What A Day - No Child Tax Credit Left Behind

Episode Date: February 8, 2021

Coronavirus cases in the US are in decline from last month, and the daily speed of vaccinations has picked up. But concerns over variants continue. A new study supports the idea that the new, more contagious strain first discovered in the UK could become the dominant strain the US by March.Democrats are working to include expanded child tax credits in the Covid relief bill. The inclusion of a minimum wage hike to $15 an hour is in question, with Biden saying he’s not sure the rules of the Senate will allow it.And in headlines: Haiti faces a constitutional crisis surrounding its president’s term, SCOTUS rules that California can resume indoor church service, and Amazon uses AI to monitor its delivery drivers.For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday. 

It's Monday, February 8th. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick. And this is What A Day, the podcast that, like the Super Bowl, some of you listen to just for the commercials. Yeah, advertisers went all out for us this year. So get ready for some viral content later on. Each of today's ads costs $100 million. Yeah, cash. On today's show, where COVID relief stands and what might and might not be in the final package, then some headlines. But first, the latest. The demand clearly outstrips the supply right now.

If you look at the escalation of availability of doses purely on the ability and the capability of manufacturing that, it's going to escalate and will continue to get better as we get through February and into March. That was Dr. Anthony Fauci talking about where we are with vaccine supply and demand, which is also where we'd like to start today. As of yesterday, the U.S. has administered over 39 million doses and the daily speed has been picking up with more than 2.2 million shots given on Saturday alone. That's part of why you're hearing more optimism from some health officials. But again, there is still concern about variants. So let's just jump in. What's the newest on that and where do we stand with cases?

So in cases, we're in a better spot. They are in a pretty significant decline from where we were at certain points last month. The seven-day average is around 120,000-plus cases per day, according to most trackers. That is still significantly higher than prior peaks last spring and summer. Good thing to keep in mind. But the downward movement is very encouraging. So then on the question of variants,

there is more research out now on the spread of the more contagious B.1.1.7 strain that was first identified in the UK. The CDC had previously warned that it could become the predominant strain in the U.S CDC had previously warned that it could become the predominant strain in the US by March. And then over the weekend, a new study estimated that it is currently doubling in the US roughly every 10 days based on tests and genomes that they studied. That adds more credence to what the CDC said, and it's definitely not encouraging. The researchers also concluded that the variant had arrived in the US in November, which is a month before it was

first officially detected. And they say that there are specific areas of greater concern throughout the country, like Florida, for instance, where more than 4% of new cases might be caused by B.1.1.7. The study was posted online yesterday and has not yet been published in a scientific journal. Well, you know, yikes. The other variant that we talked about is B.1.3.5.1, which was first found in South Africa. And there was big news there about how the country is going to handle it. Yeah. I hope everybody appreciates that we are keeping up with the actual variant names.

But anyway, yeah. Right. Don't quiz me on it. It's coming later. Okay. So this was definitely disappointing. Yesterday, South Africa's health minister said that the country was going to suspend its use of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine after finding out that it wasn't really successful in preventing mild or moderate infections of this variant. This sadly comes after about a million doses arrived in the country last week.

So they're still assessing the data. And one of the bigger questions is whether the vaccine might be effective against severe disease. What happened during the course of this, according to the Washington Post, is that researchers were testing the vaccine on a small number of people with a median age of about 31, which meant that they couldn't really get conclusive results about severe cases. If you're younger, less likely to get a severe case or not the best sample group for that. But as this variant became dominant in South Africa, the effectiveness overall of the AstraZeneca vaccine just plummeted. The New York Times reported that if further studies in South Africa show the vaccine is effective against severe cases, they might pick back up on using it. And also the lead researcher for the Oxford team said that a modified vaccine

could be ready by the fall, which is good. In the meantime, South Africa is not without vaccines. They're expected to start using the Johnson & Johnson one, which has shown strong effectiveness on preventing serious illness from the variant there. Yeah, and speaking of J&J, the company also applied for emergency use authorization in the U.S. last week. So what exactly is the timeline from here for that? Yeah, so this is the one-dose shot from good old J&J. There's reporting that the FDA will have a meeting with its advisory panel to consider authorization of it on February 26th, which could put it on track for going out at the start of

March. So it might be an initially small amount, but J&J would be adding about 100 million doses to the U.S. supply by the end of June, if that all works out, which would be amazing. In the meantime, there is also COVID relief to figure out in all this. So let's shift gears quickly and talk about what's happening in D.C. and where things stand after the weekend. All right, so let's get into it. Last week, the Dems in the House and the Senate both passed a $1.9 trillion budget resolution, which approves the funding for that bill. No Republicans supported the bill in the House or the Senate, so Vice President Harris had to come and break the tie, making it her first tie-breaking vote of the new administration. Congrats. Couldn't have been a better endeavor. And now the next step is actually writing the

bill and detailing what's going to be included and keeping all the Democrats in the Senate on board. Yes. And there's reporting that the House is aiming to release and pass their bill within the next two weeks. And we'll have more details of what is included then. But is there any more word on how things are going thus far? Yeah, you know, the name on everybody's lips is gonna be Stimmy. I really tried. You know, we got to get a Chicago reference in. I don't know why, but we tried it. So anyway, here's the latest on the checks. The debate over eligibility and income threshold rages on. The suggestion that they phase out direct payments for people making more than 50k is being floated, which is something that moderate Republicans had proposed. Progressive Democrats are pushing for the phase

out to stay at 75,000, as was the case in the last round of checks, making the obvious point that if somebody lived in a city, for example, they made 52 grand, they really shouldn't stop them from getting the full benefit, which I think makes sense. What's that $2,000 if it's not the stimulus? As far as when those stimulus checks might come, it's looking like the earliest at this point might be sometime in March, which I think could be like a nice little anniversary gift of sorts, you know, very bleak anniversary gifts, but still one that I would happily accept. A year in lockdown here is $1,400, I guess. Here's $103 a month or something.

Yeah, that works. For your time. Yeah, so the stimulus checks obviously get a lot of the attention here, but they're only one part of this bill, around $400 billion of the almost $2 trillion that's in there. So let's talk about another piece that Democrats are working to include. It is expanded child tax credits. What do we know about those?

All right, so basically the idea is to take the current child tax credit, which is $2,000 a year per kid, and expand the amount to $3,000 per year or $3,600 per year for kids under six years old. And this is according to The Washington Post, who got a hold of a proposal that's expected to be released today from Massachusetts Rep. Richard Neal. His plan would also expand eligibility so that people who aren't working can also get the money. Currently, that's not the case. And it's something that Republicans are generally against since they think it disincentivizes work, expands the safety net, and government spending. But, you know, they never have problems with spending our money for, like, wars,

just when it's for the children that they claim to care so much about. You know, let me get off my soapbox. All right, the money would start to phase out for people who make over $75K a year or $150,000 a year as a couple. Yeah, so a kind of similar idea and structure to the stimulus checks. Yeah, it's going to be targeted to income, or at least that's the plan for right now. And researchers at Columbia looked at this child tax credit plan and estimate that it would reduce childhood poverty by over 50% and lift 5 million children out of poverty. So that is a huge dent and something that Biden has said is really a priority of his. But the details on how this

will work could change. And there's already a lot of questions about how exactly to distribute the money and how to make sure that the families that qualify actually can get it. For example, it's based on last year's IRS data, but income situations can change really drastically in a year, especially given a pandemic. Very similar questions along those same lines have been coming up around the stimulus checks, too. Yeah, definitely. And last thing here, Biden's first network interview since taking office aired last night after the Super Bowl, not concurrently with the weekend. Let's run through what he had to say about the bill. Well, he talked broadly about why it's so needed. He's been making the case over and over again, most recently after last Friday's very weak jobs report.

So that was pretty expected. One moment that was interesting was when the minimum wage came up. The White House has proposed raising it to $15 an hour as part of this bill up from the $7.25, which is the current rate. And it's abysmal. But last night, Biden said his guess was that it wouldn't survive in the bill because of rules around budget reconciliation in the Senate. But also yesterday, you had Senator Bernie Sanders on CNN saying that he has, quote, a room full of lawyers working to make the case that raising the minimum wage is entirely consistent with the rules of reconciliation. So let's see if that room full of lawyers is worth it. Something that we're going to keep an eye on for sure.

But that's the latest for now. it's monday wad squad and it was the first ever covid super bowl last night we were at work but we did take the opportunity to eat foods that are a little different from the foods we normally eat during the work day gideon did you tune in and what stood out to you about this year's game in particular uh yeah it was on in the background and I was kind of in and out. I think about the game, seemed very much like the refs could have been favoring Mr. Brady.

Yeah, perhaps they're on his payroll, like has been the case in the past. We don't know for sure, but some interesting call. I only saw it like five or 10 minutes, but that's something that raised a few eyebrows. And then the weekend. The weekend was...

Makes you not like labor unions almost. Maybe we don't need the weekend after all. We got five days for this. Yeah, I'll go back to working seven. It's fine. I really like his music. We got five days for this. Yeah, I'll go back to working seven. It's fine. I really like his music, but it it it was it didn't quite gel. I think that I mean, first of all, the sound was mixed strangely.

Not great. Not great. There wasn't a lot of action beyond the kind of like, you know, herky-jerky into the back room with the lights GoPro type situation. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, look, I'll take a live performance when I can get it, I suppose. Yeah, you know, like we had to settle for it, you know, if you think about it.

We didn't have a choice. I didn't, yeah, I didn't book the program. But what did you see from this, from all this excitement and hubbub last night? Well, I will tell you, I was not even a little bit invested in the game. As we were recording, I'm wearing my Cincinnati Bengals Who Day shirt. Symbolically, you know, what's the point of having the best quarterback if we can't even get to the Super Bowl? We can never get to the Super Bowl. But beyond that, let's see. I definitely felt like you know there

are commercials that people were pointing to none of them stuck out to me as like so funny or so sentimental as usual i think that it's also just like capitalism in this time is kind of boring like i'm being sold stuff constantly on instagram i don't need to see commercials on TV. There's nothing to look forward to. The Weeknd. Just to piggyback, you know, I can't wait to be canceled by our lovely audience for this, but I just don't think that men should be allowed to do halftime anymore. The last time there was a good, really strong male performance at halftime that I can think of is Prince. You know, I don't remember if Bruno Mars was after that. I think he was.

And he was great. But, like, again, we had Lady Gaga, Beyonce, even Left Shark with Katy Perry was out here performing. Memorable, at least. Yeah. Yeah. J-Lo and Shakira just last year. That was fun. It was not good. Also, there are people with more hits than him who are around the same like age and era that I thought should have maybe been considered but perhaps he was the only one who was willing to do it in a pandemic but uh yeah that's that's pretty much it just like that we checked our tips uh keep them warm like some

lukewarm room dips and stay safe we'll be back after some ads let's wrap up with some headlines headlines haiti is facing an impending constitutional crisis as more and more people are calling for the country's current president to step down opposition leaders and activists say that president jovenel moisi was supposed to end his term yesterday. Moise and his supporters argue that his term doesn't actually end until February 2022. The president was originally voted into office in 2015, but that election was canceled on grounds of fraud and he was reelected a year later and then sworn in in 2017. So there was a general disagreement on when his term actually began, but through the years there

have been more and more protests demanding his resignation. Critics, including the Human Rights Watch, accused Moisey of hijacking the electoral process to rule by decree. Opposition leaders also expressed anger last Friday when the Biden administration reaffirmed his position. Yesterday, the Haitian government said authorities have arrested 23 people, including a Supreme Court justice, for participating in what they claim was a coup, though critics dispute that and are calling for the prisoner's release.

Churchgoers in California are now allowed to resume indoor service despite the state government's concerns about the spread of COVID, which could have fooled me. Does it seem like they're all that concerned? Well, last Friday, the Supreme Court struck down the state's ban on indoor worship during the pandemic, ruling that it violated religious liberties. The ruling also allowed the state to impose some restrictions on indoor services, which Governor Newsom did over the weekend by limiting attendance and banning singing and chanting. That means if you're rocking out at Hillsong Church, you have to do it in total silence. The logic there is that singing and chanting actually produce more droplets in the air

that could spread the virus. One of the churches that sued the state released a statement saying they will continue to petition for their right to sing. This case is fittingly also Amy Coney Barrett's first written opinion as a Supreme Court justice. The new balance of power might explain a trend in church-related cases like a similar SCOTUS case from New York that reversed indoor worship restrictions last year. It's a silent disco at Hillsong. Silent rave for Jesus.

Yep. Employees of the Bessemer, Alabama, Amazon Fulfillment Center will be mailed ballots for their unionization vote today. That is after Amazon failed to get the election switched to in-person. Last Friday, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Amazon's objections to the COVID-safe mail-in vote didn't hold water. In response to the NLRB's decision, an Amazon spokesperson said, quote, our goal is for as many of our employees as possible to vote. And we're disappointed by the decision by the NLRB not to provide the most fair and effective format to achieve maximum employee participation. The rat energy coming off of this quote is overwhelming me.

Amazon continues to innovate in the field of making me communist. So good for them. Next up in Amazon Mad Libs, the company has been installing AI controlled camera systems in the cargo vans of last mile delivery partners. The cameras record both the road and the driver a hundred percent of the time uploading clips in response to triggers like not stopping at a stop sign or distracted driving, but also quote hard braking following too close and hard acceleration. End quote.

The technology is ostensibly to promote safety, but it has already drawn a negative reaction from drivers. It turns out people don't like it when their boss is smushed down into a computer program and lives 10 inches from their face at all times. Also, side note, Josh Hawley, if you want, this is a time when it'd be okay to say Orwellian. Yes, you know, just trying to help you with your vocabulary. All right, there's a certain magic at sports games when all the athletes say they're playing against their will.

And that's what NBA fans can look forward to for next month's all-star game, which is set to be held in Atlanta on March 7th, in spite of safety concerns from a growing number of players. LeBron James started things off last Thursday when he described his league's plan to go forward with the mid-season event as a, quote, slap in the face given the state of the pandemic. Kawhi Leonard backed him up, describing the event on event as a quote slap in the face given the state of the pandemic kawaii leonard backed him up describing the event on friday as quote an opportunity to make money just putting money over health right now pretty much back in november the nba said they would

cancel the game but reports emerged last week that they'd reverse course the nba's agreement with its players association will require anyone who's selected for the game to play if they're healthy lebron if you need i can try to make a realistic double for you using pillows and a huge pole. I've never done one of that scale, but I guarantee you I can try. The idea of bringing players, coaches, and staff from all across the NBA together in one place is bad enough, but it's even worse that it's in Atlanta, which is one of the 10 cities where fans can go to games. This season, the NBA has already postponed 23 games

because of infections or contact tracing. Look, vote me into the All-Star game, and I will protect LeBron from having to go. And I will buy that limited edition jersey. And those are the headlines. That is all for today. If you liked the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, build body doubles for LeBron, and tell your friends to listen.

And if you're into reading and not just the lyrics to hymns at a very low volume like me, What Today is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And thanks to all the big celebs who appeared in our ads today. Yes, we love it. Matthew McConaughey, just want to say, you read that beautifully, sir.

Yeah, wow, Denzel, thought you'd be too busy, but glad you came around. What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tan is our assistant producer. Our head writer is John Milstein and our executive producers are Katie Long, Akilah Hughes, and me Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka