“Many Republicans and business groups insist that generous unemployment insurance is a major hindrance to the recovery, arguing that people are sitting out of the workforce because they’re making more money staying home and collecting the extra $300 a week in pandemic benefits put in place by Congress. Half of states, all Republican-led, have decided to shut off unemployment benefits early over the coming weeks. They all made that decision before the May jobs report, a move that even JPMorgan’s economists said was political, not economic.
The evidence suggests that extra unemployment might deter a small sliver of workers but not the vast majority. A working paper out of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco estimated that if seven of 28 workers receive job offers they would normally accept in the early months of this year, just one would say no in order to hold on to the $300.”
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“There are plenty of other factors influencing work right now: People are still nervous about the virus, parents lack access to child care, or people are waiting to see if they can get a job at their skill level. A massage therapist who shut down her business at the start of the pandemic told me she doesn’t want to work for minimum wage at McDonald’s; she wants to reopen her business.”
“Earlier this year, it looked like Congress would do the unthinkable: pass a truly big, bipartisan bill. The legislation, known as the Endless Frontier Act, would provide a huge funding boost to American science research — framed as a way to compete with China. In the Senate, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) led the charge, and it looked like the bill would pass with support from both parties.
But in the past few months, two things happened: As the legislation worked through the Senate process, it was watered down, reducing how much new funding would go to research. Then last week, a vote on the bill was delayed, as Republicans threatened to kill the legislation altogether.
To put it another way: A bill meant to show the US could own China instead proved how dysfunctional the American political system is.”
“The White House has already cut its initial $2.25 trillion infrastructure proposal by more than $1 trillion, and proposed significant changes to the taxation plan to pay for the infrastructure plan.
The GOP group, meanwhile, has added less than $100 billion in new spending to its initial proposal. The latest Republican plan totals $928 billion but is proposing just $257 billion in new spending, and repurposing the rest of the infrastructure money from unused American Rescue Plan funds.”
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“Still, progressive groups are telegraphing their disappointment, especially after the Senate GOP filibustered a bill for a commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill — a violent event led by supporters of President Donald Trump targeting lawmakers of both parties.
“It’s hard to argue Republicans are good faith negotiations when they couldn’t pass that.” Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, told Vox of the commission bill. “Democrats are attempting to govern, and Republicans have their eyes on 2022 and 2024 and are seeking to get back into power.””
“We have already heard a lot about “conditions-based” approaches and all that Afghanistan might lose with our withdrawal. Notably missing from those arguments is any acknowledgment of how inefficient and ineffective our nearly 20-year-long military-led endeavor has been, how our efforts thus far have fed into Afghanistan’s dysfunction, and why we should not expect “more of the same” to lead to better outcomes now.”
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“Instead of building a force that fit Afghanistan, we built an Army of mini-me’s. A force that, like our military, requires massive logistical support and technical capabilities to manage. A force that relies heavily on airpower and armored vehicles to fight an enemy who relies on his feet, IEDs and an AK-47. This is not a new revelation, but with the constant turnover of American commanders and a perennially optimistic (or delusional) view that the potential for victory over the Taliban was just around the corner, the instinct was always to double-down, or keep propping up the Afghan forces just long enough to get them over the finish line.
Unfortunately, there was always a fatal flaw to this approach. Pushing western technology and firepower into the Afghan military was never going to be sufficient to beat the Taliban, not when pouring billions of dollars into a government ill-equipped to handle it also contributed to the corruption and illegitimacy that opened additional political space for the Taliban to operate.”
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“With President Biden’s decision to withdraw there undoubtedly will be consequences for the Afghan military. The absence of sustained American airpower will enable the Taliban to move even more freely, while the Afghan government will be challenged to move its best fighters around the country via helicopters to counter Taliban gains. Unfortunately, American military leaders have placed so much emphasis on building a force reliant on these assets that it will take some time for security forces more organic to Afghanistan to emerge, and it is far from certain whether an effective force can form in the face of increased Taliban attacks.”
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“We must, at long last, acknowledge that building a national army requiring the kind of technological and logistical support to which western militaries are accustomed was not only a massive waste of American blood and treasure, but actually counterproductive to the fight. Jettisoning our delusional vision for the Afghan military will be painful in the short run, but necessary for Afghan stability in the long run. It is well-past time to shift our thinking from how many millions of dollars we need to keep airframes operational, to making sure that those assets that are actually sustainable and useful for Afghan forces are in place as foreign forces withdraw.”