Tuesday, June 9, 2020
Do you want to see how legislation that was supposed to be a bailout for our economy ended up committing almost as much taxpayer money to help a relative handful of the non-needy as it spent to help tens of millions of people in need? Then let’s step back and revisit parts of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act and look at some of the numbers involved.
The best-known feature of the CARES Act, as it’s known, is the cash grant of up to $1,200 per adult and $500 per child for households whose income was less than $99,000 for single taxpayers and $198,000 for couples. These grants are nontaxable, which makes them even more valuable. Some 159 million stimulus payments have gone out, according to the IRS.
The income limits suggested that the plan benefits the people most in need, those most likely to spend their stimulus payments and thus help the economy. The rhetoric conveyed the same: “The CARES Act Provides Assistance to Workers And Their Families” is how the Treasury’s website puts it. There were no grants to more-fortunate people, who for the most part aren’t in financial distress and are less likely than the less-fortunate to spend any money that Uncle Sam sent them.
A Senate investigation has found that the IRS has conducted little oversight of its partnership with the for-profit tax prep industry to offer free tax filing, and calls for the agency to increase funding to promote the free option.
“It shouldn’t be the case that Americans who are eligible to file their taxes for free end up paying substantial fees each year, but our bipartisan investigation makes clear that is what is happening,” said Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., who produced the memo with Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio.
The staff of the bipartisan Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations began a review of the IRS’ Free File program last year following ProPublica’s reporting that TurboTax-maker Intuit and other companies were hiding their free tax filing options from search engines such as Google. Under the Free File program, Intuit, H&R Block and other companies offer free tax prep options to Americans who make under an income threshold. In exchange, the IRS long promised not to create its own free tax filing option that would compete with the companies.
Many immigrants, however, have been excluded from benefits under the CARES Act – leaving local advocacy groups to step in to provide economic, medical and emotional support.
José Patiño, education and policy director for Mesa-based Aliento, said his staff foresaw the havoc the pandemic could unleash on immigrant families after workers started getting laid off or furloughed, especially from the construction and hospitality industries.
“We asked ourselves: What is a goal we can set for ourselves that is ambitious enough but also realistic?” Patiño said.
The organization, which helps the children of those living in the country illegally as well as mixed-status families whose members include citizens and noncitizens, established a relief fund to provide $500 checks to cover rent, utilities and health care, if needed, for families ineligible for federal aid.
About 200 families across the U.S. and Puerto Rico have been helped so far, and another 200 are on a waiting list for assistance.
According to the Pew Research Center, only 37% of American adults think immigrants in the country without legal permission should receive financial aid related to the pandemic, although nearly two-thirds of those surveyed believe the government has a responsibility to provide medical services to those immigrants if they are stricken with coronavirus.
At least three Arizona lawmakers are among more than 200 co-sponsors of the Justice in Policing Act of 2020, which comes after a week of nationwide protests sparked by the May 25 killing of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody.
Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Phoenix, said the bill is needed to transform the relationship between law enforcement and the public. He was joined on the bill Monday by fellow Democratic Reps. Raúl Grijalva of Tucson and Greg Stanton of Phoenix.
“The Justice in Policing Act makes long-overdue changes to our criminal justice system by mandating the use of proven de-escalation techniques, increasing transparency, and transforming the culture and mindset of policing in America,” Gallego said in a statement.
But Joe Clure, executive director of the Arizona Police Association, said the “very one-sided piece of legislation” was drafted without any input from law enforcement officials.
“I think it’s disappointing that you have people who are putting together ideas and work plans for law enforcement and absolutely no law enforcement was consulted,” Clure said. “It is unfortunate it didn’t have a little bit more discussion so that there might have been an opportunity to find common ground.”
Their four-year programs will focus on communities of color who have experienced a greater negative impact from the COVID-19 outbreak than others.
“Underlying economic and social disparities that exist have accelerated and intensified during the global pandemic,” said Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan in a press release. “The events of the past week have created a sense of true urgency that has arisen across our nation, particularly in view of the racial injustices we have seen in the communities where we work and live. We all need to do more.”
On May 25, a Black man named George Floyd was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis over suspicion of a forged check. The graphic video of his murder in broad daylight was circulated on social media, sparking outrage and protests across the world.
His case has not been made in good faith.
The Arizona-based political blog that I manage, BlogForArizona.net, has been following the COVID-19 crisis in Arizona closely. I have documented Ducey's deceptive manipulation of White House & CDC guidance to justify re-opening the state's businesses and places of public accommodation, and his misleading justification for staying the course, even as the epidemic becomes more and more obviously resurgent in Arizona.
In his May 20 presser, Ducey laid out his case for re-opening Arizona. He pointed to the White House's guidance "Opening Up America Again" and the implementation guidelines provided by the CDC, using them to argue that Arizona met the gating criteria for moving into Phase One of the White House plan.
The problem is that Arizona did not then, and does not now, meet these criteria.
Primarily, the White House/CDC plan requires that a state have a 14-day period of declining case numbers before entering Phase One. Arizona has never had a downward trajectory in case numbers over a 2-week period. In fact, data from the Arizona Department of Health Services clearly show that the number of known cases has either increased or briefly held steady (depending on the specific period) since the epidemic began. But Ducey has elected to ignore this fact in favor of a clever and misleading dodge based on the expansion of testing in Arizona from 10 thousand tests per week to about 40 thousand tests per week.
You see, the White House/CDC plan includes an alternative criterion for entry into Phase One; the plan also allows it if the state has a 14-day period in which the percentage of positive cases declines, but only if testing is "largely stable" and if good data for the number of actual cases are not available. Given its four-fold increase, testing in Arizona obviously has not been stable. Nonetheless, because the increased testing caused the percentage of positive cases to decrease, Ducey pointed to this decrease to justify re-opening, The alternative method was not intended to enable states to ignore an actual rise in their number of cases. Yet Ducey ignored the clear danger of re-opening when case numbers were not yet declining.
Ducey has misled Arizonans by claiming that this alternative method of proving a decline in cases was a better metric than the actual number of cases. Ducey has repeatedly argued that the rising trajectory in cases is somehow irrelevant to his decision to re-open and stay open. If he valued Arizona's health, the actual number of cases should have been his most important metric to decide whether to re-open the state, and whether to stay open. In response to political pressure from his base, he instead cherry-picked his metric, and then tweaked it, to justify re-opening in face of clear and compelling evidence that the epidemic had never declined in Arizona in the first place.
Pima County had 3,161 of the state's 28,296 confirmed cases.
A total of 1,070 people have died after contracting the virus, including 212 in Pima County, according to the report.
In Maricopa County, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases hit 14,374.
Because symptoms can take as long as two weeks to appear after exposure to the virus (while some people can remain entirely asymptomatic), health officials continue to urge the public to avoid unnecessary trips and gatherings of more than 10 people, especially if you have underlying health conditions, and have advised people to cover their faces with masks in public.
Following the end of Gov. Doug Ducey's stay-at-home order on May 15, Arizona hospitals are seeing a rise in the number of people hospitalized with COVID symptoms, as well as more people visiting emergency rooms. This morning's Arizona Department of Health Services report shows that as of yesterday, 1,243 Arizonans were hospitalized. There are 438 COVID patients in ICU units and 848 people arrived at emergency rooms with COVID-like symptoms on June 8, according to the report.
Banner Health's chief clinical officer Marjorie Bessel hosted a special briefing about the rapidly increasing numbers of COVID hospitalizations in Arizona on Friday, June 5.
Bessel warned that if current trends continue, Banner will soon need to exercise its surge plan to increase ICU capacity. Bessel highlighted a steep increase of COVID-19 patients on ventilators: On June 4, Banner’s Arizona hospitals had 116 COVID-19 patients on ventilators, up from roughly 15 a month prior.
When Ducey lifted Arizona's stay-at-home order on May 16, he noted that CDC gating criteria included two weeks of falling cases or a two weeks decreasing positive cases as a percentage of total tests. Total cases continue to rise, as does the number of positive cases as a percentage of total tests. On May 17, the percentage of positive tests to total tests was 6 percent; on May 24, it was 9 percent; on May 31, it was 12 percent, according to figure on the ADHS website.
At a June 4 press conference, Ducey said he and Department of Health Services Director Dr. Cara Christ anticipated the current increase in positive COVID-19 cases because testing has “dramatically increased” within the state. Christ downplayed the alarm about the recent increase in cases, which some have attributed to the end of the stay-at-home order on May 15, saying “as people come back together, we know there will be transmissions of COVID-19.”
Monday, June 8, 2020
Fire crews are currently battling two thousand-plus-acre fires north of Tucson: the Bighorn Fire in the Santa Catalina Mountains, and the Tortolita Fire in the Tortolita Mountains. Lightning storms caused both fires, which are being worsened by gusty weather and high temperatures.
The Bighorn Fire ignited on the evening of June 5, burning across the Pusch Ridge in clear view of Oro Valley. The fire grew from 200 acres on June 6 to more than 1,000 on June 7. The Arizona Emergency Information Network says the following trails may be impacted by the fire: Romero Canyon, Pusch Peak, Pima Canyon, Finger Rock and Ventana Canyon. Approximately 100 fire personnel and multiple helicopters are fighting the Bighorn Fire, which is currently 10 percent contained.
The Tortolita Fire also started on June 5, and quickly spread to an estimated 3,500 acres. 90 fire personnel and a dozen pieces of aircraft are fighting the Tortolita Fire. According to the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management, parts of Cochise Spring Road have been closed. The Tortolita Fire is two miles from the Cochise Spring-area, west of Tortolita and Christopher Ranch, east of Marana.
There are no evacuations at this time.
Fire crews remind the public that drones are prohibited over the fire area, as firefighting aircraft are busy and must be grounded in drones' presence. On June 5 a drone incursion resulted in "an investigation with the drone operator being issued a Violation Notice."
An online petition demanding the Tucson Police Department be disbanded and its funds reallocated toward housing, mental health services and other community resources has gained over 9,000 supporters during its first day. The petition is planned to be submitted to city officials in advance of the City Council budget hearing today at 4:30 p.m., and then again tomorrow at 11:30 a.m.
The petition demands that Mayor Regina Romero and Tucson's City Council members pledge to four actions: “1) Enact an immediate hiring freeze for Tucson Police Department. 2) Implement a permanent moratorium on increases to police funding. 3) Defund and disband TPD and reallocate funds toward housing, resources for houseless people, mental wellness, and other community resources. 4) Immediately create a process for the people of Tucson to have a greater decision making power in how funds are allocated from here forward, or in other words, significant community participation in the city’s budget.”
This comes only one day after the majority of the Minneapolis City Council pledged to disband their police department and "invest in community-led public safety." Minneapolis is only one of hundreds of cities throughout the nation currently under pressure from protesters calling for police abolition and civil rights for Black communities, Indigenous communities and communities of color.
DefundTPD argues that the already-existing reductions to the TPD budget by more than $15 million for fiscal year 2020/2021 "are not enough," and says Tucsonans deserve an “approach to public safety and the distribution of public funds that centers Tucsonans’ own voices, needs, desires for a thriving future.”
In light of recent events that have taken our nation and the world over, Ben's Bells would like to reiterate the message to be kind to one another by asking each and every one of us to Stand Up for Kindness:
At Ben’s Bells we stand for kindness. Kindness for everyone. We believe that Black lives matter and that each of us must actively oppose racism. Kindness is doing for the benefit of others. It is not the same as being nice. It is not condescending. It is about doing the hard work of ensuring an inclusive community for all, and that means opposing injustice and oppression. If you stand for kindness you must be anti-racist.
Below is a list of things that Ben's Bells believes you can do to help Stand Up for Kindness in our community.
