your health or climate system completely out of control,’ noted Hal Harvey, founder of Energy Innovation. With the coronavirus, ‘an early sickness becomes a citywide problem, which quickly crosses the country, and morphs into an epidemic. The pandemic is right on its heels. Each early-avoided illness saves thousands of lives down the road…. It will be exactly the same with climate change,’ Harvey continued. ‘Human-caused warming triggers nature’s compounding forces: If we defrost the tundra in Alaska, Canada and Russia, for example, that thawing soil will emit billions of tons of further carbon dioxide and methane. Only early action can prevent a runaway catastrophe.’” NYT, March 31, 2020.

[xxii] Interview with Ezra Klein on his Vox podcast, April 5, 2020.

[xxiii] “Who is Driving Inequality, You Are,” David Brooks op-ed, NYT, April 23, 2020.