Presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has accused President Donald Trump of ‘fighting war’ against Social Security with new executive actions on coronavirus relief, while House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi calls Trump’s steps ‘lean’.
The wave of criticism followed the four executive orders signed by Trump on Saturday, which, among other things, extended weekly unemployment benefits of $ 400 and stopped the tax cut.
Payroll taxes are being used to fund Medicare and Social Security, and Biden called the tax holiday “Donald Trump’s first shot in a new, reckless war on Social Security.”
“He sets out his roadmap for cutting Social Security,” Biden said in a statement. “Our seniors and millions of disabled Americans are under enough stress without questioning Trump’s hard-earned benefits of Social Security.”
Trump signs Friday executive orders for economic relief. Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi blow the measures as ineffective after Trump bypassed Congress
Pay taxes are being used to fund Medicare and Social Security, and Biden called the tax holiday ‘the first shot of Donald Trump in a new, reckless war on Social Security’
Biden said Trump had declared the payroll tax holiday, which extends from Sept. 1 to Dec. 31, “with no protection or guarantees” to make up for the lost revenue in the Social Fund.
He called Trump’s actions “a series of half-baked measures.”
Pelosi, meanwhile, published a joint statement with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, saying Trump’s movements were “unworkable, weak and narrow”.
“Today’s meager announcements from the president show that President Trump still does not understand the seriousness as the urgency of the health and economic crisis that working families have,” the statement said.
Democrats in Congress said Trump’s mandates would ‘give a little real help to families’.
Pelosi, meanwhile, published a joint statement with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, saying Trump’s movements were ‘unworkable, weak and narrow’.
Trump’s four executive mandates include:
- A payroll tax holiday through Dec. 31, for employees making less than $ 96,000
- Federal unemployment benefits of $ 400 per week retroactively through August 1st
- Deferment of payments for student loan and rejection of interest through 31 December
- A moratorium on evictions and prospects, for federal support mortgages
At his private club in Bedminster, New Jersey, Trump signed executive orders to act where Congress is not after negotiations broke down.
Not only has the pandemic undermined the economy and halted American life, it has implied the reelection of the president of November.
Perhaps most crucially, Trump moved to continue paying an additional federal unemployment benefit to millions of Americans during the outbreak.
However, his order demanded a maximum of $ 400 payments each week, one-third less than the $ 600 people received. How many people would get the benefit and how long it might take to come were open questions.
Congress had allowed the higher payments to disappear on August 1, and negotiations to extend them were pursued in partisan gridlock, with the White House and Democrats miles apart.
The executive orders could face legal challenges that require the president’s authority to issue taxpayer dollars without the express approval of Congress.
Trump had largely remained on the sidelines during the administration’s negotiations with congressional leaders, leaving the talks to his side to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
Trump, who has not spoken to Pelosi since last year, sought to play the role of election-year savior, with the support of $ 400 a week, as well as a proposal to pay taxes and student loan payments and continue a freeze on some exposures during the crisis.
“It’s $ 400 a week, and we do it without the Democrats,” Trump said, asking states to cover 25 percent of the cost. Trump seeks to set up $ 44 billion in previously approved disaster relief to help states maintain additional pandemic unemployment benefits, but Trump said it would be up to states to determine how much, if any, of that funding, so that the benefits can be smaller still.
Many states are already facing budget shortages due to the coronavirus pandemic and would find it difficult to adopt the new obligation. The previous benefit of unemployment was fully funded by Washington.
Democrats had said they would reduce their spending requirements from $ 3.4 trillion to $ 2 trillion, but said the White House needed its offer. Republicans had proposed a $ 1 trillion plan.
White House aides feared the talks would end, fearing that the failure of a deal could further damage an economic recovery that already showed signs of slowing down. Friday night’s report, although it beat expectations, was smaller than the past two months, in part because a resurgence of the virus caused states to reverse their reopening.
The president’s team believes the economy needs to stabilize and show signs of growth for him to have any chance of winning reelection. Aides hope to frame the executive orders as a sign that Trump is taking action in a time of crisis. But it would also reinforce the view that the president, who took office, declaring that he was a dealer, could not send the process to an agreement.
Trump said Saturday the orders “will take care of this whole situation almost as we know it.” But they are much smaller in scope than congressional legislation, and even assistants acknowledged that they did not meet all needs.
“This is not a perfect answer – we will be the first to say that,” Meadows said Friday as talks broke down and executive orders became clear. “It’s all we can do and all the president can do within the bounds of his executive power.”
Trump said the tax department’s employee share will be postponed from Aug. 1 through the end of the year. The move would not directly help unemployed workers, who do not pay taxes when they are unemployed, and employees would eventually have to repay the federal government without a Congress law.
In essence, the proposal is an interest-free loan that needs to be repaid. Trump said he would try to get lawmakers to expand it, and the timing would come in line with a session of lame duck after the election in which Congress will try to pass government finances to governments.
“If I win, I can expand and quit,” Trump said, reiterating a longer-term goal but remaining silent on how he would fund the benefits of Medicare and Social Security that would cover the 7% tax on workers’ incomes covers. Employers also pay 7.65% of their salaries into the funds.
Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Made a statement saying he supported Trump ‘exploring his options to get unemployment benefits and other relief for the people who need it most. ‘Like Trump, McConnell accused Democrats of using the coronavirus package negotiations to pursue other goals.
Democrats said they were not favorably impressed by Trump’s orders. In a joint statement, Pelosi and Schumer said that “these policy announcements provide some real help to families.” She added: ‘Democrats repeat our call for Republicans to return to the table, meet us halfway and work together to provide immediate relief to the American people. Lives are lost, and time is of the essence. ‘
Playing on Trump’s reputation as a dealer, Biden said: ‘This is not an art of the deal. This is not a presidency leadership. These orders are not real solutions. They are just another cynical ploy designed to evade responsibility. Some measures do much more harm than good. ‘
The Democratic chairman of the Tax Writing House Ways and Means Committee, rep. Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts, accused Trump of bravely embracing Congress to introduce tax policies that destabilize social security. ‘He also cited a threat to Medicare funding.
The use of executive action drew criticism from Republican sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska. “The pin-and-phone theory of executive legislation is unconstitutional,” said Sasse, a member of the House Judiciary and Finance Panels. He added that Trump ‘does not have the power to unilaterally rewrite the tax law. Under the Constitution, that power belongs to the American people who act through their members of Congress. ‘
With no deal on virus relief in sight, lawmakers went home instructing instructions to be ready to return for a vote on a deal. A stalemate that could stretch well into August and even September was possible, and doubted the ability of the Trump administration and Democrats to come together on a fifth COVID-19 response bill.
Often, an accident in Washington does not have many consequences for the public – but this would mean more difficulty for millions of people who lose improved unemployment benefits and cause even more damage to the economy.
Schumer said the White House had rejected an offer from Pelosi to limit Democratic demands by about $ 1 trillion. Schumer urges the White House to ‘negotiate with Democrats and meet us in the middle. Do not say it is your way or no way. ‘
The breakdown in negotiations over the last several days has been particularly dire for schools trying to reopen. But other priorities were also tedious, including a fresh round of $ 1,200 direct payments for most people, a cash infusion for the troubled Postal Service and money to help states hold elections in November.
First-Chamber Republicans were split, with roughly half of McConnell’s rank and file against another bailout.
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