#GreenNewDeal + #BlackLivesMatter = #TheWayForward
Affirmative Action for Blacks, Latinx and Native Americans in a Green New Deal
by John Lawrence, June 29, 2020
Living with the COBID pandemic could be the new normal. Assurances of a vaccine by the end of the year might be meaningless. Here's why: for many viruses including HIV, Ebola, malaria and tuberculosis there are no vaccines available despite years of study and years of effort to develop one. It took 100 years from the first polio epidemic in the US until a vaccine wiped out polio. Just as the Trump administration misled the American people in minimizing the effects of COBID including that things would normalize after we "flattened the curve" and giving dates by which we could "open up", they misled us by raising expectations that a vaccine would be available by the end of the year. Read the book, "Spillover", if you want authoritative scientific information about viruses and how long vaccine development takes if ever.
So, if the pandemic is something we have to live with indefinitely which could well be the case, the economy, in the way it existed before the pandemic, would never be coming back. So how do we create a new economy which works for the American people which, arguably, it was not working before the pandemic despite quasi full employment. Number 1: we refund the CDC and WHO which are the major institutions dealing with viruses and pandemics. Trump tried to defund CDC, and he did defund WHO in the midst of the pandemic. Politifact reported: "As for funding, there’s no question that the Trump administration sought to cut key CDC budget categories. But thanks to Congress, that funding was restored and even increased in bills that Trump ultimately signed." He had better luck and actually did defund WHO.
The biggest thing that could be done to minimize the bad outcomes for this and future pandemics is to get rid of Donald Trump as President of the US. A Democratic President would refund the CDC and WHO. The second thing would be to take a page out of FDR's book by reinstituting the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) which financed the New Deal including many infrastructure projects. In fact the Federal Reserve could finance a #GreenNewDeal without even tweaking the law. With the Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) it is now resorting to, it is financing debt relief not only for banks but for hedge funds, private equity funds, bankrupt corporations and even rich individuals. It is taking trillions on its balance sheet with quantitative easing. The SPVs require deal making with the Treasury Department. It would be a very small step for the Fed using a SPV to fund a Green New Deal. The US is about $4 trillion in arrears on infrastructure rebuilding and development. Instead of just bailing out bankrupt institutions the Fed could take a more positive role and actually fund productive development. By the way the RFC actually made money on repayment of loans and user fees as opposed to the Fed which just swallows US debt.
If no vaccine is found for COBID in a timely manner, the whole economy should be restructured because many businesses are not coming back. Many including Herz, J. Crew, Neiman Marcus and Chesapeake Oil have already filed for bankruptcy. A Green New Deal could take up the slack reducing the GDP from 70% consumerism to 50% which would be in line with the EU consumption component of GDP while increasing government investment by 20%. That would represent a full employment economy but it would be reoriented from consumption to building green infrastructure.
Minority hiring for a Green New Deal could be along the lines of affirmative action with African Americans, Latinx and Native Americans being hired first. This would go a long way to reduce inequality in America while being a form of reparations in light of the fact that slave labor built much of this country and Jim Crow redlining was responsible for the fact that black families have not been able to accumulate wealth at the same rate as white families. #BlackLivesMatter plus a #GreenNewDeal could help to restore the balance while at the same time creating a full employment economy.
