POLITICO NIGHTLY: What you need to know about variants

BY MICHAEL GRUNWALD

Presented by

With help from Renuka Rayasam and Tyler Weyant

WATCH — Health care reporter Sarah Owermohle breaks down the basics of the three main coronavirus variants : where they were originally discovered, how they differ and how they fare against vaccines. DEMOCRATS IN ARRAY — President Joe Biden’s nominee for budget director is in trouble. The $15 minimum wage in his Covid relief bill is in deep trouble. And Democratic-but-not-very-Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia has emerged as the most powerful force in a just-barely-Democratic Congress. On cue, Washington reporters are exploring the familiar terrain of Democrats in Disarray, with headlines like “Centrist Democrats Flex Muscles, Create Headaches for Biden,” and “Democrats Face Intraparty Fight on Minimum Wage.” By historic standards, though, Democrats are in array. The last time the party ran Washington, when President Barack Obama took office with huge congressional majorities in 2009, the internal dissent was much more strident and widespread. And it was very damaging to Democrats. So perhaps the party learned from its recent past. Yes, Neera Tanden’s nomination might be doomed by Manchin’s distaste for her feisty Twitter feed. So far, Biden’s other nominees have sailed through with full Democratic support, although Bernie Sanders voted against Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The pace of confirmations may have been slowed by impeachment, but three Obama nominees had withdrawn by this date in 2009 — and three Democrats had joined Sanders in opposing Timothy Geithner as secretary of the Treasury. The concerns that a few centrists have raised about Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus bill look even milder compared to the cacophony of Democratic squawking about Obama’s $800 billion stimulus bill. Yes, the opposition of Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona probably kills the $15 minimum wage in a 50-50 Senate. They and a few other moderates have also pushed to make sure Biden’s $1,400 checks don’t go to the wealthy. But otherwise, Democrats have been pretty unified in their support. By contrast, Democrats of all ideological stripes bashed the Obama stimulus as too big or too small, too focused or not focused enough on immediate relief, with too much or not enough tax cuts, infrastructure or housing. Former House Appropriations Chair David Obey denounced the bill’s education reforms as an “absolutely horrendous mistake.” Sen. Chuck Schumer, now the majority leader, mocked its pork. After liberal Rep. Peter DeFazio trashed the stimulus as a quasi-Republican bill, Obama called him out in a caucus meeting: “Don’t think we’re not keeping score, brother.” Now that’s disarray. “There were a lot more Democrats complaining then than there are now,” said James Manley, a former aide to then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. As Democrats discovered, disunity has consequences. A half-dozen moderate Democratic senators insisted on limiting Obama’s stimulus to $800 billion, a move that helped slow the subsequent economic recovery. Obama also had to make all kinds of concessions to keep Democrats on board; House Majority Whip James Clyburn, after publicly warning he didn’t want a second New Deal because the first was racist, quieted down after the White House included billions of dollars for a flawed broadband program. The political consequences were even worse. With Republicans unified against the Obama stimulus, Democratic quibbling led to blistering news coverage suggesting bipartisan agreement that the bill was a mess. The result was plummeting approval ratings not only for the stimulus, which became wildly unpopular, but for the first African American president, whose honeymoon was over by the spring. And many of the Democratic quibblers lost their jobs in the Republican landslide of 2010. Maybe Democrats have learned that slagging Democratic legislation under Democratic presidents is bad for the Democratic brand. It’s also possible that while Democrats felt free to wander off the reservation with big majorities, they see that today’s razor-thin margins increase the stakes of opposition. As Manley puts it, they’re now firing live bullets, and none of Biden’s critics to his left or right seem to want to drag down his presidency. In the Trump era, Republicans embraced the idea that their political fortunes would rise and fall with the president, and they almost never criticized him. They now look much more like the party in disarray, as they fight about whether they still need to bend the knee to Trump. Still, history suggests that Democrats are less inclined to play follow-the-leader and more resistant to message discipline. They are unlikely to stay in array for long. “Look, we don’t always smile and agree with each other,” Clyburn told me during the Obama stimulus fight. “We’re Democrats.” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news and tips at mgrunwald@politico.com and rrayasam@politico.com, or on Twitter at @mikegrunwald and @renurayasam.

A message from the National Hispanic Council on Aging (NHCOA): Our current rebate system is broken. Ensuring discounts are passed on to patients will lower out-of-pocket costs, improve adherence, and address health disparities. The National Hispanic Council on Aging is urging the Biden Administration to support patients and move forward with rebate reform. Learn more.

FIRST IN NIGHTLY

Buffalo Bills fans watch their team warm up before an NFL wild-card playoff football game against the Indianapolis Colts on Jan. 9, 2021, in Orchard Park, N.Y. | Adrian Kraus/AP Photo

FROM BILLS MAFIA TO BROADWAY — As Covid-19 raged across Buffalo and western New York last fall, Bills fans and team officials pressed for a way to bring live crowds back. They appealed their case directly to the state’s most powerful member of the “Bills Mafia,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo. “It’s something we’re looking at,” the governor hinted in late September. “I am 100 percent eager to get fans back to the games.” The governor’s public eagerness to return fans to Bills Stadium had a second motivation: He also wanted to plot a way to reopen other long-shuttered landmarks of the state’s cultural economy, including Broadway’s iconic theaters. In an open-air stadium, masking and social distancing could keep fans safe. But that wouldn’t be enough for indoor venues like concert halls and museums. The state needed another tool. Days after the Bills were crowned AFC East champions, state officials floated a ground-breaking plan: New York would allow 6,700 fans to attend the team’s Jan. 9 playoff game if they could first test negative for Covid-19 in addition to complying with other safety measures. The effort, touted as the only one of its kind in the NFL, allowed the state to test a hypothesis: Could Covid-19 testing, combined with other precautions, hold the key to the state’s pandemic recovery? Three days before the game, fans lucky enough to score a ticket began lining up their cars, from sunrise to well past sunset, to get swabbed for Covid-19 at one of 30 drive-through testing stations set up outside Bills Stadium — a process which took minutes, with results reported 24 hours later. On game day, masked fans had to show proof of their negative result, along with their mobile ticket, to enter the stadium through designated gates in assigned 10-minute increments to prevent crowding at the turnstiles. Thermal imaging cameras, meanwhile, scanned crowds at checkpoints to help identify fans who might have a fever. Once inside, fans, who were limited to either two- or four-seat pods, were further restricted to certain zones of the stadium and offered limited, cashless concession stand options through 10 p.m. in accordance with the state’s dining curfew. The strategy worked. About 1.5 percent of the fans tested positive before the game and were denied entry. In the weeks that followed, no outbreaks were tied to the games. Read the rest of Shannon Young’s story from POLITICO’s Recovery Lab, on how New York hopes to extend the playoff protocol to allow the resumption of weddings, concerts and eventually, Broadway shows, amusement parks and summer camps.

NEW - “THE RECAST” NEWSLETTER: Power dynamics are changing. “Influence” is changing. More people are demanding a seat at the table, insisting that all politics is personal and not all policy is equitable. “The Recast” is our new twice-weekly newsletter that breaks down how race and identity are recasting politics, policy and power in America. And POLITICO is recasting how we report on this crucial intersection, bringing you fresh insights, scoops, dispatches from across the country and new voices that challenge “business as usual.” Don’t miss out on this important new newsletter, SUBSCRIBE NOW. Thank you to our sponsor, Intel.

NIGHTLY INTERVIEW

MISSISSIPPI THAWING — Texas is not the only state still recovering from last week’s fatal winter storms. States and cities across the South are working to restore power and water to residents. The National Guard arrived today in Jackson, Miss., to help the city with a severe water shortage caused by freezing equipment at water treatment facilities. Jackson’s Democratic Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba has set up water distribution centers across the city. Lumumba became the city’s youngest mayor in 2017, three years after his father died while serving in the same role. Nightly’s Renuka Rayasam reached out to Lumumba, who is up for reelection this year, to talk about Jackson’s water crisis and what it means to be a Democratic mayor in a Republican state. This conversation has been edited. What’s the situation this week in Jackson? As the weather has warmed up, the system is recovering. But just as we’ve seen in many cities across the South, that doesn’t happen immediately. We’re gonna have to battle a few things as time persists. Our water treatment facilities experienced a number of mechanical challenges that led to a reduction in the pressure. As you increase pressure, then the consequence of that will be main breaks and pipes bursting across the city. There are large numbers of individuals and households without water still presently today. Those individuals who are further away from the treatment facility have it the worst. Texas has received a lot of attention. Biden is traveling to Houston on Friday. Do you wish that more eyes were on Mississippi and Jackson? We’ve declared a state of emergency. From a governmental standpoint, the bar is really high, and it’s highly unlikely that they will step in. I won’t speak critically of the federal government and what FEMA may do, but to say that it is our prayer. We are calling out for their support. I would hope that they recognize that this has been a challenge across the South, that they recognize that their Southern cities need help. Cities are not capable of making the hundreds of millions to billions of dollars of investment on these systems. We live in legacy cities with aged pipes that are over 100 years old and equipment that’s at the end of its useful life span that requires a lot of investment. How helpful has Mississippi’s Republican state government been regarding Jackson’s water problems? In addition to the winter freeze, the city is facing a challenge because a company that was in charge of collecting water payments wasn’t actually sending out bills to customers. Now residents are facing huge statements for one huge lump sum. State law doesn’t allow us to forgive a water bill. We passed legislation to provide relief to the residents who couldn’t pay their bills. It unanimously passed and then the governor vetoed it. Jackson provides more tax revenue than any city in the state of Mississippi by far. We are the gravy train of the state of Mississippi. But the support we receive historically doesn’t necessarily embody that. These are the blue dot in the red sea type of issues that we deal with. Do you think your challenges in dealing with the state are the result of Jackson being a majority Black city in an especially racially divided state? It’s true for the South that racism is an impediment. It’s true for the North. It’s true for the East and West Coast. Sometimes we give a pass to our nation. Our nation is fragmented on racial lines. Sometimes we look at it in terms of we turned off course and got lost in the wrong direction. Like we turned left and became racist. The reality is, we have to be honest that if we profess to love this nation — you know, my mother loved me so much that she dared to correct me — and we should love this nation enough and our people enough to correct it.

WHAT'D I MISS?

— Former aide says Cuomo sexually harassed her: A former aide to Cuomo alleged that the governor kissed her without her consent and asked her to play strip poker. — DeJoy to Congress: ‘Get used to me’: Louis DeJoy, the embattled postmaster general, said he is not going anywhere as he faces criticism of his leadership of the U.S. Postal Service. — Biden’s CIA pick vows China focus: CIA Director nominee William Burns said, if he is confirmed by the Senate, that competing with China and countering a “formidable authoritarian adversary” in Beijing would be the central focus of his tenure. — FDA confirms J&J vax safe, effective: Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose Covid-19 vaccine appears safe and effective, particularly against severe disease, though questions remain about how well it works in older people, the FDA said. — Manchin backs Haaland: Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat and Senate Energy chair, said he supported the nomination of Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) to lead the Interior Department, a crucial boost for the New Mexico lawmaker seeking to be the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary.

ASK THE AUDIENCE

Nightly asks you: What moment marked the beginning of the pandemic for you? It could be a news event, or a personal recollection. Send your answer through our form , and we will use select responses in our Friday edition.

AGENCY DETECTIVE

THE LOWDOWN ON BIDEN’S BUDGET OFFICE — Budget and appropriations reporter Caitlin Emma unpacks the Office of Management and Budget, as Neera Tanden’s nomination to lead the agency hangs by a thread. What does OMB actually do? OMB probably isn’t the first agency that comes to mind when you consider Biden’s Cabinet. But it’s undoubtedly one of the most instrumental . OMB functions as the nerve center of any administration’s agenda, charged with enacting the president’s fiscal and regulatory vision across the executive branch. The agency will have its hands in every part of Biden’s plans — pulling together his first budget proposal, reviewing and approving all federal regulations before they can take effect, meting out appropriated cash, interacting with Congress on legislation and overseeing financial management issues, federal procurement and information technology. When was OMB created? In 1921, when it was called the “Bureau of the Budget” and housed within the Treasury Department. It then moved over to the Executive Office of the President in 1939, and it was renamed OMB in 1970. The Congressional Research Service notes that the agency’s mission statement has sometimes changed substantially from one administration to the next. For example, the Obama administration stressed that OMB is the “implementation and enforcement arm of presidential policy,” while the White House under former President George W. Bush cast OMB as more of a behind-the-scenes administrative agency. What was OMB like under Trump? The budget office often pushed legal and regulatory boundaries in service of Trump’s agenda, finding itself embroiled in the middle of the Ukraine aid scandal that prompted Trump’s first impeachment. The Trump administration also shifted power away from career civil servants, and sought to strip those staffers of worker protections to make them more easily fireable. Who will be running the show in the Biden era? Bipartisan appetite is growing to elevate an alternative nominee to Tanden. Some Democrats and Republicans are rallying behind Shalanda Young, the former clerk and staff director for the House Appropriations Committee, who has been nominated to OMB’s No. 2 spot. Young has extensive knowledge of federal spending after 14 years on the committee and boasts a long record of working alongside Republicans in high-stakes spending negotiations. She also, notably, isn’t on Twitter. Another leading fallback option, Ann O’Leary, who recently served as California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s chief of staff, has privately touted her own possible support in the Senate even as she encourages the confirmation of Tanden to the post. More on Tanden: Sexism. Double standards. White male privilege. Those are some of the charges activists and Democrats are lobbing as Tanden’s nomination slips away over divisive tweets. In the latest POLITICO Dispatch, White House reporter Laura Barrón-López reports on how Tanden’s nomination as the first Asian American to lead the OMB fell apart.

Listen to the latest POLITICO Dispatch podcast

THE GLOBAL FIGHT

GHANA FIRST UP IN COVAX — Ghana received the world’s first shipment of coronavirus jabs delivered through the mechanism meant to ensure equitable access to vaccines. The 600,000 Oxford/AstraZeneca doses mark the start of the arrival of vaccines through COVAX, which seeks to deliver two billion doses around the world this year. Jointly run by the World Health Organization, Gavi and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, COVAX’s first delivery comes almost three months after the first jab was administered in the U.K. On Feb. 22, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus accused some rich nations of securing vaccines at the expense of COVAX, causing a reduction of vaccines allocated to the mechanism.

TUNE IN TO GLOBAL TRANSLATIONS: Our Global Translations podcast, presented by Citi, examines the long-term costs of the short-term thinking that drives many political and business decisions. The world has long been beset by big problems that defy political boundaries, and these issues have exploded over the past year amid a global pandemic. This podcast helps to identify and understand the impediments to smart policymaking. Subscribe and start listening today.

NIGHTLY NUMBER

25 million The number of masks the federal government will soon begin sending to community health centers, food pantries and soup kitchens , the Biden administration said today, with the goal of reaching as many as 15 million people with low incomes beginning in March and continuing through May.

PARTING WORDS

Tyler Weyant's 4 lb. container of peanut butter | Tyler Weyant | POLITICO

STOCKPILING — Nightly’s Tyler Weyant emails: About this time last year, I stepped into a private spot in POLITICO’s newsroom and placed a less-than-cheerful call to my parents: “I don’t mean to alarm you, but you need to go buy some non-perishable foods and cleaning supplies. And you need to do it soon.” In our Rosslyn office, I sat across from the health care team, who for weeks had been buzzing about a virus that seemed every day to be getting more serious. So not long after I made that call, I started building my own stockpile, too. My Amazon Fresh order from 365 days ago, looked at today, appears to have come from a mind unprepared for what was about to hit us. Yes, a few cases of bottled water, good idea! Big packs of granola bars, and some Welch’s gummy fruit snacks? OK, sure. I’ll have in-between meals covered. But then there is the $1.89 bag of Wasabi Dry Roasted Edamame, an item I had never consumed and still have not. One year on, I strain to think why I purchased this treat, other than that I assumed my life may need some excitement in the period to come, and this new food may provide it for me. The crown jewel of my stockpiling, though? A 4 lb. container of peanut butter. Have I opened it during the pandemic? No. Was it bigger than I thought it would be? You bet. How long do I have until it goes bad? At least it’s a little while until January 2022. And I wasn’t the only one who panic-bought some oddities: Tech reporter Leah Nylen secured 25 lbs. of dried beans. (Most remain uneaten.) I was lucky enough to be able to stockpile, in a year when so many weren’t able to. So as we begin observing the opening days of the second year of this pandemic, I guess I have two goals for the next 365 days: Find ways to help those who’ve been food insecure over the last year, and maybe finally learn how that edamame tastes.

A message from the National Hispanic Council on Aging (NHCOA): The National Hispanic Council on Aging is urging the Biden Administration to move forward with rebate reform. Communities of color are disproportionately impacted by chronic disease but lowering out of pocket costs can increase medication adherence and reduce health care disparities in our system. This is done by ensuring rebate dollars are passed on to patients so they can afford essential medication. We need rebate reform today! Learn more.

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RSN: FOCUS: David Sirota, Julia Rock and Walker Bragman | Biden and Student Debt: A 40-Year Love Affair

 

 

24 February 21

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FOCUS: David Sirota, Julia Rock and Walker Bragman | Biden and Student Debt: A 40-Year Love Affair

David Sirota, Julia Rock and Walker Bragman, The Daily Poster and Newsweek
Excerpt: "In his new fight with Elizabeth Warren, the president is falsely insinuating that student debt relief would help rich people."

resident Joe Biden may not be a particularly ideological politician, but one of the few things he seems to absolutely believe in is debt. In particular, student debt.

On the campaign trail he appeared to suggest otherwise, repeatedly promising that he would support some incremental action to forgive student debt, tweeting that the federal government should forgive "a minimum" of $10,000 of college loans.

Last week, however, Biden defied Democratic leaders on the issue, declaring "I will not make that happen" when asked whether he supported Senators Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren's proposal to go farther and cancel up to $50,000 of federal student debt—and his administration refused to commit to using existing executive authority to reduce that debt.

The declaration echoes a point of contrast between Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, when the Vermont independent pushed for full student debt cancelation. Biden's statement also rekindles a bitter conflict between him and Warren, who as a Harvard Law professor excoriated him in harsh terms for consistently opposing debt relief. She is now calling on Americans to press Biden to use his existing executive authority to enact more debt relief, but the White House is balking.

The entire episode is a reminder that Biden's current position is consistent with his 40-year history of leaving Americans loaded down with bills as a consequence of seeking a higher education.

Most student debtors are not rich

In justifying his opposition to Democratic lawmakers' proposal, Biden asserted at a CNN town hall last week that people who went to "Harvard and Yale and Penn" should not have their federal student debt forgiven. The refrain echoed the now-pervasive talking point that people who attended expensive, elite schools would be the primary beneficiaries of student debt relief.

In reality, only 0.3 percent of people with federal student loans attended Ivy League schools, while about half attended public universities.

Biden's comment also implied that cancelling up to $50,000 worth of student debt would primarily help rich people, which is also inaccurate.

An October report from the Washington Center for Equitable Growth—which was co-founded by one of Biden's top economic policy advisers—found that "the student debt burden in the United States falls most heavily on those U.S. households in the bottom 50 percent of the income distribution—and even more on Black American households."

Those findings were echoed by a new study from the Jain Family Institute which shows that most people with outstanding federal student loans live in census tracts where the median income is less than $40,000.

"The sheer number of borrowers in low- and lower-middle income categories outnumber those in the higher-income groups," noted the study, which concluded, "Thus, the greatest share of the benefit from cancellation accrues to people living in lower-income communities, relative to higher-income ones."

Study authors Laura Beamer and Eduard Nilaj analyzed the credit reports of a million 18- to 35-year-old borrowers by census tract in order to assess the distribution of student loan debt by income.

Not only did they find that far more people who have student debt live in low- to middle-income census tracts than higher-income ones, but people in those income tracts hold about 75 percent more of the total outstanding debt than people in middle- to high-income areas.

The data directly contradicts the false argument that cancelling student debt would primarily help wealthy people.

"Cancellation of $50,000 would get over 80 percent of young borrowers out of student debt," Nilaj tweeted. "And inside that 80 percent, over 71 percent would be borrowers living in working class and lower-middle class areas."

Another key finding from the study: the average amount of outstanding loans has increased over the past decade, and low-income people and people of color comprise a much larger portion of the student debtor population than in 2009.

Those arguing against student debt cancellation point out that high-income people are more likely to have higher amounts of debt, either because they attended more expensive schools or because they were more likely to take out larger loans. But that argument misses the point: While a larger percentage of high-income student debtors have larger outstanding balances, there is a much higher number of low-income people with large amounts of debt.

And as the chart shows, cancelling only $10,000 in student debt would likely fail to adequately help the majority of low- and middle-income debt holders.

"Single biggest stimulus"

Beyond the fact that student debt cancellation would help low- and middle-income people more than it would help rich people or Ivy League grads, it is also a popular policy that would narrow the racial wealth gap and stimulate the economy.

In November, Warren said that student debt cancellation would be the "single biggest stimulus we could add to the economy." A majority of voters support student debt cancellation by a 17 point margin, according to a new poll by Data for Progress, and their support for the policy does not waver if the cancellation amount is $50,000 rather than $10,000.

Forgiving federal student loans would also help reduce the longstanding racial wealth gap created by job and income discrimination and school segregation, trends that have been aided by the federal government. Black borrowers hold more debt than their white counterparts and are less likely to be able to pay it back than white borrowers.

As Rep. Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez pointed out on Twitter: "Entire generations of working class kids were encouraged to go into more debt under the guise of elitism." The promise of educational attainment as a way of achieving better economic outcomes has failed to materialize, especially over the past decade.

"It used to be that people who held student debt were a relatively small share of the population, disproportionately people who went to medical school or law school or some other high-cost professional program," said Marshall Steinbaum, a senior fellow in higher education at the Jain Family Institute who advised the new study.

"It's becoming the case that there are more and more people who are student debtors... which means that there are more people who don't have that high of a level of educational attainment, who go to different types of institutions, who don't live at the top of the income distribution. The set of people who have student debt is becoming more and more like the population as a whole."

After Biden declared his opposition to Schumer and Warren's proposal for $50,000 of debt relief, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said the president believes any "relief above $10,000 should be targeted based on the borrower's income, based on the kind of debt in question, public schools versus private schools, graduate schools versus undergraduate. Obviously, there's a lot of considerations at play."

The statement reflects the Democratic Party's commitment to complexity and means-testing. The party that once championed wildly popular universal programs like Medicare and Social Security now tends to offer narrowly tailored proposals that skimp on benefits and eligibility—even as such limitations end up excluding millions of people.

With the promised $2,000 stimulus checks and now with student debt relief, opponents contend that without strict means testing, both initiatives would wrongly aid affluent people who don't need help. And yet, data show that means testing both initiatives would exclude millions of middle-class people who absolutely do need the help.

"I would like to congratulate my worthy opponents who've spent years falsely claiming that student debt cancellation is regressive," Steinbaum tweeted after Biden's CNN event. "Congratulations: you won. You've successfully deceived the political system such that millions of people will be immiserated who didn't have to be."

A history of aiding the lending industry

Throughout his career, Biden has had a reputation for being on the side of lenders. Between 2003 and 2008, he took $500,000 from the lending industry. In 2005, he was one of 25 Democrats to sign onto Republican-led bankruptcy reform legislation that removed protections on private student loans. The bill was considered a giveaway to lenders and helped create a $125 billion bubble in private student loan debt.

In a 2015 International Business Times report, David Sirota and Matthew Cunningham-Cook detailed Biden's long record working to make it harder for Americans to discharge educational debt in bankruptcy court:

As a senator from Delaware—a corporate tax haven where the financial industry is one of the state's largest employers—Biden was one of the key proponents of the 2005 legislation that is now bearing down on students... That bill effectively prevents the $150 billion worth of private student debt from being discharged, rescheduled or renegotiated as other debt can be in bankruptcy court...

Biden helped lenders make it more difficult for Americans to reduce debt through bankruptcy—a trend that experts say encouraged banks to loan more freely with less fear that courts could erase their customers' repayment obligations. At the same time, with more debtors barred from bankruptcy protections, the average American's debt load went up by two-thirds over the last 40 years. Today, there is more than $10,000 of personal debt for every person in the country, as compared to roughly $6,000 in the early 1970s.

That increase—and its attendant interest payments—have generated huge profits for a financial industry that delivered more than $1.9 million of campaign contributions to Biden over his career, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics...

Biden led the fight against his own party's efforts to soften the bill's impact on some of the most vulnerable debtors. In one case, he voted against an amendment that would protect divorced mothers who failed to receive child support from having to repay a portion of their debts in bankruptcy. He voted to oppose an amendment barring firms from charging more than 30 percent interest on loans. In still other cases, he voted against extending special bankruptcy protections for soldiers, victims of identity theft and those with especially high medical debt.

In the early 2000s, Warren—who is now pressing the White House for $50,000 of student debt relief—led the fight against Biden's original bankruptcy bill. She slammed Biden as a "zealous advocate on behalf of one of his biggest contributors" and wrote that when it comes to debt, Biden "should not be allowed to sell out women in the morning and be heralded as their friend in the evening."

In campaigning for president, Biden distanced himself from—and at times misrepresented—his record trying to slash Social Security, passing draconian criminal justice policies, and helping lead America into the Iraq War. By contrast, when it comes to student debt, he is sticking with his old ways, offering as little relief as today's politics would allow.

While his past defense of debt bondage involved him defending a powerful private finance industry that bankrolled his campaigns, he is now refusing to erase debt owed to the government, a public entity to which he has no political obligations. Biden won't even budge on the issue of publicly held debt, despite the fact that doing so would be extremely popular and wouldn't enrage any campaign sponsors.

He seems to genuinely believe that when it comes to student debt, nothing needs to fundamentally change.

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MA: South Coast Rail Middleboro route through Taunton to be complete by end of 2023, MBTA says

When the track is complete, it will be made up of 27 miles of track, four new stations — including one in East Taunton at 1141 County St.

Feb. 18—TAUNTON — Construction on the South Coast Rail, which is now 30 years in the making, is well underway, according to the MBTA.

At a town hall meeting earlier this month, program manager Jennifer Tabakin said they are currently undertaking construction work worth approximately $600 million, and that it began late last year.

"It's a sizable investment in the area and a real vote of confidence for the Commonwealth to invest as much money out the area," Tabakin said.

Jean Fox, director of community engagement, said that the MBTA plans to finish Phase 1 of the project, which extends commuter rail service on the Middleboro/Lakeville Line to New Bedford, Fall River and Taunton, by the end of 2023. This part of the project is fully funded through the state's Capital Investment Plan.

When the track is complete, it will be made up of 27 miles of track, four new stations — including one in East Taunton at 1141 County St.

So far, Fox said, early work clearing the right-of-way near the tracks and replacing four railroad bridges is nearly complete. She warned residents to stay away from the right-of-way as it will be dangerous during construction and service. The MBTA is working to notify all residents whose homes are near the right-of-way.

Kim Dobosz, director of construction, said that right now in Taunton, encroachments and demolition to prepare the right-of-way are going ahead. The East Taunton Station site is also being cleared.

The East Taunton Station, Fox said, will be a center island platform instead of a side platform station — the only one in Phase 1. It will have elevators, ramps and bridges, an 800-foot platform with four canopies, a transition plaza for bus stops and drop-offs, 363 parking spaces and bike parking.

When Phase 1 is finished, officials said, it should take 70 minutes to get to Boston by train. Additionally, they said, the project should increase property values and increased development in the area as a result should lower the tax burden on residents.

Fox said that construction should pick up even more this spring.

"Coronavirus is temporary, but the need for service in this area is essential," she said.

 

US, learning from Zambia

 

SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern in the United States—Challenges and Opportunities JAMA, 17th February, 2021 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama...

​ Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH1; Henry T. Walke, MD, MPH1; Anthony S. Fauci, MD2 January 10, 2020, the first genomic sequence isolated in Wuhan As of February 3, 2021, 468,000 sequences uploaded to public domain 3 specific viral lineages reflecting VOCs, B.1.1.7, B.1.351, and P.1. B.1.1.7 lineage September 2020, first detected, UK, December 2020 In at least 80 countries In at least 33 US states B.1.1.7, potential, reverse the present downward trend in new infections Highlighted the risk of domestic and international travel February 3, 2021, B.1.1.7 variant in the US is now approaching 1%, with prevalence in some states exceeding 2% B.1.351 lineage October 2020, South Africa, December 2020 In at least 41 countries South Carolina and Maryland Demonstrated reduced response to previous ‘wild type’ antibodies Lymphocyte response may well be the same P.1 lineage December 2020, travellers from Brazil Minnesota Zambia B.1.351 variant Early December to 22 of 23 samples (96%) sequenced December 2020 to early January 2021 16-fold increase in COVID-19 incidence The possibility of a similar experience in the US is a real threat First Level of community transmission must be aggressively decreased consistent use of face masks, physical distancing, restrictions on high-risk and high-capacity settings, frequent hand washing, delaying travel, widespread diagnostic testing and screening to swiftly identify and isolate infectious individuals, particularly those who are asymptomatic, and quarantine contacts Second Increased genome sequence surveillance Third CDC’s 750 samples per week, to more than 6000 Fourth Accelerate SARS-CoV-2 vaccination nationally and globally CDC is leading a comprehensive suite of studies to assess the actual effectiveness of these vaccines Looking out for breakthrough infections Safety and Efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056...

​ NEJM, (December 31st) A two-dose regimen of BNT162b2 conferred 94.8% protection against Covid-19 in persons 16 years of age or older After 1 dose, efficacy = 52.4% NEJM, (17th February) But if you take data after 2 weeks …. https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/...

​ One Pfizer dose, vaccine efficacy of 92.6% (based on FDA data) One Moderna dose, vaccine efficacy of 92.1% (based on FDA data) Uncertainty about duration of protection with a single dose Administration of a second dose within 1 month, little added benefit in the short term Leaving high risk groups completely unprotected Postponement of the second dose is a matter of national security that, if ignored, will certainly result in thousands of Covid-19–related hospitalizations and deaths this winter in the United States hospitalizations and deaths that would have been prevented with a first dose of vaccine.