News
Everybody wants to rebuild it. Nobody wants to pay for it. But there are plenty of options for planning and financing infrastructure projects that don't require deficit financing.
Billionaire investor Leon Cooperman said of the future implications that the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting recession will have on U.S. consumerism. (Business Insider — April 23, 2020)
The number of Americans who have filed for jobless aid in the last five weeks, a number only comparable to those of the Great Depression in the 1930s. The government reported that 4.4 million workers applied for unemployment benefits just last week.
Governing is building a 50-state map to visualize the changes underway to declare states “Open for Business” even as the coronavirus remains at large across the country.
The Trump administration fears that more federal fiscal aid would be a disincentive for state political leaders to reopen their economies. But they're as eager as anyone to get people back to work.
In suggesting that it should be allowed, the Senate majority leader is conflating COVID-19 budgetary emergencies with historical public-pension deficits. They have nothing to do with each other.
Two centuries ago, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had to wait months, sometimes years, for a new book to arrive from Europe. Today, technology has removed boundaries to knowledge that would amaze our founding fathers.
New York Representative Grace Meng on her new legislation, the Emergency Educational Connections Act of 2020, which would distribute $2 billion to schools and libraries to buy Wi-Fi hot spots, routers and Internet devices. (The Hill — April 21, 2020)
The low estimation of how much Seattle, Wash., is projected to lose in tax revenue this year as a result of the coronavirus shutdown.
Michigan health officials don’t have enough resources to compile a complete report on coronavirus cases across the state. While the partial reports don’t provide a lot of data, they do protect some patient privacy through obscurity.
Though many telecommunications companies said they would provide free Internet services to those in need during the coronavirus shutdown, a survey of Los Angeles Schools families finds that getting it done isn’t always so simple.
Seattle’s tech industry relies on foreign workers. It is growing increasingly nervous about Trump’s next steps after he suspended all company-sponsored green card applications for the next 60 days. “Those particular jobs are super critical.”
The House is still split about allowing proxy, remote voting or not. Some believe the low-tech option is a good solution for these unprecedented times of social distancing, but others believe it’s unconstitutional.
Thousands of inmates are infected with the coronavirus and dozens have already died. Some governors have released prisoners for public health reasons, but there's always a risk they'll reoffend.
Despite widespread disruption to session calendars, state legislators still find time to address matters other than the pandemic, an illustration of how the wheels of democracy keep turning.
In a scenic but neglected area of Appalachia, a $100 million bridge built between two states remains unused five years after completion. Revised plans could bring traffic one day, but for now, it remains pristine.
With projected shortfalls of $300 million over the next 26 months, Cole may have become a canary in a coal mine for all city executives in the high stakes world of leading after COVID-19.
June Tierney, Vermont’s Department of Public Service Commissioner, said of connecting Vermont residents to Internet providers to ensure they can access remote learning, remote work and telehealth services. (AP News — April 18, 2020)
When Facebook will lift its company ban on gatherings of more than 50 people. The company is requiring its workers to continue working from home through May, and plans to allow employees to return to work in slow waves after that.
University of Maryland will use robots to help increase the state’s testing capacity to up to 20,000 daily. However, the tests can only run as long as they have cotton swabs to take samples, and swabs are in short supply.
Like many U.S. cities, Vancouver expects to lose at least $30 million during the coronavirus shutdown, but is also making plans to shoulder even greater loss. “We don’t yet know what, truly, the final impact will be.”
Many companies had been resistant to employees working from home, but the coronavirus pandemic has shown that it’s very feasible and functional. Working from home has great benefits and should be continued post-pandemic.
Researchers found the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases could be as much as 55 times higher than originally thought. Officials believed there were about 8,000 confirmed cases early on, but there could be more than 440,000.
The coronavirus has shown that they can't count on their states or Washington for everything they need. But higher levels of government could provide funding for cities and counties to do the basics.
Leaders from special districts in California, Illinois and New Jersey, with widely varied responsibilities, talk about maintaining operations, as well as functioning remotely, during the pandemic.
The governors are calling for a quick $500 billion to offset plummeting tax revenues. But we don't know how long a pandemic recession will last or how deep it will be. We should be guided by hard data.
Sponsored
In the last month, the COVID-19 pandemic has flipped our country on its head.
U.S. Senator Mark Warner wrote in a letter to Ajit Pai, the head of the Federal Communications Commission. (The Hill — April 16, 2020)
The number of malware and phishing emails related to the coronavirus that Google saw each day during the first week of April.
As Washington state enacted stay-at-home orders, rural residents were suddenly cut off from their work and school. While broadband access has been a long-term issue, COVID-19 is finally bringing eastern Washington’s digital divide to the forefront.
Most Read
