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Volume 11, Issue 32
In This Issue:
August 12, 2020
* Page 2 * Page 4
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Trump Signs Executive Orders, cont. Helping Children Cope
Trump Signs Executive Orders To Extend COVID-19 Economic Relief, Includes Unemployment Benefits, Eviction Moratorium Kelly Anne SmithForbes Staff President Donald Trump has signed executive orders to extend economic relief after lawmakers were unable to reach an agreement on a new stimulus package. The orders include extending enhanced unemployment benefits and the federal eviction moratorium, imposing a payroll tax holiday and further suspending federal student loan payments. The orders come after the late-July expiration of federal unemployment benefits and a federal eviction moratorium. Trump first announced his plans to sign executive orders to provide further economic relief during the coronavirus at a Friday night press conference. Details on the Executive Orders Though Republicans and Democrats were able to make some progress in the past week regarding the components of a new stimulus package, they largely disagreed how much the next round of relief should cost. The White House rejected a $2 trillion proposal from Democratic leaders on Thursday. “[House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi and [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer have chosen to hold this vital assistance hostage,” Trump said during a briefing in Bedminster, New Jersey on Saturday afternoon. Friday’s jobs report showed the unemployment rate at 10.2%. Here are the four economic relief actions Trump signed this afternoon: Extending Enhanced Unemployment Benefits Trump’s executive order extends enhanced unemployment benefits
through the end of the year at a rate of $400 per week. States will be responsible for 25% of the cost via existing funding, Trump said, which will reduce the federal government’s obligation to $300 per week per recipient. The CARES Act expanded unemployment benefits dramatically and provided an additional federal payment boosting state benefits. That boost, called Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC), gave unemployed Americans an additional $600 per week, on top of their regular state unemployment benefits. FPUC expired at the end of July. Expanding FPUC became a point of political contention as lawmakers negotiated the next stimulus package. The HEROES Act, proposed by House Democrats in May and used as their focal point during negotiations, would extend FPUC at $600 per week through the end of this year. GOP members largely pushed back on the proposal, arguing that the benefit would be a “disincentive” to return to work for those who made more money on unemployment than they did while working. Instead, Republicans pushed for $400 for 20 weeks or 70% replacement of previous wages with a $600 cap. “I’ve heard grave concerns from states about this proposal and they are simply going to opt out,” said Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-OR) in an emailed statement Saturday evening. “Their budgets have been crushed. They cannot afford a 25% match, especially when unemployment trust funds are under tremendous strain and Republicans oppose funding for state and local governments.” Payroll Tax Holiday A payroll tax holiday will start Sept. 1 and go through until the end of the year. Trump said the holiday may be retroactive to Aug. 1. Workers earning less than $100,000 per year will be eligible for the payroll tax holiday, Trump said. Employers will be permitted to stop withholding those taxes from eligible employee paychecks during this period. The payroll tax holiday reduces the amount taken out of workers’ paychecks to fund Social Security and Medicare, but the benefits of such a holiday or a payroll tax cut can be limited and depend on a worker’s income and employment status. Cutting taxes would require Congressional action, but Trump can use his emergency powers to delay collecting taxes—meaning they would theoretically have to be paid back later unless Congress agreed to waive repayment. Trump said if he is reelected in November, he may forgive the payroll tax deferment and establish a permanent payroll tax cut. Trump, who has long advocated for a tax cut to be included in the next stimulus package, was faced with opposition from both Democrats and Republicans. Democrats argued it would do nothing to help the millions of unemployed Americans, and Republicans described it as “problematic.” The White House eventually dropped its request for the payroll tax cut, but has now made an about-face. More than 16 million Americans are currently unemployed, according to the most recent jobs report, and 1.2 million Americans filed jobless claims last week, marking the 20th straight week that more than one million people have applied for aid. Cont. on Page 2,
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T H E T R I B U TA R Y
Trump Signs Executive Orders To Extend COVID-19 Economic Relief, Includes Unemployment Benefits, Eviction Moratorium Cont. from Page 1 A payroll tax holiday will have no effect on those individuals. Federal Eviction Moratorium The executive order extends a federal eviction moratorium that expired last week. Trump did not specify how long the moratorium would last, but said it will apply to renters and homeowners. The CARES Act prevented landlords or housing authorities from filing eviction actions, charging nonpayment fees or penalties or giving notice for tenants to vacate. Those orders only applied to federally subsidized and federally backed housing, and expired on July 24. An August report from a group of housing experts estimated that 30 to 40 million Americans could be at risk of eviction, stating the U.S. “may be facing the most severe housing crisis in its history.” Communities of color, which are disproportionately rent-burdened, would be the hardest hit by the eviction crisis. The experts called for “meaningful, swift and robust government intervention” to prevent long-term negative effects of the COVID-19 housing crisis. Federal Student Loan Payment Suspension Trump’s executive order suspends student loan payments through the end of the year and maintains the zero-percent interest period for federal student loans. He said he will likely extend that suspension into 2021. The CARES Act previously suspended some federal student loan payments, with zero interest, through September 30. Perkins Loans and Federal Family Education Loans not owned by the U.S. Department of Education, along with private student loans, were not included in the forbearance. Student loan borrowers working toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness under provisions in the CARES Act had the months of forbearance count toward forgiveness. Borrowers participating in student loan rehabilitation also had the suspended months count toward pulling their loans out of default. What About Stimulus Checks? The CARES Act provided Americans with one-time direct economic impact payments, also referred to as stimulus checks. These payments were as much as $1,200 per individual, or $2,400 for a couple filing jointly, and provided additional money for qualifying dependents under 17. As the pandemic has raged on and Americans continue to ride the economic downturn, another round of stimulus checks has been a source of heated debate in Washington. Both Democrats and Republicans agreed that the next stimulus package should include more direct payments to Americans, but couldn’t agree on how much those payments should be. Democrats are pushing for $1,200 per family member, up to $6,000 per household. Republicans proposed another round of stimulus payments in their HEALS Act that would follow the same provisions as the CARES Act, but would remove the age cap for qualifying dependents. Trump’s executive orders do not include provisions to provide another round of stimulus checks to Americans. As negotiations have reached a standstill in Washington, it’s unclear if another stimulus package will be passed and signed into law in the near future.
August 12, 2020
TRIVIA Which was heard first - the flute or the lute? THE LUTE What singing star said he loves moviemaker Steven Spielberg so much it almost makes him cry? MICHAEL JACKSON What’s the name Natty short for, in Disney’s The Journey of Natty Gann?> NATALIE What telecommunications pioneer invented the graphophone? ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL What two fictional characters are honored with statues in Hannibal, Missouri? HUCKLEBERRY FINN AND TOM SAWYER Wht British group’s first single was Election Day? DURAN DURAN’S What explorer married Felipa Moniz de Perestrello in Lisbon in 14778? CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS How many days slow does the Mad Hatter tell the White Rabbit his watch is running? TWO How many sets of underwear does a Space Shuttle astronaut get for a seven-day flight? SEVEN What are painted on National Tom Sawyer Day in Hannibal, Missourti? FENCES Which is closer to West Berlin - San Francisco or Shanghai? SHANGHAI What are Blaster,Cruzados and Textones? ROCK GROUPS Has there every been a political party called the Know-Nothing Party? YES What Alice in Wonderland character poses the riddle “Why is a raven like a writing desk?”? THE MAD HATTER What material does dry rot attack? WOOD What kind of flowers sing in the garden at Disneyland’s Alice in Wonderland attraction? ROSES
August 12, 2020
Also on This Day
ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY 2014 Actress Lauren Bacall, who shot to fame in her debut film, 1944’s “To Have and Have Not,” in which she appeared opposite Humphrey Bogart, with whom she would have a legendary romance, dies at her New York City home at age 89. SPORTS 1973 American golfer Jack Nicklaus wins the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) championship for his 14th major title, surpassing Bobby Jones’ record of 13 major championships. COLONIAL AMERICA 1676 In colonial New England, King Philip’s War effectively comes to an end when Philip, chief of the Wampanoag Indians, is assassinated by a Native American in the service of the English. NATURAL DISASTERS & ENVIRONMENT 1985 At 6:50 p.m. local time, a Japan Air Lines Boeing 747SR crashes into Mount Otsuka, 70 miles northwest of Tokyo. There were 524 people aboard, and all but four were dead by the time rescuers reached the remote crash site 12 hours later. ANCIENT EGYPT 30 B.C. Cleopatra, queen of Egypt and lover of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, takes her life following the defeat of her forces against Octavian, the future first emperor of Rome. 19TH CENTURY 1898 The brief and one-sided Spanish-American War comes to an end when Spain formally agrees to a peace protocol on U.S. terms: the cession of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Manila in the Philippines to the United States pending a final peace treaty. WORLD WAR II 1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill meet on board a ship at Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, to confer on issues ranging from support for Russia to threatening Japan to postwar peace.
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This Day in History - August 2, 1990 Skeleton of Tyrannosaurs Rex Discovered
On this day in 1990, fossil hunter Susan Hendrickson discovers three huge bones jutting out of a cliff near Faith, South Dakota. They turn out to be part of the largest-ever Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever discovered, a 65 million-year-old specimen dubbed Sue, after its discoverer. Amazingly, Sue’s skeleton was over 90 percent complete, and the bones were extremely well-preserved. Hendrickson’s employer, the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research, paid $5,000 to the land owner, Maurice Williams, for the right to excavate the dinosaur skeleton, which was cleaned and transported to the company headquarters in Hill City. The institute’s president, Peter Larson, announced plans to build a non-profit museum to display Sue along with other fossils of the Cretaceous period. In 1992, a long legal battle began over Sue. The U.S. Attorney’s Office claimed Sue’s bones had been seized from federal land and were therefore government property. It was eventually found that Williams, a part-Native American and member of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe, had traded his land to the tribe two decades earlier to avoid paying property taxes, and thus his sale of excavation rights to Black Hills had been invalid. In October 1997, Chicago’s Field Museum purchased Sue at public auction at Sotheby’s in New York City for $8.36 million, financed in part by the McDonald’s and Disney corporations. Sue’s skeleton went on display at the Field Museum in May 2000. The tremendous T.rex skeleton–13 feet high at the hips and 42 feet long from head to toe, with a 2,000-pound skull and 58 teeth–is displayed in a special exhibition space. Sue’s extraordinarily well-preserved bones have allowed scientists to determine many things about the life of T.rex. They have determined that the carnivorous dinosaur had an incredible sense of smell, as the olfactory bulbs were each bigger than the cerebrum, the thinking part of the brain. In addition, Sue was the first T.rex skeleton to be discovered with a wishbone, a crucial discovery that provided support for scientists’ theory that birds are a type of living dinosaur.
SUDOKU
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T H E T R I B U TA R Y
August 12, 2020
Helping Children Cope
Children and teens react, in part, on what they see from the adults around them. When parents and caregivers deal with the COVID-19 calmly and confidently, they can provide the best support for their children. Parents can be more reassuring to others around them, especially children, if they are better prepared. Watch for behavior changes in your child Not all children and teens respond to stress in the same way. Some common changes to watch for include: Excessive crying or irritation in younger children. Returning to behaviors they have outgrown (for example, toileting accidents or bedwetting). Excessive worry or sadness. Unhealthy eating or sleeping habits. Irritability and “acting out” behaviors in teens. Poor school performance or avoiding school. Difficulties with attention and concentration. Avoidance of activities enjoyed in the past. Unexplained headaches or body pain. Use of alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs. Ways to support your child Talk with your child about the COVID-19 outbreak. Answer questions and share facts about COVID-19 in a way that your child can understand. Reassure your child that they are safe. Let them know it is okay if they feel upset. Share with them how you deal with your own stress so that they can learn from you how to cope with stress. Limit your family’s exposure to news coverage of the event, including social media. Children may misinterpret what they hear and can be frightened about something they do not understand. Try to keep up with regular routines. If schools are closed, create a schedule for learning activities and relaxing or fun activities. Be a role model. Take breaks, get plenty of sleep, exercise, and eat well. Connect with your friends and family members. Spending time with your child in meaningful activities, reading together, exercising, playing board games. hand holding heart light icon Take care of your mental health You may experience increased stress during this pandemic. Fear and anxiety can be overwhelming and cause strong emotions. Get immediate help in a crisis Call 911 Disaster Distress Helplineexternal icon: 1-800-985-5990 (press 2 for Spanish), or text TalkWithUs for English or Hablanos for Spanish to 66746. Spanish speakers from Puerto Rico can text Hablanos to 1-787-339-2663. National Suicide Prevention Lifelineexternal icon: 1-800-273-TALK (8255) for English, 1-888628-9454 for Spanish, or Lifeline Crisis Chatexternal icon. National Domestic Violence Hotlineexternal icon: 1-800-799-7233 or text LOVEIS to 22522 National Child Abuse Hotlineexternal icon: 1-800-4AChild (1-800-422-4453) or text 1-800422-4453 National Sexual Assault Hotlineexternal icon: 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or Online Chatexternal icon The Eldercare Locatorexternal icon: 1-800-677-1116 TTY Instructionsexternal icon Veteran’s Crisis Lineexternal icon: 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or Crisis Chatexternal icon or text: 8388255 Find a health care provider or treatment for substance use disorder and mental health SAMHSA’s National Helplineexternal icon: 1-800-662-HELP (4357) and TTY 1-800-4874889 Treatment Services Locator Websiteexternal icon Interactive Map of Selected Federally Qualified Health Centersexternal icon