The president’s order doesn’t actually require any concrete action to prevent a coronavirus housing crisis.
By Kriston Capps | 10 August 2020
BLOOMBERG — With Senate Republicans still deadlocked over how or whether to renew protections for Americans struggling due to the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump stepped into the breach on Saturday, signing an executive order on evictions and foreclosures and issuing several memos on other policy issues.
In its solo act, the White House pledged to defer payroll taxes, waive student loan payments, and authorize a new program to boost unemployment benefits by $400 a week. Trump also promised action on behalf of renters left vulnerable by the expiration of the federal moratorium on evictions and foreclosures first passed by Congress under the CARES Act.
“I’m protecting people from eviction,” Trump said on Saturday. “You’ve been hearing a lot about eviction, and the Democrats don’t want to do anything having to do with protecting people from eviction.”
Yet Saturday’s executive order doesn’t renew the federal moratorium on evictions that expired in July. In fact, it doesn’t authorize any new action on evictions or foreclosures at all. Rather it instructs the leaders of several agencies, namely the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, to look again at existing funds or options for protecting renters, without promising any specific relief. […]
Americans struggling due to the coronavirus pandemic
Actually, the Americans discussed here in this article about putting evictions in abeyance aren’t struggling due to the “coronavirus pandemic”, they’re struggling because their economic lives were disrupted by authoritarian government interference.
I don’t know if Trump’s EO will halt evictions or not — but if Trump really wanted to help Americans affected by the “coronavirus pandemic”, he would begin a discussion re whether government at any level ought to have the power to interfere in people’s lives like that — but I think he’s too stupid and captured for that.
I think 98% of those reading here know all that. We do run the standard narrative in some of these articles if they highlight an important element, in this case evictions.
I think 98% of those reading here know all that.
I’m less sure about that than you apparently are — because actually, just thinking about it, and while I don’t read as widely online as I used to, I don’t think I’ve seen that aspect mentioned, except by me — ? — and just to be clear: demanding an end to lockdowns, or loosening of lockdown conditions (e.g. ending mask requirements), is not the same as saying government authority to order a lockdown in the first place ought to be restricted or eliminated/revoked entirely (my view) — it should not be possible for the government to interfere in your life and destroy your livelihood like that.
UNBLOGD — First World Feministen fühlen sich mal wieder diskriminiert — the video is in German, but skip to 1m10s; just after you get some hilarious footage of a “social distancing concert” in the UK.