California’s Teachers Unions Are Still Fighting To Keep Children at Home

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A majority of California’s K-12 schools have been closed for in-person instruction for an entire year. During this time, the federal government has given California schools about $8 billion to retrofit buildings for better ventilation, to stock up on masks and sanitation gear, to create rapid COVID testing procedures, and to reconfigure classrooms to maintain more distance between students.

Even California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has overseen one of the strictest lockdowns in the nation, says it’s time for schools to re-open for in-person instruction—now.

“If everybody has to be vaccinated we might as well just tell people the truth,” Newsom said during an online symposium with school administrators. “There will be no in-person instruction in the state of California.”

The state government has also earmarked an additional $2 billion for school districts willing to re-open K-2 classrooms by the end of March. That’s still not enough to appease California teachers unions, many of which continue to oppose in-person instruction despite a growing scientific consensus that it can be done safely.  

“If you condition funding on the reopening of schools,” said United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) President Cecily Myart-Cruz on the union’s YouTube channel, “that money will only go to white and wealthier schools that do not have the transmission rates that low-income black and brown communities do.” UTLA didn’t respond to Reason‘s interview requests. 

California’s resistance to re-opening is part of a national movement, backed by organized labor, to keep American school children at home until all teachers, staff, and—in some people’s opinion—even students are offered the chance to be fully vaccinated. It’s a requirement that many scientists say is far too stringent. Continuing to keep schools closed, they argue, poses a bigger risk to children. 

“As difficult as it was to close school classrooms, reopening is even harder,” said Austin Beutner, Los Angeles’s top education official. We cannot, and will not, compromise on health and safety.” 

Beutner, who declined to be interviewed by Reason, has said that schools will not reopen until all of the district’s faculty and staff are offered vaccines, and even then the union doesn’t want to reopen until community spread is much lower.

Los Angeles County recently made all of its approximately 85,000 school district employees eligible for vaccination but, because of supply shortages, it isn’t clear whether the health department can reach that benchmark before the school year is over.

Anthony Fauci and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agree that 100 percent vaccination shouldn’t be a prerequisite for school reopening. 

“[It is] rather impractical to make that a sine qua non [without which, not] of opening the schools,” Fauci said in a February 17 White House briefing. 

Ernesto Falcon is the father of a 3- and a 5-year-old and a member of Open Schools California, a coalition of parents pushing for schools to reopen in person without delay. 

“The damage to the kids is enormous,” Falcon tells Reason. “They don’t, they don’t have a powerful political constituency, with millions of dollars at their hands in Sacramento. They have us, they have parents.”

The California Teachers Association, which didn’t respond to our interview request, has been running ads with a safety-first message.

“COVID’s still a threat,” one ad’s narrator says over images of headlines reporting hundreds of cases in California schools. “And on reopening schools, we know what happens when we don’t put safety first.”

Brown University economist Emily Oster believes that, for the most part, transmission is not occurring in schools. Oster created a national database that tracks the spread of the disease in schools. Its evidence suggests it is possible to operate your school safely even without a vaccine.

“There are many, many districts, including districts in dense urban areas, serving a lot of students of color that have been open since September, without teacher vaccinations, and have been operating safely,” Oster tells Reason. “To say that somehow it is only possible to operate schools safely once teachers have been vaccinated—I just don’t think the data supports that.”

The teachers union is misleading the public about what the evidence actually says. A headline that says “San Diego County had 283 school COVID-19 cases in two months” appears in its TV ad. The headline did appear in The San-Diego Union Tribune, but the end, which said “but data are limited,” was cut out. 

The cases referenced were merely “associated” with K-12 schools, and there is no evidence that they were contracted in classrooms. The article goes on to explain that although 237 students district-wide tested positive, that’s out of 500,000 students—a positivity rate of 0.05 percent. 

Another headline in the ad reports of an outbreak of COVID-19 at a high school, which forced hundreds of students into quarantine. The headline did appear in The Sacramento Bee, but the outbreak saw a total of 33 students test positive for COVID in a district of 11,500—a positivity rate of 0.2 percent. 

Another claim that union and school district representatives often make is that reopening schools without vaccines will place racial and ethnic minorities disproportionately at risk. Oster says that these are the very communities that are disproportionately harmed by school closures.

“Kids who live in richer districts are getting a much different schooling environment than many kids who live in worse off districts and COVID has only made that worse,” she says. “The differences in the quality of the remote education in the spring, the differences in the reopening rates in the fall, the differences in the quality of remote education in the fall, all of these things have contributed to highlight these very bad inequities.”

Falcon says he’s offended by talk of equity, given that students at most of California’s private schools have had in-person instruction for months. This includes the governor’s children.

“All the private schools are open in this area,” says Falcon. “All the public schools for the wealthy are open now, and it’s the middle class and poor that don’t have their constitutional right to free education.”

“I’m a first-generation American. My parents are immigrants. They grew up poor in South America,” Falcon says. “If it wasn’t for education and access to education for them, they would not be professionals and live the comfortable life [they live today].”

Falcon, a public advocacy attorney and a longtime proponent of public education, says he’s been shocked by the teachers unions’ efforts to obfuscate the evidence on school reopening.  

He was also outraged when board members at one Bay Area school district suggested that parents wanted in-person schooling so they wouldn’t have to watch after their own kids and could stay home smoking weed. The board members didn’t realize that the meeting had started broadcasting, and they ended up resigning. 

“I actually started my own union where I work, and so I know exactly what collective bargaining is for,” says Falcon. “To use that power to keep the schools closed longer than the health and science authorities say is safe and right is really an abuse of collective bargaining.”

Recent polls suggest that a majority of Americans favor fully vaccinating all teachers before reopening, but Oster predicts that public opinion will shift as more schools reopen and Americans see for themselves that it’s not particularly dangerous. 

“I think the thing we need to recognize is the first moments of going back are going to be the most nerve-racking,” says Oster. “Once people see that this is something we can do safely, they will be interested in opting in.”

Despite the $6.6 billion earmarked for reopening, many unions, including United Teachers Los Angeles, continue to oppose reopening until all teachers who want the vaccine have received it. But the state’s agreement doesn’t require local districts to negotiate with unions on reopening.

Falcon says that his faith in the public school system is shaken and that he is seriously considering sending his kids to private school. 

“The teachers unions are not understanding the extent they are losing more and more parents who are going to private school right now, who are not going to look back,” Falcon says. “And when different politicians will say, ‘Hey, we need to boost private schooling instead of public schooling,’ they’re going to have more people supporting that idea than less.”

Falcon says he wants to support public education, “but if my kid is going to be denied and screwed by the way the system works, what am I supposed to do?”

Produced by Zach Weissmueller. Graphics by Paul Detrick. 

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The ‘COVID Relief Bill’ Is Mostly a Expensive Bundle of Politically Motivated Giveaways

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As the Senate prepares to take a final vote on President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, it’s time to be honest about one thing.

This isn’t a COVID-19 relief bill. We should stop calling it that.

It’s true this bill is moving through Congress at the same time that COVID-19 relief is sweeping the country. With the number of new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths falling all across the country while vaccination totals soar, it feels like the end of the pandemic could be right around the corner. Biden said this week that vaccine supply will be sufficient to cover all adult Americans who want a shot by the end of May. Some states are lifting economic lockdowns and behavior restrictions. Sweet, sweet relief is coming.

But let’s be very clear about this: It is not coming from Congress.

No, the bill that the Senate is likely to pass this week is a larded-up bounty of mostly Democratic policy goals that will add $1.9 trillion to the federal budget deficit—yes, every last penny of this beast is being added to the national credit card.

Only about 5 percent of that total is funding public health efforts related to the pandemic, according to the nonpartisan number crunchers at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB). There are a few other things in the bill that could be counted as “relief,” like the $7 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and another $40 billion in emergency loans for restaurants, bars, music venues, airlines, and other industries. Those payments and programs aren’t all necessary but, as The Wall Street Journal notes, at least recipients will have to demonstrate economic losses to get the money.

Beyond that, however, this bill is a steaming pile of government handouts and special interest giveaways.

A sizable portion, about $500 billion, is a bailout of state and local governments that for the most part do not need one. While state tax revenues took a small hit from the pandemic and associated economic lockdowns, the damage is far smaller than was once feared. States should handle their own finances.

But it’s not just a bailout; it’s a bailout in which the funding is allocated based on the size of each state’s unemployed population. In other words, states that imposed draconian and unnecessary economic lockdowns during the past year are going to get a larger share of the federal cash than states that managed to balance public health needs and the economy—an arrangement that New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu rightly calls “outrageous.”

Another $400 billion of the bill’s spending would provide an additional round of stimulus checks to Americans who haven’t lost their jobs or income due to the pandemic. The version of Biden’s bill passed last month by the House would fund $1,400 in direct payments to individuals who earned up to $100,000 last year and couples who earned up to $200,000—though there is now a push to modestly reduce the phaseouts to $80,000 and $160,000, respectively.

Those limitations will save about $50 billion, but they hardly go far enough. There is no reason for Congress to be sending checks to families that earn six-figure incomes and have experienced minimal financial losses due to the pandemic. If putting more money in Americans’ pockets is a priority for Congress, it should accomplish that goal by reducing income taxes (and cutting an equal amount of future spending) on a permanent basis, not by engaging in deficit-hiking games merely because “free” money from the government is politically popular.

The bill spends $129 billion on K-12 education—money that you might assume is being used to reopen schools quickly and safely. Wrong. A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of the bill found that “the bulk” of those dollars wouldn’t be spent until “after 2021.” Some of it won’t be distributed until 2024.

That same CBO report also estimates that a total of $480 million in the bill will be spent on “miscellaneous” educational matters like “grants to fund activities related to the arts, humanities, libraries, and museums, and Native American language preservation and maintenance.” Even if those are items that might be worth spending federal tax dollars to support, it’s difficult to understand how they are “COVID-19 relief” by any meaningful definition of the terms.

The same is true for the bill’s funding of a new subway in San Jose, California, and the new bridge connecting New York state to Canada—top priorities of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D–Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.), naturally, but not anything that belongs in a pandemic relief bill.

Like the education component, the bill’s extension of boosted unemployment benefits through the end of August might seem like something directly related to the pandemic. But those federal payments would increase from $300 per week to $400 per week—that’s on top of whatever unemployed workers are getting from state-run programs—at a time when the unemployment rate is falling.

“This makes little sense,” according to an analysis from the CRFB, because it means “two-thirds of beneficiaries would collect more in benefits than they would collect in paychecks” and it is likely to slow the economic recovery, not stimulate it.

Speaking of being paid not to work, the bill also includes a $14 billion provision creating a new paid family leave program—one that applies only to employees of the federal government. As Reason‘s Billy Binion noted earlier today, the program allows federal workers to collect benefits if they have children attending schools that are closed due to COVID-19. In other words, federal employees get paid to stay home with their kids, while everyone else tries to juggle a full-time job and being a substitute teacher.

Note that this special giveaway to federal employees is being funded with twice as much money as the PPP, which is ostensibly meant to provide the same sort of ongoing financial support for private-sector employees who can’t work due to the pandemic. That really says something about congressional priorities.

The bill spends another $86 billion to bail out multi-employer pension funds, which are retirement accounts operated by private sector unions on behalf of their members. Many of these retirement accounts are deep in the red—but even if there is a good reason for federal taxpayers to pick up the tab, what does this have to do with the pandemic?

For now, the bill also contains an increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. That would be a job-killing policy that can’t be accurately described as “COVID-19 relief” or “stimulus”—and thankfully it appears likely to be stripped from the bill.

Maybe the most telling example of how far removed from “COVID-19 relief” this thing has strayed is Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D–N.H.) suggesting that the bill’s bonus unemployment benefits—which are paid to people who have lost their jobs due to the pandemic to which the bill is ostensibly providing relief—could be curtailed so more money can be spent on rural broadband subsidies. In other words, Shaheen thinks Congress should provide less money to unemployed Americans now so that those dollars can be dumped into a federal boondoggle in the hopes of bringing slightly faster internet service to rural New Hampshire in a few years.

I could go on, but you probably get the point. Calling this a “COVID-19 relief bill” is ridiculous.

About the only COVID-19 relief that most Americans need right now comes in a syringe. Once we hit a critical mass of immunity from vaccinations, and state and local governments lift economic lockdowns, the stimulus will happen without any help from Congress. In the meantime, lawmakers should work to provide aid to businesses and individuals facing ongoing economic hardship, and that’s all.

Using the waning pandemic as an excuse for a spending free-for-all when the country is $28 trillion in debt is beyond irresponsible. And trying to pass off this bloated list of politically motivated handouts as essential to America’s public health is dishonest and cowardly.

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The ‘COVID Relief Bill’ Is Mostly a Expensive Bundle of Politically Motivated Giveaways

thumb

As the Senate prepares to take a final vote on President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, it’s time to be honest about one thing.

This isn’t a COVID-19 relief bill. We should stop calling it that.

It’s true this bill is moving through Congress at the same time that COVID-19 relief is sweeping the country. With the number of new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths falling all across the country while vaccination totals soar, it feels like the end of the pandemic could be right around the corner. Biden said this week that vaccine supply will be sufficient to cover all adult Americans who want a shot by the end of May. Some states are lifting economic lockdowns and behavior restrictions. Sweet, sweet relief is coming.

But let’s be very clear about this: It is not coming from Congress.

No, the bill that the Senate is likely to pass this week is a larded-up bounty of mostly Democratic policy goals that will add $1.9 trillion to the federal budget deficit—yes, every last penny of this beast is being added to the national credit card.

Only about 5 percent of that total is funding public health efforts related to the pandemic, according to the nonpartisan number crunchers at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB). There are a few other things in the bill that could be counted as “relief,” like the $7 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and another $40 billion in emergency loans for restaurants, bars, music venues, airlines, and other industries. Those payments and programs aren’t all necessary but, as The Wall Street Journal notes, at least recipients will have to demonstrate economic losses to get the money.

Beyond that, however, this bill is a steaming pile of government handouts and special interest giveaways.

A sizable portion, about $500 billion, is a bailout of state and local governments that for the most part do not need one. While state tax revenues took a small hit from the pandemic and associated economic lockdowns, the damage is far smaller than was once feared. States should handle their own finances.

But it’s not just a bailout; it’s a bailout in which the funding is allocated based on the size of each state’s unemployed population. In other words, states that imposed draconian and unnecessary economic lockdowns during the past year are going to get a larger share of the federal cash than states that managed to balance public health needs and the economy—an arrangement that New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu rightly calls “outrageous.”

Another $400 billion of the bill’s spending would provide an additional round of stimulus checks to Americans who haven’t lost their jobs or income due to the pandemic. The version of Biden’s bill passed last month by the House would fund $1,400 in direct payments to individuals who earned up to $100,000 last year and couples who earned up to $200,000—though there is now a push to modestly reduce the phaseouts to $80,000 and $160,000, respectively.

Those limitations will save about $50 billion, but they hardly go far enough. There is no reason for Congress to be sending checks to families that earn six-figure incomes and have experienced minimal financial losses due to the pandemic. If putting more money in Americans’ pockets is a priority for Congress, it should accomplish that goal by reducing income taxes (and cutting an equal amount of future spending) on a permanent basis, not by engaging in deficit-hiking games merely because “free” money from the government is politically popular.

The bill spends $129 billion on K-12 education—money that you might assume is being used to reopen schools quickly and safely. Wrong. A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of the bill found that “the bulk” of those dollars wouldn’t be spent until “after 2021.” Some of it won’t be distributed until 2024.

That same CBO report also estimates that a total of $480 million in the bill will be spent on “miscellaneous” educational matters like “grants to fund activities related to the arts, humanities, libraries, and museums, and Native American language preservation and maintenance.” Even if those are items that might be worth spending federal tax dollars to support, it’s difficult to understand how they are “COVID-19 relief” by any meaningful definition of the terms.

The same is true for the bill’s funding of a new subway in San Jose, California, and the new bridge connecting New York state to Canada—top priorities of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D–Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.), naturally, but not anything that belongs in a pandemic relief bill.

Like the education component, the bill’s extension of boosted unemployment benefits through the end of August might seem like something directly related to the pandemic. But those federal payments would increase from $300 per week to $400 per week—that’s on top of whatever unemployed workers are getting from state-run programs—at a time when the unemployment rate is falling.

“This makes little sense,” according to an analysis from the CRFB, because it means “two-thirds of beneficiaries would collect more in benefits than they would collect in paychecks” and it is likely to slow the economic recovery, not stimulate it.

Speaking of being paid not to work, the bill also includes a $14 billion provision creating a new paid family leave program—one that applies only to employees of the federal government. As Reason‘s Billy Binion noted earlier today, the program allows federal workers to collect benefits if they have children attending schools that are closed due to COVID-19. In other words, federal employees get paid to stay home with their kids, while everyone else tries to juggle a full-time job and being a substitute teacher.

Note that this special giveaway to federal employees is being funded with twice as much money as the PPP, which is ostensibly meant to provide the same sort of ongoing financial support for private-sector employees who can’t work due to the pandemic. That really says something about congressional priorities.

The bill spends another $86 billion to bail out multi-employer pension funds, which are retirement accounts operated by private sector unions on behalf of their members. Many of these retirement accounts are deep in the red—but even if there is a good reason for federal taxpayers to pick up the tab, what does this have to do with the pandemic?

For now, the bill also contains an increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. That would be a job-killing policy that can’t be accurately described as “COVID-19 relief” or “stimulus”—and thankfully it appears likely to be stripped from the bill.

Maybe the most telling example of how far removed from “COVID-19 relief” this thing has strayed is Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D–N.H.) suggesting that the bill’s bonus unemployment benefits—which are paid to people who have lost their jobs due to the pandemic to which the bill is ostensibly providing relief—could be curtailed so more money can be spent on rural broadband subsidies. In other words, Shaheen thinks Congress should provide less money to unemployed Americans now so that those dollars can be dumped into a federal boondoggle in the hopes of bringing slightly faster internet service to rural New Hampshire in a few years.

I could go on, but you probably get the point. Calling this a “COVID-19 relief bill” is ridiculous.

About the only COVID-19 relief that most Americans need right now comes in a syringe. Once we hit a critical mass of immunity from vaccinations, and state and local governments lift economic lockdowns, the stimulus will happen without any help from Congress. In the meantime, lawmakers should work to provide aid to businesses and individuals facing ongoing economic hardship, and that’s all.

Using the waning pandemic as an excuse for a spending free-for-all when the country is $28 trillion in debt is beyond irresponsible. And trying to pass off this bloated list of politically motivated handouts as essential to America’s public health is dishonest and cowardly.

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Government, Not Big Tech, Is the Biggest Threat to Free Speech

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Recent legislative efforts should serve as a reminder that the most dangerous threat to Americans’ free speech isn’t tech executives in California––it’s the people we elect and send to Washington.

The most recent threat to free speech to emerge from Congress is H.R. 1, a colossal 900-page bill. It passed in a 220-210 vote on Wednesday, with one Democrat joining all Republicans to vote against. The legislation tackles a host of questions involving campaign finance, political speech, and online speech, and its effects would all but silence citizens’ abilities to speak about and criticize politicians and their policies. In fact, the 40 pages of the bill borrowed from the “Honest Ads Act” would censor more online political speech than anything those working in Big Tech have dreamed up.

Among the host of new requirements contained in the legislation is government-compelled speech on paid political content or content created by paid employees. Essentially, traditional online ads, or even memes, would require lengthy text disclosing what organization created the ad. These disclosures would have to include the sponsor’s name and give a means for the viewer to find the sponsor’s street address, telephone number, and website URL, and say that the ad is not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

Imagine seeing a policy-related meme with a large government-mandated disclaimer slapped on it, wrecking your view.

These requirements would not just apply to graphic formats but to audio and video content as well. For example, H.R. 1 applies the government-mandated disclaimer for radio ads to online audio ads, such as podcast ads or free music streaming apps. These disclaimers often last from 10–15 seconds, and H.R. 1 makes the disclaimers even longer. For context, many online ads on services like Spotify or YouTube usually last only 10–15 seconds. The results would either be longer online ads filled with government speech that consumers would skip through or political advertisers foregoing speech through digital video ads altogether.

As burdensome as these requirements are for those wanting to broadcast a message, those hosting the message might face even more daunting requirements.

The legislation would require a “public file,” which is a database of all ads costing over $500 that are run by a particular digital ad provider. While such systems have been implemented privately by Google and Facebook, companies with fewer resources would be unable to create systems that comply with the law. Look no further than when state versions of the bill were passed and digital advertisers like newspapers attempted to meet the onerous requirements.

When Maryland passed a state version of the “Honest Ads Act,” newspapers filed a lawsuit explaining that these requirements were not only impossible to comply with, but were unconstitutional as well. The courts agreed. 

Sometimes, even big companies struggle to comply. Washington state’s own version of the act was so onerous that Google stopped running political ads within the state altogether. Even after creating an online ad database, the company was sued by the Washington attorney general for noncompliance. While Congress continues to rail against the power of Big Tech, these rules would be impractical for any small companies to comply with, leaving potentially only the largest and most profitable companies to run political ads.

Beyond the technical obligations and constitutional issues, the requirement that citizens hand over a large amount of personal information in order to speak their politics could have a chilling effect on free speech. Requiring this information impedes the ability of an individual or group to speak anonymously, an important value both in our nation’s history and in virtual channels. The reporting requirement is also a barrier to entry for those wanting to spend a tiny amount on advertisements. As any group dealing with the Facebook process can attest, making it through the labyrinth of verification of personal information, disclaimer review, and ad review often can prevent a small group from speaking. Imagine if an ad on any platform had to meet similar requirements. Small groups without paid professionals may be completely discouraged from tackling the process.

The Honest Ads Act provisions of H.R. 1 would, by themselves, be a major blow to free speech, and that’s without taking into account roughly 850 pages’ worth of other bad ideas.

But of course, silencing speech is the point of the bill. During a hearing of the DISCLOSE Act, part of the larger, 900-page H.R. 1 bill, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.) said, “Let me tell you, I think it’s a good thing when somebody is trying to influence government for their purposes, directly with ads and everything else, it’s good to have a deterrent effect.”

One of the most effective ways to speak about policies or politics is online. For just a few dollars, you can use any number of tools to put your speech in front of people likely to engage with or be interested in the issues you care about. With a persuasive enough message, you can recruit other people to join you in criticizing an elected official, shining a light on politicians’ shortcomings.

This, of course, is unpopular with the Washington political class. They enjoy holding the reins of political discourse, so attention is focused on the issues and topics they care about. Rules on speech are designed to protect insiders and disadvantage outsiders. The internet is the ultimate tool for outsiders and, thus, must be curtailed.

Many decisions made by large tech companies have raised questions about their commitment to free speech and free expression on their platforms. But at least with a market in social media, consumers can vote with their feet and choose platforms that respect their speech. A government-mandated speech policy creates a monopoly on censorship. 

The bill faces a Senate hearing on March 24. As lawmakers debate its merits, they would do well to remember that the First Amendment reads, “Congress shall make no law.”

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Government, Not Big Tech, Is the Biggest Threat to Free Speech

rollcallpix091564

Recent legislative efforts should serve as a reminder that the most dangerous threat to Americans’ free speech isn’t tech executives in California––it’s the people we elect and send to Washington.

The most recent threat to free speech to emerge from Congress is H.R. 1, a colossal 900-page bill. It passed in a 220-210 vote on Wednesday, with one Democrat joining all Republicans to vote against. The legislation tackles a host of questions involving campaign finance, political speech, and online speech, and its effects would all but silence citizens’ abilities to speak about and criticize politicians and their policies. In fact, the 40 pages of the bill borrowed from the “Honest Ads Act” would censor more online political speech than anything those working in Big Tech have dreamed up.

Among the host of new requirements contained in the legislation is government-compelled speech on paid political content or content created by paid employees. Essentially, traditional online ads, or even memes, would require lengthy text disclosing what organization created the ad. These disclosures would have to include the sponsor’s name and give a means for the viewer to find the sponsor’s street address, telephone number, and website URL, and say that the ad is not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

Imagine seeing a policy-related meme with a large government-mandated disclaimer slapped on it, wrecking your view.

These requirements would not just apply to graphic formats but to audio and video content as well. For example, H.R. 1 applies the government-mandated disclaimer for radio ads to online audio ads, such as podcast ads or free music streaming apps. These disclaimers often last from 10–15 seconds, and H.R. 1 makes the disclaimers even longer. For context, many online ads on services like Spotify or YouTube usually last only 10–15 seconds. The results would either be longer online ads filled with government speech that consumers would skip through or political advertisers foregoing speech through digital video ads altogether.

As burdensome as these requirements are for those wanting to broadcast a message, those hosting the message might face even more daunting requirements.

The legislation would require a “public file,” which is a database of all ads costing over $500 that are run by a particular digital ad provider. While such systems have been implemented privately by Google and Facebook, companies with fewer resources would be unable to create systems that comply with the law. Look no further than when state versions of the bill were passed and digital advertisers like newspapers attempted to meet the onerous requirements.

When Maryland passed a state version of the “Honest Ads Act,” newspapers filed a lawsuit explaining that these requirements were not only impossible to comply with, but were unconstitutional as well. The courts agreed. 

Sometimes, even big companies struggle to comply. Washington state’s own version of the act was so onerous that Google stopped running political ads within the state altogether. Even after creating an online ad database, the company was sued by the Washington attorney general for noncompliance. While Congress continues to rail against the power of Big Tech, these rules would be impractical for any small companies to comply with, leaving potentially only the largest and most profitable companies to run political ads.

Beyond the technical obligations and constitutional issues, the requirement that citizens hand over a large amount of personal information in order to speak their politics could have a chilling effect on free speech. Requiring this information impedes the ability of an individual or group to speak anonymously, an important value both in our nation’s history and in virtual channels. The reporting requirement is also a barrier to entry for those wanting to spend a tiny amount on advertisements. As any group dealing with the Facebook process can attest, making it through the labyrinth of verification of personal information, disclaimer review, and ad review often can prevent a small group from speaking. Imagine if an ad on any platform had to meet similar requirements. Small groups without paid professionals may be completely discouraged from tackling the process.

The Honest Ads Act provisions of H.R. 1 would, by themselves, be a major blow to free speech, and that’s without taking into account roughly 850 pages’ worth of other bad ideas.

But of course, silencing speech is the point of the bill. During a hearing of the DISCLOSE Act, part of the larger, 900-page H.R. 1 bill, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.) said, “Let me tell you, I think it’s a good thing when somebody is trying to influence government for their purposes, directly with ads and everything else, it’s good to have a deterrent effect.”

One of the most effective ways to speak about policies or politics is online. For just a few dollars, you can use any number of tools to put your speech in front of people likely to engage with or be interested in the issues you care about. With a persuasive enough message, you can recruit other people to join you in criticizing an elected official, shining a light on politicians’ shortcomings.

This, of course, is unpopular with the Washington political class. They enjoy holding the reins of political discourse, so attention is focused on the issues and topics they care about. Rules on speech are designed to protect insiders and disadvantage outsiders. The internet is the ultimate tool for outsiders and, thus, must be curtailed.

Many decisions made by large tech companies have raised questions about their commitment to free speech and free expression on their platforms. But at least with a market in social media, consumers can vote with their feet and choose platforms that respect their speech. A government-mandated speech policy creates a monopoly on censorship. 

The bill faces a Senate hearing on March 24. As lawmakers debate its merits, they would do well to remember that the First Amendment reads, “Congress shall make no law.”

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Remove the Fences Surrounding the Capitol and Send the National Guard Home Now

upiphotostwo787794

Congress canceled Thursday’s legislative session and sent lawmakers home due to an alleged threat against the Capitol from right-wing agitators. Now the Capitol Police want the National Guard to continue providing security for another two months.

Frankly, this is absurd. While some desperate remnants of QAnon will probably continue chatting online about restoring former President Donald Trump to his throne, the likelihood of another attack is virtually nonexistent. Even the intelligence sources who noted the possibility of the attack did not think it would actually happen, and described the chatter as more “aspirational” than operational. It’s a big country, and there will often be some crazy person somewhere making idle threats online; the business of Congress should not come to a screeching halt every time this happens.

While the National Guard’s presence in Washington, D.C., was unfortunately justified in the immediate aftermath of the January 6 riots, it is long past time to send the troops home. They should take their barricades with them, too: Barbed wire fences surround not just the Capitol building but several city blocks in the Capitol Hill area. They are both an appalling symbol of authoritarianism—the Capitol is supposed to the people’s house, but right now the people can’t get anywhere near it—as well as a massive inconvenience for those who live nearby.

I am one such resident. In the days following the Capitol riot, armed guards shut down the street in front of my apartment building and patrolled the sidewalk in front of it. Many small businesses, already reeling from pandemic-related lockdowns, were forced to close their doors and board up their windows in case the rioters returned for President Joe Biden’s inauguration. Most of those businesses are open once again, but the military occupation—including the long stretches of barbed wire fencing—have remained in place for weeks.

I witnessed the horrifying attack on the Capitol, and thus I understand why the National Guard was summoned in response to inadequate security measures. But the threat is clearly over. What happened on January 6 was a black swan event: It was difficult to predict and prepare for, because the reality of a sitting president calling on supporters to march to the Capitol and prevent the vice president from certifying the results of an election was completely without precedent. But that was what happened: Trump lied to his followers about the results of the election, encouraged them to take bold and strong action, and then they stormed the building.

But it’s precisely because Trump’s reckless comments were inextricably linked with what transpired that it’s not likely to happen again: Trump is no longer in D.C., stoking the fury of a right-wing mob.

It is sadly common for the U.S. government to make permanent various ill-advised safety requirements following an unanticipated calamity. Two decades after 9/11, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is still patting down airline passengers and making them remove their belts and shoes, even though there’s no evidence whatsoever that these costly inconveniences make air travel safer. (To take just one example, undercover agents were able to successfully smuggle weapons past the TSA some 95 percent of the time.)

The military occupation of Washington, D.C., must not become another permanent national security fixture. The Capitol building is one of the most enduring symbols of U.S. freedom and democracy—of the idea that the American people are ultimately in charge of their own government. To encircle it forever with the sort of defenses befitting a maximum-security prison would be psychologically scarring, as well as ridiculously expensive and unnecessary.

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Remove the Fences Surrounding the Capitol and Send the National Guard Home Now

upiphotostwo787794

Congress canceled Thursday’s legislative session and sent lawmakers home due to an alleged threat against the Capitol from right-wing agitators. Now the Capitol Police want the National Guard to continue providing security for another two months.

Frankly, this is absurd. While some desperate remnants of QAnon will probably continue chatting online about restoring former President Donald Trump to his throne, the likelihood of another attack is virtually nonexistent. Even the intelligence sources who noted the possibility of the attack did not think it would actually happen, and described the chatter as more “aspirational” than operational. It’s a big country, and there will often be some crazy person somewhere making idle threats online; the business of Congress should not come to a screeching halt every time this happens.

While the National Guard’s presence in Washington, D.C., was unfortunately justified in the immediate aftermath of the January 6 riots, it is long past time to send the troops home. They should take their barricades with them, too: Barbed wire fences surround not just the Capitol building but several city blocks in the Capitol Hill area. They are both an appalling symbol of authoritarianism—the Capitol is supposed to the people’s house, but right now the people can’t get anywhere near it—as well as a massive inconvenience for those who live nearby.

I am one such resident. In the days following the Capitol riot, armed guards shut down the street in front of my apartment building and patrolled the sidewalk in front of it. Many small businesses, already reeling from pandemic-related lockdowns, were forced to close their doors and board up their windows in case the rioters returned for President Joe Biden’s inauguration. Most of those businesses are open once again, but the military occupation—including the long stretches of barbed wire fencing—have remained in place for weeks.

I witnessed the horrifying attack on the Capitol, and thus I understand why the National Guard was summoned in response to inadequate security measures. But the threat is clearly over. What happened on January 6 was a black swan event: It was difficult to predict and prepare for, because the reality of a sitting president calling on supporters to march to the Capitol and prevent the vice president from certifying the results of an election was completely without precedent. But that was what happened: Trump lied to his followers about the results of the election, encouraged them to take bold and strong action, and then they stormed the building.

But it’s precisely because Trump’s reckless comments were inextricably linked with what transpired that it’s not likely to happen again: Trump is no longer in D.C., stoking the fury of a right-wing mob.

It is sadly common for the U.S. government to make permanent various ill-advised safety requirements following an unanticipated calamity. Two decades after 9/11, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is still patting down airline passengers and making them remove their belts and shoes, even though there’s no evidence whatsoever that these costly inconveniences make air travel safer. (To take just one example, undercover agents were able to successfully smuggle weapons past the TSA some 95 percent of the time.)

The military occupation of Washington, D.C., must not become another permanent national security fixture. The Capitol building is one of the most enduring symbols of U.S. freedom and democracy—of the idea that the American people are ultimately in charge of their own government. To encircle it forever with the sort of defenses befitting a maximum-security prison would be psychologically scarring, as well as ridiculously expensive and unnecessary.

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In the Name of Pandemic Relief, Biden Would Expand Obamacare Subsidies to Households Making $350,000 a Year 

biden-obamacare-subsidies-polspphotos771447

It’s increasingly clear that President Joe Biden’s so-called coronavirus recovery plan is best understood not as a coronavirus relief bill, designed to solve the specific health and economic problems that have emerged as a result of the pandemic, but as a catchall boondoggle for longstanding Democratic policy priorities that have little if anything to do with COVID-19.

Case in point: The bill funds the most dramatic expansion of Obamacare since the health law’s inception, an expansion that would benefit the well off. And it sets the stage for another expansion down the road.

Biden’s plan would funnel an additional $34 billion into the law over the next two years, boosting spending on subsidies for private insurance by about 29 percent. The boosted spending would move about 1.7 million people onto subsidized coverage sold through the health law’s regulated marketplaces; about 1.3 million of them would be previously uninsured, according to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate. A substantial chunk of the effect, in other words, will be to move about four hundred thousand people who are already insured into subsidized coverage. That alone is a reason for skepticism.

Worse, much of the spending would go to relatively well-off, and even quite high-earning, households. The subsidy boost is intended to address the fact that Obamacare’s array of coverage requirements have helped make insurance plans sold through the law often run well into the four-figure-per-month range. In some parts of the country, Obamacare plans cost tens of thousands of dollars per year.

In many cases, coverage provided through the law is only affordable for those who receive subsidies.

The law already provides subsidies for households up to 400 percent of the poverty line, or about $106,000 a year for a family of four. But as the law currently stands, a household that makes just a little bit more than that threshold qualifies for no subsidies at all.

Obamacare, in other words, made insurance so expensive as to be unaffordable for many people, and then tried to solve that problem by subsidizing very expensive insurance. But some people still made a little bit too much to get subsidies. So now Biden’s recovery plan is trying to solve that problem too—which in practice means increasing subsidies for households earning six figures a year.

And Biden’s plan wouldn’t just expand subsidies to people who make a little bit more than the current cutoff.

In some cases, as Cato Institute health policy scholar Michael F. Cannon and former Trump administration economic policy official Brian Blase have both pointed out, the law would make subsidies available to households earning more than $350,000 a year.

All of this, of course, falls under the guise of pandemic relief. It’s no such thing. As Blase has written, the main effect would be to expand subsidies for the well-off.

Expanding Obamacare was a Democratic policy priority before there was a pandemic. And it will of course remain a priority after the pandemic is gone—specifically when next year’s midterm election comes around. Indeed, Biden’s plan is designed to tee up the next round of expansion.

The COVID-19 bill expands subsidies for two years to start with. But there’s little doubt that Democrats, who (not unreasonably) believe that running on Obamacare helped them win races during the 2018 midterm, will use the expiration of the subsidy expansion as an election-year talking point come 2022.

As NBC News reports, “The changes, which would be temporary, closely mirror Joe Biden’s health care agenda from the presidential campaign, and Democrats are expected to try to make them permanent down the line.”

And how will Republicans respond? One possibility is that many simply won’t.

Although Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.) has dismissed the subsidy boost as “a wildly expensive proposal largely unrelated to the problem,” NBC News notes that when House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R–Calif.) delivered a floor speech opposing Biden’s stimulus package, he never mentioned the Obamacare subsidies at all. 

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In the Name of Pandemic Relief, Biden Would Expand Obamacare Subsidies to Households Making $350,000 a Year 

biden-obamacare-subsidies-polspphotos771447

It’s increasingly clear that President Joe Biden’s so-called coronavirus recovery plan is best understood not as a coronavirus relief bill, designed to solve the specific health and economic problems that have emerged as a result of the pandemic, but as a catchall boondoggle for longstanding Democratic policy priorities that have little if anything to do with COVID-19.

Case in point: The bill funds the most dramatic expansion of Obamacare since the health law’s inception, an expansion that would benefit the well off. And it sets the stage for another expansion down the road.

Biden’s plan would funnel an additional $34 billion into the law over the next two years, boosting spending on subsidies for private insurance by about 29 percent. The boosted spending would move about 1.7 million people onto subsidized coverage sold through the health law’s regulated marketplaces; about 1.3 million of them would be previously uninsured, according to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate. A substantial chunk of the effect, in other words, will be to move about four hundred thousand people who are already insured into subsidized coverage. That alone is a reason for skepticism.

Worse, much of the spending would go to relatively well-off, and even quite high-earning, households. The subsidy boost is intended to address the fact that Obamacare’s array of coverage requirements have helped make insurance plans sold through the law often run well into the four-figure-per-month range. In some parts of the country, Obamacare plans cost tens of thousands of dollars per year.

In many cases, coverage provided through the law is only affordable for those who receive subsidies.

The law already provides subsidies for households up to 400 percent of the poverty line, or about $106,000 a year for a family of four. But as the law currently stands, a household that makes just a little bit more than that threshold qualifies for no subsidies at all.

Obamacare, in other words, made insurance so expensive as to be unaffordable for many people, and then tried to solve that problem by subsidizing very expensive insurance. But some people still made a little bit too much to get subsidies. So now Biden’s recovery plan is trying to solve that problem too—which in practice means increasing subsidies for households earning six figures a year.

And Biden’s plan wouldn’t just expand subsidies to people who make a little bit more than the current cutoff.

In some cases, as Cato Institute health policy scholar Michael F. Cannon and former Trump administration economic policy official Brian Blase have both pointed out, the law would make subsidies available to households earning more than $350,000 a year.

All of this, of course, falls under the guise of pandemic relief. It’s no such thing. As Blase has written, the main effect would be to expand subsidies for the well-off.

Expanding Obamacare was a Democratic policy priority before there was a pandemic. And it will of course remain a priority after the pandemic is gone—specifically when next year’s midterm election comes around. Indeed, Biden’s plan is designed to tee up the next round of expansion.

The COVID-19 bill expands subsidies for two years to start with. But there’s little doubt that Democrats, who (not unreasonably) believe that running on Obamacare helped them win races during the 2018 midterm, will use the expiration of the subsidy expansion as an election-year talking point come 2022.

As NBC News reports, “The changes, which would be temporary, closely mirror Joe Biden’s health care agenda from the presidential campaign, and Democrats are expected to try to make them permanent down the line.”

And how will Republicans respond? One possibility is that many simply won’t.

Although Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.) has dismissed the subsidy boost as “a wildly expensive proposal largely unrelated to the problem,” NBC News notes that when House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R–Calif.) delivered a floor speech opposing Biden’s stimulus package, he never mentioned the Obamacare subsidies at all. 

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Biden Wants to Give Federal Workers 15 Weeks of Paid Leave if Their Kids’ Schools Stay Closed

Biden stylized 2

There’s not a lot of bipartisanship these days, and legislative efforts around COVID-19 are no different. One exception: Over the last year, both major political parties have shown a like-minded affinity for sneaking policy prescriptions into pandemic relief packages that have little or nothing to do with the pandemic.

The most glaring example in President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 legislation is arguably the $15 federal minimum wage, which seems to have met its demise at the hands of the Senate parliamentarian. But there’s another subtle measure that has flown under the radar.

It shouldn’t. The bill gifts federal employees up to 15 weeks of paid leave if their lives have been impacted in various ways by COVID-19. 

Some of the hall passes laid out in the bill are relatively benign: For example, those “experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 and seeking a medical diagnosis” qualify. Yet that list gets longer and more convoluted. Most notably, it includes any federal worker with children in places where schools are closed—including in areas where there is a mix of virtual and in-person instruction.

That applies to those “caring for a son or daughter of such employee if the school or place of care of the son or daughter has been closed, if the school of such son or daughter requires or makes optional a virtual learning instruction model or requires or makes optional a hybrid of in-person and virtual learning instruction models, or the child care provider of such son or daughter is unavailable, due to COVID–19 precautions,” reads the bill. It also includes government employees who are “experiencing any other substantially similar condition,” though the legislation does not describe what exactly that entails.

Based on the data, the carveout would cover quite a few employees, including every federal worker in Washington, D.C., where residents are currently operating under a partial school closure order.

One problem bears addressing first. Millions of parents across the country are struggling with how to financially support their families while also assuming the role of teacher, test proctor, and Zoom technical support. The poor are bearing the brunt of that—those working low-wage jobs who cannot tune in virtually from their dining room tables. In most cases, it is not federal employees, who on average earn about $110,000 a year, in need of such aid.

Then there’s that glaring question: Just how relevant is this measure? On its face, it checks off the COVID-19 box. But it also comes with a dose of strategic politicking. Democrats have long fought for a paid sick leave program. As I reported almost exactly a year ago, the House’s first coronavirus relief bill included a permanent paid leave package, including for victims of stalking and domestic violence—a well-intentioned goal that was utterly divorced from anything to do with COVID-19. The new provision has been watered down, massaged, and married to the pandemic, but I’d venture to say that’s a means to an end, at least to an extent. 

That a 106 percent increase in the federal minimum wage was also marketed as direct COVID-19 relief is instructive. People hurt by the pandemic need higher wages, the thinking goes. That thinking fails to account for the millions of people projected to lose their jobs, should that policy take shape—a policy that would obviously long outlive the pandemic. There’s also the $350 billion that Biden wants to give to states hurt by pandemic woes, including those running a budget surplus. (To be clear, Republicans are not immune to this phenomenon, as evidenced by the billions of dollars allotted for new weapons in their summer relief bill. Let’s blow up the coronavirus!)

And, perhaps most importantly, there’s something distinctly cronyistic about the measure. There’s the obvious bit—they’re federal government employees receiving an exclusive handout from the federal government. But there’s also the notion that it might give Biden himself a handout. That wouldn’t come in the form of paid leave. Rather, it would come in time bought on addressing school closures, something he pinpointed as one of his foremost priorities upon taking office. 

“Biden ran on reopening most schools for in-person instruction within a hundred days—a promise his administration has both walked back and then kinda-sorta attempted to un-walk back,” writes Reason‘s Peter Suderman. “But reopening, he has insisted, is conditioned on schools obtaining sufficient funding in a relief package. Accordingly, his plan includes about $128 billion for K-12 schooling ‘or preparation for, prevention of, and response to the coronavirus pandemic or for other uses allowed by other federal education programs,’ as part of a $170 billion boost in education-related spending.”

Even more fraught is that schools already have $100 billion leftover from past COVID-19 aid legislation. They have to spend that money first, meaning that it will be years before they will see the bulk of the additional funding Biden is pushing for. Translation: Schools cannot open in the near future until they receive billions more that won’t be used…in the near future. In full-circle fashion, it appears to be another measure potentially meant to outlast the pandemic.

The paid leave program is not one of those policies. Federal employees who meet the eligibility requirements have until September 30, 2021, to take advantage—enough to get them through the end of the school year.

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