Rep. Michael McCaul’s Failure of Imagination
By Mike Siegel
The harsh reality of over four million infected and nearly 150,000 dead Americans from the coronavirus shows how our safety and security hinges on a competent federal government that prioritizes the needs of the people. With unemployment levels matching the Great Depression, tens of millions losing employer-sponsored private insurance, and almost a third of the country unable to make rent in July, it’s clear that working families have been abandoned by the Trump administration.
For the last six months, Rep. Michael McCaul—limousine connoisseur and one of the wealthiest members of Congress—has acted as Trump’s most loyal yes-man. Instead of taking action to save American lives, he’s obediently down-played the severity of the crisis while obsessively focusing blame on China. According to NPR’s China correspondent John Ruwitch last week, “taking strong measures against China makes headlines. It creates a distraction from domestic problems.” As author of the book Failures of Imagination, McCaul has dedicated hundreds of pages to daydreaming fictional, mostly Islamophobic, future threat scenarios to the United States. But in the face of a global pandemic, he’s resided over nothing short of a global embarrassment.
McCaul stood silent as the National Security Council pandemic playbook was tossed out the window and the Obama-era Global Health Security and Biodefense unit, responsible for pandemic preparedness after the 2014 Ebola outbreak, was disbanded. McCaul sat idly by as we failed to prepare our supply chains, and we failed to invoke the Defense Production Act to spur manufacturing of PPE including gloves, masks, and gowns as well as adequate testing, respirators, and ventilators desperately needed by our frontline medical personnel. On March 8th, two days after Trump declared “People have to be calm...It will end”, McCaul confidently broadcasted “the immediate threat is low.” It became crystal clear that McCaul is not credible on public health when he spread dangerous conspiracy theories on the Trump-aligned Sinclair Broadcast Group, and when he bucked the House Attending Physician in April by flagrantly refusing to wear a mask on the House Floor.
As the private sector began hemorrhaging tens of millions of jobs, McCaul worked in lockstep with Trump to provide unprecedented multi-trillion dollar bailouts to Wall Street and big corporations while ignoring voters, many experts and lawmakers led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal calling to Federally backstop payroll so we could keep non-essential workers on payroll and out of the workplace. Instead, McCaul loyally held Trump’s agenda giving workers just four months of expanded unemployment insurance set to expire at the end of July, around the same time many eviction moratoria are set to expire across the country. As economist Nathan Tankus recently noted, “By pursuing a policy of inflaming extreme household financial distress, policymakers are effectively pursuing a policy of household missed payments and default.” When we had strong proposals to ensure rapid, reloadable direct payments to everyone in America, McCaul fought to ensure only some workers received a paltry one-time $1200 stimulus check which was needlessly delayed for millions who needed it most.
Of course, McCaul is currently working to cut down a vital lifeline to millions, which would send our economy off a cliff next month. His actions ignore recent polling that shows voters support extending full expanded UI benefits by a margin of 52 percent to 31 percent, with a 43 percent to 43 percent tie among Republicans. McCaul fought to provide VIP public policy for the donor class and a bureaucratic nightmare for working families. The real economy has been shattered, and we need a reconstruction.
We need leaders who will listen to the recommendations of scientists and public health experts, and we need leaders who won’t tighten the public purse strings right after committing highway robbery for their donor class. We need robust, targeted fiscal policy targeting distressed communities of color and working families across the Texas 10th and the country, putting people to work in contact tracing, creating an Emergency Responder Corps, and preparing for future crises at our doorstep.
Important benefits for millions of working families are about to dry up this week, and the McCaul-Trump administration is busy escalating overtures toward fascism with secret police violently cracking down on protesters for racial justice. Texas hospitals are strained while other countries have done the necessary work to control their outbreaks, and McCaul is busy starting a new cold war. As we approach Election Day this November, it’s important to assess the compounding crises we face as a nation and ensure we have the proper leadership in place to prepare for the future. In short, it’s time to send Trump and McCaul packing.
Mike Seigel (@SiegelForTexas) is a progressive Democrat running for Congress in Texas' 10th district. Mike has spent his career in public service, as a school teacher, civil rights lawyer, and advocate for communities left out of the political process. You can learn more about Mike’s candidacy at: https://siegelfortexas.org
From July 15 through July 16, 2020, Data for Progress conducted a survey of 1,235 likely voters nationally using web-panel respondents. The sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, race, and voting history. The survey was conducted in English. The margin of error is +/- 2.8 percentage points.
Question Wording
Which comes closer to your view?
We should keep existing unemployment benefits in place as we shouldn’t cut people’s income in the midst of a pandemic because they need this money for essentials like groceries and rent.
We should cut the size of people’s unemployment benefits as a way to encourage them to get back to work and because we must control a growing deficit.
Don’t know