We recently had the honor of testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee on the effects of inaction on coronavirus fiscal legislation. One of us was invited by the Republicans and the other by the Democrats. The basis of the hearing was the Heroes Act, a $3 trillion bill that passed the House in the spring on a party line vote with about $1 trillion in tax cuts and $2 trillion in new spending.
Evidence from the initial coronavirus outbreaks within the United States has shown that the fate of nursing home residents is tightly linked to the severity of the virus within the nursing home’s state. With a “second wave” of COVID-19 in many southern states and a host of policy changes, it is worth investigating whether the evidence suggests this vulnerable group is now better protected.
Lawmakers in both chambers of Congress have staked out positions on expanding the Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERTC), a refundable tax credit that provides temporary wage support to help employers retain or rehire workers.
Congress faces several critical choices before departing for their August recess. Should the $600-per-week additional unemployment insurance (UI) benefit (which has resulted in five of six workers earning more in unemployment benefits than wages) be extended, modified, or allowed to expire at the end of July?
As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept across our country and claimed more than 100,000 lives in a few short months, the opioid epidemic, which dates back to at least the early 2000s, has received less attention. But the toll of the opioid crisis in the United States remains enormous by any measure.
Nursing homes have borne the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic, but recently released data show that the severity of outbreaks in these facilities has varied substantially across the United States. Some have argued that policy decisions have driven the variation in outcomes observed in nursing homes, while a competing theory is that nursing home outbreaks largely mirror the surrounding area.
