Takan Ada Lagi: March 2021

Wednesday, March 31, 2021

America's next Covid-19 culture war is here - CNN

Growing numbers of businesses, hospitality industries, and even sports teams are considering requiring proof of vaccination for customers, once the world begins to open up. For both patrons and staff, such a system might offer peace of mind -- and could stop a cruise voyage around the Caribbean, for example, from turning into a floating super spreader.

Countries where Covid-19 rates are low might soon start demanding inoculation information before they let tourists in. It's not that different from parents showing proof of vaccination typically required to enroll kids in American schools, or those little yellow vaccine cards already required to travel in countries threatened by yellow fever, tuberculosis or other scourges. Yet the idea of "vaccine passports" has become the latest object of right-wing politicians' outrage.

Everyone's favorite conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene, a member of Congress from Georgia, branded vaccine passports as "Biden's mark of the beast" and "fascism or communism or whatever you want to call it." Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a potential Republican 2024 presidential candidate, has also seized on the idea as an issue that will play to the GOP base. "It's completely unacceptable for either the government or the private sector to impose upon you the requirement that you show proof of vaccine to just simply be able to participate in normal society," DeSantis said.

For the record, President Joe Biden is not actually planning to mandate vaccine passports or to set up a central vaccines database that raises the specter of Big Brother surveillance trampling American individualism. The White House says it is trying to work with companies to set standards for vaccine passports and to ensure people's privacy is protected.

Nevertheless, it is an ethical minefield. Should businesses bar people who are not vaccinated? Can employers make vaccines a condition for accepting a new job? Certainly vaccines should be available to anyone who wants one before such filtering systems are introduced. But equally, is it fair for an American who endangers others by refusing vaccination to get the same benefits as others? Rent-a-quote politicians stirring fear and anger about the issue are not doing much to help.

Team USA athletes are now permitted to hold up a fist, kneel, and wear garments promoting racial and social justice at competitions, according to new rules published Tuesday by the US Olympic & Paralympic Committee. Those who choose to do so will be following in a well-trod path -- Tommie Smith and John Carlos, gold and bronze medalists in the 200 meters, made history at the 1968 Olympic Games with the black power salute in support of African Americans' civil rights.

Postcard from London

My hands are chapped from a day wiping down patients' chairs with disinfectant as a volunteer at a local Covid-19 vaccination center -- they didn't have gloves in my size. But raw knuckles seem like a small price to pay for my tiny role in getting the United Kingdom vaccinated.

The UK's vaccination rollout has so far been a roaring success, with 50 doses of vaccine administered per 100 people, according to data tracked by CNN. It's the largest country by far to have such a high vaccination rate. But the shots came too late to prevent a grimmer statistical superlative: The UK also has one of the highest per capita Covid-19 death rates on Earth.

The US with its turbo-charged inoculation program is in a similar position: Awful death tolls and impressive vaccination figures. Both countries failed to contain the coronavirus when it first appeared -- but after a lethal year, Covid-19 now appears to be a problem they can solve with massive spending on vaccines. In this crisis, vaccines are a magic bullet for sale, and the US and UK have money. But both countries may have lost out on a teachable moment; they won't be able to buy their way out of the world's other enduring crises.

Technology is moving slowly on coming up with a similar solution for climate change. And there are no magic bullets at any price for sexism or racism or poverty, as the UK faces up to its problem of violence against women in the wake of the murder of Sarah Everard; systemic racism intertwined with its colonial history; and the shocking fact that in one of the world's wealthiest countries, many children would go hungry without free meals at school.

Those problems require permanent and profound changes in human behavior on a massive scale -- the kind of changes that we initially needed to prevent the spread of Covid-19, but now thanks to vaccines, are preparing to forget. -- CNN's Richard Greene writes from London

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"Here" - Google News
April 01, 2021 at 08:50AM
https://ift.tt/31AQ6ev

America's next Covid-19 culture war is here - CNN
"Here" - Google News
https://ift.tt/39D7kKR
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update

Is Livestreamed Stand-Up Here to Stay? - The New York Times

Two online business models see a future post-pandemic, but success might depend on cooperating with actual clubs.

The cultural legacy of the pandemic may not only be shows canceled, careers derailed and theaters and clubs closed. There has also been innovation, like the emergence of the virtual comedy club.

What began out of desperation has matured into a new digital genre that has drawn sizable audiences in the habit of buying tickets to livestreaming stand-up from the comfort of their own homes. As clubs now start to reopen, and comics and patrons return to their old haunts, the next few months will be a key test of this business. Was it a pandemic-era fad or will it be an enduring part of the landscape?

On a video call from her San Francisco home, Jill Paiz-Bourque, the chief executive of RushTix, perhaps the biggest digital comedy club, made the case that the lockdown only accelerated an already inevitable revolution. “Why did Netflix eclipse television?” she rhetorically asked. “It’s streaming, unlimited, global. Why did Spotify eclipse terrestrial radio? It’s streaming. It’s global. It’s unlimited. And that’s why livestreaming with RushTix eclipses Live Nation eventually because it’s streaming, it’s global, it’s unlimited.”

Many are skeptical, including fans who badly miss being surrounded by echoing laughter and stand-ups who are exhausted by performing for screens and who widely prefer telling jokes in the same room as crowds. While conceding that nothing replaces the traditional comedy format, Paiz-Bourque said the doubts will look as shortsighted as early mockery of Twitter, podcasting and so many other now common internet forms. She has good reason for such swagger. Paiz-Bourque’s business, which she calls “a Silicon Valley start-up,” regularly sells over 1,000 tickets to see comics like Sarah Silverman, Patton Oswalt and Maria Bamford. In February, she sold 15,000 tickets to eight shows, bringing in close to $280,000 in revenue.

“Once we got our first taste of 5,000 ticket shows, that was intoxicating,” Paiz-Bourque said (Colleen Ballinger, the popular YouTuber best known for “Miranda Sings,” was the breakthrough artist).

As touring resumes, Paiz-Bourque is tweaking her vision, moving away from a tight focus on those headlining and radically increasing volume. By the summer, her goal is to produce five shows a day, every day. In other words, to live up to the slogan that appeared on her site before a recent show: “The biggest comedy club on the planet.” She said she wasn’t worried about clubs reopening because “I have way more supply than they have access to.”

Laura Silverman and Jonathan Katz from “Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist.” — RushTix

In the next month and half, she’s rolling out nine original, interactive series, including competitions (“Very Punny With Kate Lambert”), a cooking show (“Baking It Better with Tom Papa”) and a dating one (“Find Your Boo With Reggie Bo”). She’s also adding closed captioning, a subscription package and new technology that allows patrons to move around the “club” and hear different levels of laughter.

The overall vision is to produce new work with emerging artists during the week while doubling down on headliners on Friday and Saturday nights. How will she compete when stars are eager to tour and return to live stages? Simple, she says: Make comics offers “worth their while.” After previously offering 80 percent of tickets sales, she’s recently started guaranteeing up to five figures. She says six figures will become common among an elite few. “I’ve gotten pushback on this from Day 1,” she said about enlisting comics. “Then you start wiring thousands and tens of thousands of dollars and they were like: I get it.”

RushTix is hardly the only player in this market. Nowhere Comedy Club, a smaller, scrappier operation that was started by the comedians Ben Gleib and Steve Hofstetter, has booked a stellar lineup of comics, including Mike Birbiglia, Gilbert Gottfried and Nikki Glaser. In something of a coup, Bill Burr recently performed in a benefit production from a studio that Gleib built in his home, a booking that Paiz-Bourque said she was “devastated” she didn’t get a chance on. (She just announced that Burr will be appearing at RushTix on May 16 in a live version of the animated TV show “Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist.”)

Gleib, who began Nowhere after ending a presidential campaign in 2019 that left him nearly broke, also performs his own show online every week. And while he is optimistic about the future of livestreaming, he sounded more anxious than Paiz-Bourque about losing comics to touring. “I think we can peaceably coexist,” he said. But as he approaches Nowhere’s anniversary next week, his strategy is not to rebrand or recast so much as make Nowhere fit more seamlessly into the existing ecosystem.

He recently started geotargeting, a technology that restricts consumers from certain areas from buying tickets, a tactic he called potentially “game-changing.” This enables a comic heading out on a tour to block the places he’s visiting so as not to depress sales there.

Emilio Savone, the co-owner of the New York Comedy Club, which begins indoor shows on Friday, when the city will begin allowing indoor shows at 33 percent capacity with a limit of 100 people, said such digital theaters have a future. “Do I think it can sustain as a seven-night-a-week type of thing? Maybe not?” he wrote in an email. “But I do think it’s a good tool for comedians to work on material, and it offers another way for the comic to engage and reach their audience.”

Nowhere Comedy Club

Felicia Madison, who runs the West Side Comedy Club in Manhattan — which will begin outdoor shows on April 14 but not indoor shows until the city allows for 50 percent capacity — also sees a future involving a hybrid of traditional and digital clubs. “If they’re smart, they’ll work with clubs” to livestream from there, she said.

RushTix is already doing that, with the stand-up comedian Godfrey performing from the Gotham Comedy Club on April 7. But neither Paiz-Bourque nor Gleib sound enthusiastic about the economics of such arrangements. Gleib argued that strength of Nowhere was in the relationships it has developed with new comedy audiences. “We’ve reached huge demographics that have never been serviced by comedy clubs,” Gleib said, pointing to patrons who live in remote areas or those with disabilities or social anxiety. “Then there’s the lazy,” he added. “We’re great for lazy people who don’t want to go out.”

Nowhere puts fans’ faces onscreen and allows everyone to talk, laugh or even heckle (though they can muted for that, too). This creates a freewheeling show that emphasizes the community of audience and performer. By contrast, RushTix keeps the audience to a chat room and limits laughter to 20 people. Gleib called this “elitist,” saying the RushTix approach didn’t resemble live stand-up.

Paiz-Bourque doesn’t argue, saying that since no online show can duplicate a live one, her goal is to produce the best experience. “We gave up on trying to emulate the live experience and the more we gave up on that, the more we started opening up barrels of creativity,” she said.

RushTix

If anything, she wants to move away from a dependence on conventional stand-up, while still booking big names. It’s why one of the first comics she recruited was Bamford, a natural experimentalist who is putting on an unusual show on April 17: after doing a set, she will film herself sleeping for the next eight hours. You can watch and join her for breakfast the next day.

Bamford already has a dedicated audience that will follow her wherever she goes. The real test for these clubs will be whether they can develop enough loyalty to get audiences to try less established talents. These platforms tend to benefit those who already have large and engaged online fan bases. When clubs and theaters return, they are going to be booking acts that they know can sell tickets, which may make them more wary of adventurous or emerging comics.

There is a real danger right now that we are entering a very cautious moment in comedy as institutions struggle to rebuild, and Paiz-Bourque, a former comic gifted in the art of selling a premise, argues now is the moment for her to fill another niche.

Pointing to a logjam of early- and midcareer stand-ups whose careers have been slowed by the pandemic, she said, “Not only is this going to be a business that works. It needs to creatively for all these comedians.”

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"Here" - Google News
April 01, 2021 at 03:09AM
https://ift.tt/3sJhkf0

Is Livestreamed Stand-Up Here to Stay? - The New York Times
"Here" - Google News
https://ift.tt/39D7kKR
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update

Here’s how fast Rhode Island could reach ‘herd immunity’ - WPRI.com

[unable to retrieve full-text content]

Here’s how fast Rhode Island could reach ‘herd immunity’ WPRI.com

"Here" - Google News
April 01, 2021 at 04:54AM
https://ift.tt/3ugnuDJ

Here’s how fast Rhode Island could reach ‘herd immunity’ - WPRI.com
"Here" - Google News
https://ift.tt/39D7kKR
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update

Mortgage forbearance ending? Here are your options - Tampa Bay Times

The COVID-19 recession shriveled the bank accounts of countless homeowners. If you entered mortgage forbearance last April or May because of the pandemic, you have plenty of company: Almost a million people will reach their 12-month forbearance anniversaries in those months of 2021.

In total, more than 2.5 million remained in forbearance plans as of late February. If you’re in that number, here’s what to know as you approach the initial forbearance deadline. Your options may include extension of the forbearance, repayment of the past-due amount or even resuming your old payments as if forbearance hadn’t happened.

About COVID-19 forbearances

COVID forbearance can be extended

As your initial 12-month mortgage forbearance expires, you may ask to extend it by three months. Then, if you need to, you can ask for another three-month extension. In total, your forbearance can last 18 months.

Extensions won’t be given automatically. You have to call or respond to your mortgage servicer (the company that processes your monthly payments) and ask.

The option to extend forbearance to 18 months is available for most mortgage types, depending on when the initial forbearance started:

For loans securitized by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, you must have entered forbearance by Feb. 28, 2021.
For mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration or guaranteed by the Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Agriculture, you must have entered forbearance by June 30, 2020.

About 70% of home loans fall into the above categories. They are covered by government regulations designed to protect borrowers. Mortgage companies might find these regulations burdensome, but you might find them a lifeline.

About 30% of mortgages don’t have to comply with these regulations. These are largely jumbo loans, which exceed conforming limits; mortgages that banks originated and kept on their books; and nonqualified mortgages, many of which are underwritten with alternative documentation or have debt-to-income ratios over 43%.

Although servicers of these loans aren’t required to offer forbearance, some do. When ready to exit forbearance, these borrowers must negotiate with their mortgage servicers.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development vets housing counseling agencies. You can contact a HUD-approved agency for advice before or after getting in touch with your mortgage servicer, regardless of loan type.

What happens when forbearance finally ends?

When you entered forbearance last spring or summer, you might have heard that you would have to repay the past-due amount upon leaving forbearance, either in a lump sum or through additional monthly payments.

If the prospect of continued financial stress made your heart pound, the thump-thump-thump caught the attention of folks in Washington. They realized it was unrealistic to expect you to find thousands of dollars at the bottom of an empty checking account.

Acknowledging that reality, regulators came up with an additional way to come out of forbearance: deferral. If you can’t afford to pay a big lump sum or higher payments each month, deferral means you might be able to return to the same monthly payments you had before.

But in general, options for exiting forbearance vary, depending on your financial situation and the type of mortgage you have.

If your loan is backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac

REINSTATEMENT

If you have enough in savings to comfortably repay the past-due amount in one payment, well, bless your heart. Go ahead and pay up. Your loan will be reinstated and you’ll move forward as if forbearance never happened.

REPAYMENT PLAN

If you can afford to pay an extra few hundred bucks each month until you’re caught up, you may agree to a repayment plan. It works this way: Let’s say you’ve skipped $3,000 in mortgage payments. Now your income is restored, and you can afford to add $250 to each monthly payment for the next 12 months. At the end of this repayment plan, you would have paid back the $3,000. Then you would go back to your regular payments.

COVID-19 PAYMENT DEFERRAL

What if you and the servicer look at your income and expenses and decide that, while a repayment plan would be unaffordable, you could resume making your pre-COVID monthly payments? In this case, you might be eligible for a COVID-19 Payment Deferral.

With the payment deferral, your past-due amount is pushed back to the end of your mortgage term and added to your last scheduled payment. You return to making your regular payments. You’ll repay the past-due amount when you sell the home, refinance the mortgage or reach the end of the mortgage term.

LOAN MODIFICATION

If a COVID-related financial hardship permanently hampers your ability to resume making the pre-pandemic payments, the servicer may offer to modify the loan to reduce the monthly payment. With a loan modification, the servicer might extend the mortgage term, reduce the interest rate, forgive some of the principal, or some combination.

» MORE: What are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

If your mortgage is an FHA loan

COVID-19 STANDALONE PARTIAL CLAIM

When forbearance ends on a Federal Housing Administration-insured mortgage, the primary option is to resume making ordinary, pre-COVID payments. The past-due amount is set aside as an interest-free second mortgage that doesn’t require monthly payments. This past-due amount is repaid when you sell the home, refinance the loan or reach the end of the mortgage term. Your mortgage servicer might call this a deferral, and the FHA calls it a COVID-19 Standalone Partial Claim.

COVID-19 OWNER-OCCUPANT LOAN MODIFICATION

If you can’t afford to resume your pre-COVID payments, the servicer will evaluate you for a COVID-19 Owner-Occupant Loan Modification. With this loan modification, the servicer would make the payments affordable by reducing the interest rate and stretching out the loan term.

There are two other options if these two won’t work:

The COVID-19 Combination Partial Claim and Loan Modification, for borrowers who don’t meet eligibility requirements for the first two options.
The COVID-19 FHA-HAMP Combination Loan Modification and Partial Claim with Reduced Documentation, for borrowers who can’t afford the payments under any other option.

» MORE: FHA loan: What you need to know

If your mortgage is a USDA loan

REPAYMENT PLAN

When a forbearance ends on a Rural Development loan guaranteed by the Department of Agriculture, the first option is a repayment plan, in which you pay extra each month for a specified period until you’ve paid back the past-due amount.

TERM EXTENSION

If a repayment plan won’t work, you may have the option of a term extension. The USDA offers two types of term extensions. With one, you pay extra each month for five years to pay off your past-due insurance and property taxes. In addition, your loan term is extended by the number of months that you missed payments.

If you can’t afford five years of extra payments, the other type of term extension may be an option. This one is a loan modification that adds up everything you owe and turns it into a new, up-to-30-year mortgage with an interest rate reduction.

MORTGAGE RECOVERY ADVANCE

This deferral program is similar to the FHA’s Standalone Partial Claim. You resume the old monthly payments. Meanwhile, your past-due payments are set aside until you sell the home, refinance the mortgage or reach the end of the mortgage’s term. You don’t accrue interest and you don’t make monthly payments on this past-due amount.

» MORE: All about USDA loans

If your mortgage is a VA loan

The Department of Veterans Affairs is stingier to borrowers coming out of forbearance than the FHA and USDA are to their borrowers. The FHA and USDA may defer your past-due payments interest-free until you sell the home or refinance, but the VA guarantees no such option.

The VA has proposed a deferral program, but it would charge interest, and the past-due amount would have to be repaid within 10 years. The proposal faces criticism that it’s not friendly enough to borrowers. More about that program below.

REPAYMENT PLAN

The VA’s first option is to offer a repayment plan, in which you pay extra each month for an agreed-upon period until you have repaid the past-due amount.

MODIFICATION

If you can’t afford a repayment plan, the next step would be a loan modification, in which the mortgage’s term would be extended and the interest rate may be adjusted.

DEFERRAL

Technically, the VA gives mortgage servicers the option of setting aside your past-due amount interest-free until you sell the home or refinance the mortgage, just as the FHA and USDA do. But the VA doesn’t require servicers to provide deferrals.

COVID-VAPCP

The VA has proposed a solution in which the past-due amount would be deferred — sort of. Under the proposed COVID-19 Veterans Assistance Partial Claim Payment program, the past-due amount would be set aside as a second mortgage with a 1% interest rate, to be repaid within 10 years. You wouldn’t have to begin repaying immediately — you could wait up to five years — but the unpaid interest would be added to the loan amount. As long as you’re not paying, the amount you owe would grow each month.

The VA hasn’t implemented COVID-VAPCP and hasn’t suggested a start date. It proposed the program in December 2020 and requested public comment. Some of the resulting comments were critical, asking the VA to reconsider charging interest and requiring repayment before the home is sold or the mortgage is refinanced.

“If VA establishes a partial claim process, it should financially benefit the veteran or servicemember, not create a new loan that they have to pay back,” three Democratic members of the Senate Banking Committee wrote in a letter to the VA.

The Mortgage Bankers Association and Housing Policy Council asked the VA to adopt a program similar to the FHA’s and USDA’s, in which the past-due amount would be deferred interest-free and repaid when the home is sold or mortgage is refinanced. A coalition of 27 banking associations and consumer advocacy groups sent a similar request.

» MORE: Guidelines for VA loans

What to do if your forbearance is ending soon

When you’ve endured money troubles caused by a pandemic, you crave certainty and simplicity, which mortgage companies and regulators aren’t giving you. But in their clumsy, bureaucratic way, they are committed to helping you.

Here are three tips to help your mortgage servicer help you exit forbearance:

Your servicer will try to contact you a month before your forbearance ends, whether it’s the original forbearance or an extension. Respond promptly.
Those forbearance extensions exist to help you out of a financial jam. Accept an extension if you need it.
Familiarize yourself with your options so you’ll know what to request. Talk to a housing counselor if you want to hear a sympathetic voice that will explain your options in detail.

— By Holden Lewis

Lewis is NerdWallet’s authority on mortgages and real estate. He has reported on mortgages since 2001, winning multiple awards. Read more

• • •

CORONAVIRUS IN FLORIDA: Find the latest numbers for your county, city or zip code.

NEED A VACCINE? Here's how to find one in the Tampa Bay area and Florida.

VACCINES Q & A: Have coronavirus vaccine questions? We have answers, Florida.

GET THE DAYSTARTER MORNING UPDATE: Sign up to receive the most up-to-date information.

A TRIBUTE TO THE FLORIDIANS TAKEN BY THE CORONAVIRUS: They were parents and retirees, police officer and doctors, imperfect but loved deeply.

HAVE A TIP?: Send us confidential news tips

We’re working hard to bring you the latest news on the coronavirus in Florida. This effort takes a lot of resources to gather and update. If you haven’t already subscribed,please consider buying a print or digital subscription.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"Here" - Google News
March 31, 2021 at 08:01PM
https://ift.tt/2Of6azA

Mortgage forbearance ending? Here are your options - Tampa Bay Times
"Here" - Google News
https://ift.tt/39D7kKR
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update

Here is the likely 2021 Marlins Opening Day roster - Fish Stripes

The Marlins have until 12:00 p.m. ET on Thursday to lock in their Opening Day roster. Based on several official roster moves, reporting from the likes of Craig Mish and Jordan McPherson, and covering the team myself, here is my final projection for the 26-man group (13 position players and 13 pitchers):

Catchers: Jorge Alfaro, Chad Wallach

Infielders: Jesús Aguilar, Brian Anderson, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Miguel Rojas

Outfielders: Lewis Brinson, Corey Dickerson, Adam Duvall, Starling Marte, Magneuris Sierra

Utility: Jon Berti, Garrett Cooper

Starting Pitchers: Sandy Alcantara, Elieser Hernandez, Pablo López, Trevor Rogers

Relief Pitchers: Anthony Bass, Richard Bleier, Paul Campbell, Adam Cimber, John Curtiss, Ross Detwiler, Dylan Floro, Yimi García, Zach Pop

My projection from last weekend was very similar to this, except that I had figured the Marlins would opt for Nick Neidert over Curtiss. However, on Tuesday Fish Stripes confirmed that Curtiss had indeed made the cut and on Wednesday, the Miami Herald noted that Neidert is headed to Triple-A where he’ll presumably be fully stretched out as a starter in preparation for if/when a rotation vacancy presents itself.

We are just hours away from finding out the truth!

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"Here" - Google News
April 01, 2021 at 02:17AM
https://ift.tt/2PGJNDs

Here is the likely 2021 Marlins Opening Day roster - Fish Stripes
"Here" - Google News
https://ift.tt/39D7kKR
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update

Here Come the Biden Taxes - The Wall Street Journal

Here’s When The $2 Trillion Infrastructure Bill Could Actually Pass—It May Be Months From Now - Forbes

Topline

President Biden on Wednesday will unveil his American Jobs Plan, a sweeping $2+ billion spending proposal designed to revitalize the country’s aging infrastructure and waning manufacturing sector, but the bill’s path through Congress won’t be easy—here’s what we know about when it could become law.

Key Facts

The plan Biden will outline Wednesday is just the administration’s opening proposal, and there will undoubtedly be changes from lawmakers in the coming weeks and months as the legislation is drafted.

Some lawmakers have already threatened to hold up the process if they don’t see the changes they want, including three Democrats in the House who have said they won’t support the tax hikes necessary to fund the bill if they don’t include a repeal of the cap on state and local tax deductions, along with a slew of Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) who have said the GOP will not vote for any new tax hikes.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has said her goal is for that chamber to pass the bill by July 4, a deadline that PunchBowl News suggested means the bill won’t make it to the Senate until the middle of that month.

Bloomberg reported Wednesday that it’s possible Pelosi’s deadline will slip later in July, citing one person familiar with the situation.

What We Don’t Know

What legislative strategy Democrats will use to advance the plan, which could have big implications for the timing of its passage. To pass the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, Democrats used a special legislative process called budget reconciliation that allowed them to advance the bill with only a simple majority in the Senate (51 votes) rather than the usual 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster—over the vehement objects of the GOP. PunchBowl news suggested Wednesday that reconciliation is the “only conceivable way” the bill could pass on Pelosi’s schedule. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is reportedly exploring a path that would let Democrats use the reconciliation process again this fiscal year (rather waiting until the fall for the 2022 fiscal year), but there’s no indication yet that he’ll be allowed to do so.

Key Background

According to materials released by the White House on Wednesday, Biden’s plan will include $621 billion for transportation infrastructure like roads and bridges, with $174 billion of that set aside for the electric vehicle market. There’s $111 billion for clean drinking water, $100 billion for expanding broadband and $100 billion for power infrastructure like the electric grid, along with $213 billion for affordable and sustainable housing, $400 billion for the “care economy” and $100 billion for workforce development. That money will be spent over eight years and be paid for in part with tax hikes over 15 years.

Topline

After weeks of anticipation, President Biden will unveil on Wednesday a sweeping proposal to revitalize American infrastructure and manufacturing, begin the transition to clean energy and industry and create jobs—here are the details.

Key Facts

The $2 trillion Biden will ask Congress to approve for his American Jobs Plan will be spent over a period of eight years and paid for with tax hikes over a period of 15 years.

Included in that $2 trillion is $621 billion for transportation infrastructure like roads and bridges, with $174 billion of that set aside for the electric vehicle market, $111 billion for clean drinking water, $100 billion for expanding broadband and $100 billion for power infrastructure like the electric grid.

There’s also $213 billion for affordable and sustainable housing, $400 billion for the “care economy” and $100 billion for workforce development.

To help pay for all that spending, the Biden administration is expected to propose a series of major tax changes including raising the corporate rate from 21% to 28% and raising the global minimum tax.

Biden also wants to encourage domestic manufacturing by making it more expensive for American companies to produce goods and services overseas.

Chief Critic

While Republicans are sure to balk at the price tag and the potential repeal of many of President Trump’s tax cuts for big companies and wealthy individuals to pay for the plan, some progressives are saying the package should be larger. “This is not nearly enough,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted Tuesday.

Key Background

The American Jobs plan follows the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which Biden signed into law earlier this month. That legislation included a third round of stimulus checks in the amount of $1,400, an extension of the $300-per-week federal unemployment insurance supplement, a major expansion of the child tax credit (among other tax relief initiatives) and billions of dollars for rental, mortgage and food assistance and vaccines and healthcare to see the country through the pandemic. The American Rescue Plan was passed by Democrats over the objections of the Republican party using a special legislative process called budget reconciliation. It’s not yet clear whether Democrats will attempt to use reconciliation for the infrastructure package or whether they will seek enough Republican votes to pass the bill using the standard process.

Tangent

Analysts from Bank of America predict that companies that manufacture the equipment used to make semiconductors—the computer chips found in everything from cars to smartphones—are poised to profit from Biden’s push to modernize the United States’ digital infrastructure and shore up domestic production of the essential computer components as part of his $2 trillion plan.

What To Watch For

Biden is expected to introduce the second part of his American Jobs Plan next month. That proposal will include provisions related to healthcare and childcare.

Rechercher dans ce blog

Wednesday, March 31, 2021

Postcard from London

COVID forbearance can be extended

What happens when forbearance finally ends?

If your loan is backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac

REINSTATEMENT

REPAYMENT PLAN

COVID-19 PAYMENT DEFERRAL

LOAN MODIFICATION

If your mortgage is an FHA loan

COVID-19 STANDALONE PARTIAL CLAIM

COVID-19 OWNER-OCCUPANT LOAN MODIFICATION

If your mortgage is a USDA loan

REPAYMENT PLAN

TERM EXTENSION

MORTGAGE RECOVERY ADVANCE

If your mortgage is a VA loan

REPAYMENT PLAN

MODIFICATION

DEFERRAL

COVID-VAPCP

What to do if your forbearance is ending soon

Topline

Key Facts

What We Don’t Know

Key Background

Further Reading

Topline

Key Facts

Chief Critic

Key Background

Tangent

What To Watch For

Further Reading

Search

Featured Post

Postingan Populer

Archives du blog

Libellés