Enomics. I want to begin with the Federal Reserves move yesterday, before the markets opening up, to buy back unlimited buying of bonds to help businesses. What exactly did they do and how does this help the economy . Guest hi, greta. Thank you to cspan. This is an extraordinary action by the fed the government is taking extraordinary actions in this unusual situation, something we have maybe not seen ever in American History with the combating of this virus. The other day, during his press conference, the president said he is a wartime president and we are fighting an invisible enemy. That is right. We are treating this like it is a war and it is ending invisible enemy, so you are seeing the steps by government. The fed is trying to combat deflation, trying to stabilize the economy by infusing more dollar liquidity into the u. S. Economy. Right now, because you have this global pandemic, whenever there is fear, everyone in the world buys dollars. There has been a run on the dollar, and the fed wants to make sure, if people want dollars, there are dollars for people to buy. The markets appear to have responded positively. The futures indexes are way up this morning. That is a bit of good news, finally, on the stock market. We will see how long those gains are sistan sustained. We are talking a couple thousand points on the dow. We will see how this works out. I will say this, no matter how much money the fed infuses into the economy, no matter how many aid packages Congress Passes to provide to help the people who need help because they have lost their jobs, none of this will do much good if we dont, at some point soon, reopen the economy. If people are not producing things, it doesnt matter how much money we have in the economy. , the arent things to buy United States is shut down. Host can we reopen the economy when peoples lives are at risk . Guest this is the question everyone is pondering from economists to Public Health officials, even at the Heritage Foundation where i work there is a lot of debate about what the next what the best step forward is. I think of this as an economist, so im not a Public Health official, but i believe at some point soon that we have to get this economy reopened. This devastation of a shut down lockdown of our economy would be so great that i think you are talking about 30 million to 40 Million People. I just listened to that caller you had on before me talking about having to lay off workers in her business. Owner of a business. Im on the board the board of a business where we have 30 employees. The last couple of days, we had to lay off all of our workers. It was heartbreaking. That is one of the hardest things to do, to tell people they have to be laid off. That is happening all over the economy right now. My feeling is that we have to be smart about having a date certain, sometime hopefully in the next two to three weeks, where we start reopening parts of the economy so we can get things going again. There may be some areas like new york or san francisco, or parts of california, that need to be continued to be quarantined, but the devastation and we are talking about millions of business is ruined forever, talking about people losing their life savings, talking butt not 10 or 20 million 50 Million People put in the unemployment lines. That is an incredible toll with trillions of dollars of losses. We have to be smart about this. Two trumps credit yesterday said credit, yesterday reopen theneed to economy and he was asked if that was months from now and he things it will be weeks from now. Host have you given this advice to the president . Our viewers may recall the president considered you for the Federal Reserve board. Are you having conversations with him and advising him . Guest i have not talked to the president lately, but i have communicated with some of my friend allies at the white house. Frankly, greta, there is a debate in the white house about this, just as there is debate you have 10 callers and i bet five would say reopen the economy and five would say we have to do everything we can to protect Public Health. What im saying is we have to have a balancing act. The idea somehow we will keep the economy shut down for ive heard 10 to 14 weeks, i guarantee that will not work. Wevastation would be would have a Great Depression if that happened. We have to be really smart about this and have to take incredible Public Health measures. One other quick thing, because i have been talking a lot about this in the last few days, people wonder what about people who do not want to go back to work . I have family members who are afraid and want to stay away for the next two to three months until they feel it is safe to go outside. There are other people who want to get back to work. At some point, you have to let every individual business, man, and woman make their own decision and let workers decide for themselves whether they feel it is safe to go back, based on the best Public Health information we have. Host if the president ultimately decides, within weeks areas,ay, to, in certain reopen the economy and let people get back to work, do you see the Unemployment Rate still at 20 to 30 . How much damage has been done so far . Guest that is a tough question. By the way, talking about 20 and 30 Unemployment Rates, this is astonishing because, as the previous caller said, her business was booming as recently as three to four weeks ago. It is so frustrating, me as an economist, someone who helped President Trump at this economic plan together, we were sailing along with the trade deals done, tax cuts, deregulation. The economy was growing at 3 to 3. 5 percent according to the atlanta Federal Reserve bank until the coronavirus came along. We had the blockbuster jobs report at 350,000 jobs when you counted the revisions, so we were sailing along and we hit this. This brick wall. Toidentally, its important the story because think out we had a president who put in place an economic grin that worked so well, because it an Economic Program that worked so well because it cushioned us from the blow. How fast we can get the Unemployment Rate down, it is hard for me to say because we are really this is uncharted territory. We have never seen anything like this. Art of the question will be how much how many workers are willing to go back to work even if the president starts to allow businesses to reopen. Host i want to invite our viewers to join in on the conversation. Steve moore is here to take your questions. ,emocrats is 202 7488000 republicans is 202 7488001, independents is 202 7488002. And you can text us at 202 7488003. Mr. Moore, if we reach unemployment that is higher than 10 , 15 , what does that look like in this country . Guest the good news is this will only be temporary. We do not know if it will be one month, two months, or three months. We will conquer this virus. We always do. Fortunately, it will not be like the Great Depression in the sense we have double digit unemployment for eight years. But, this will cause hardship for people. We have this a package and im. Ure we will talk about that the price tag keeps changing every time i look, but it could be as much as 2 trillion. We never passed an aid package anywhere near that in history. That will provide shortterm relief so people can pay their bills and put food on the table, hopefully pay their rent and mortgages, but at some point, as i said earlier, there is only so much money the government can put into the economy. If there is not production, if you dont have people working, the economy comes to a halt. That is a scary scenario. Host lets get to calls. Tony in bethlehem, pennsylvania. Caller good morning, mr. Moore. Guest good morning. Caller i was looking at the chart greta showed about the shelterinplace rules in certain states. And of them was april 22. That is one month from now. I think, by that time, these men staying home with their beautiful wives and wellbehaved children who are still healthy are going to say, you know what, i would rather die on my feet than live on my knees and want to get back out there. Of all, this is a decision at some point every individual has to make for themselves. I am a civil libertarian so the idea that government is telling people when they can go out of their house, curfews, having police in the street, these huge grabsings are of power by government, and it makes me nervous when i see what is happening in san francisco, new york city, and so on. I think it is absolutely appropriate, for the time being, but i agree with you. At some point, people will go stir crazy. You will see people wanting to get out, and people have to know what the risks are, but the question we all have to ask is, who should make that decision . Should politicians make that decision for us or should we make those decisions for ourselves . As a libertarian, i think more and more of these decisions have to be made by the individual. I want to make a related point. Obviously there are huge Public Health risks in terms of putting the economy back in some semblance of working. On the other hand, there is real Public Health risks to keeping people the costing causing. Ankruptcy to businesses you will see depression and suicides, big increases in drug overdoses. We know that from the evidence. High unemployment and economic stress is highly associated with health problems. There are two sides to this equation. Im not here to tell you or anyone this morning that i know the answers. I dont think anyone does. What im here to do is say we have to make a calculated decision about when it is appropriate for our economy to get running again. Host steve in pennsylvania. Caller good morning. That if you take away the ability for people to make decisions on their own under these circumstances, you will have more deaths if people go back to soon, because people go back to their old way of life. You can come out of a depression but cannot come out of death. The longer we keep people away from each other and keep people segregated, we will have a better chance to not have a relapse of the situation going forward. That. I cant argue with there is a lot of truth to that. There are two sides to this equation. On the one hand, if we do start to reopen the economy, you will have to do it in a smart way with very high regard to what best protects the Public Health. There can be social distancing in the workplace. We have this going on right now. Greta is on the sixth floor and i am on the first floor, but we are both at work right now. That is one little example. People can work apart from each other. I am not saying that mitigates all of the risk. We need screening and testing. We need, maybe before you can go into a public place, take peoples temperatures to make sure they do not have a fever. We are paying a pry heist a high price for the fact that the cdc screwed up and did not have these tests that you have another countries. How can it be that korea has tests for the coronavirus where you can find out quickly whether someone has it or not but in the United States we dont have it . It was a monumental screw up by the center for disease control, and we are paying a multi trillion dollar price for that. Host is it right to put the blame on the cdc, or is it the job of the people who oversee the cdc, congress, and the money being appropriated to the agency . Guest we give 10 billion dollars per year to the center for disease control. It is not a bot a shortage of it is not about a shortage of money. Looking at the other programs, frankly i think the cdc took their eye off the ball. If you look at the cdc website, it is about things like gun control, lgbtq issues and things like that that are not part of the cdcs mission. Its mission is to protect us from pandemics and be prepared for them, and they werent in this case. I think, when this is all over, i wont point fingers at any individual person. We have to find out what happened and why there was this monumental blunder by our government. Host we go to dayton, ohio, tom. Caller good morning. Host morning. Caller i was kind of frustrated about the bill going through congress. , but theump supporter stuff pelosi was putting in a supposed to take all of their debt away, i dont understand with what that has to do with what is going on right now. Im ready to get back to work myself. Want this country to go. God bless you all and stay safe. Guest i think this gentleman is really expressing the views of so many tens of millions of americans that, number one, we are a productive people. We are the greatest economy in the history of the world. It is heartbreaking to see this shutdown. It is heartbreaking to see people unemployed, heartbreaking to see businesses people spent their whole lives building up, in three weeks time to go from profitable businesses to now being shuttered because of this virus and the lack of economic activity. Im glad this gentleman called in because that is a sentiment everyone is hearing. The gentleman also makes a good point about this aid package. It is scandalous it has taken so long for this aid money to get out in the first place. We want to get this into the pockets of people so they have money they can spend, that they can keep their families fed and housed. It is true that what is happening now, this has turned into a court bureau festival. I wont point fingers at either party because i think both parties are doing this. But it is true because nancy pelosi wants to put in things like permanent leave. She wants stuff having to do with climate change. Cant we put that thing aside geta few months so we can this virus contained that is a threat to the health of millions of people . You just look at the bill, it should be straightforward. It doesnt have to be 1400 pages. Nancy pelosi, the ball is in your court. Get this thing passed in 24 hours so we can get the a to the businesses and families that need it. Host Stephen Moore of what congress has done so far, the first two rounds of economic stimulus, what do you think makes the most impact . What are some of the proposals they passed and the president signed into law that will help . Guest first of all, this is not going to help the economy enlarge. In other words, the government sending checks to people does not help the economy. We do have to help people in need, especially because it is the government shutting down the economy, it is not the fault of the private sector, it is the government to made the decision, so they should bear the decision , but we shouldnt kid ourselves by sending someone a check stimulating kid ourselves by thinking sending someone a check stimulate the economy, it does not. It. S aid to people who need i think the most important part of this, with respect to the economy, and im so glad you asked this question because i keep hearing people say this is a bailout for big business and so on. Look,ea here is because businesses, small and large, dont have customers right now, if they dont get some kind of a loan, they will go bankrupt. Million want 27 american businesses going bankrupt. That doesnt benefit anyone. If they do not go bankrupt, they will have to have a fire sale on their assets and put every single employee on their payroll in the unemployment line. That is a disastrous consequence. Without businesses, there are no jobs. This is an idea where you give these businesses, that were healthy three weeks ago, maybe a yearss, loan, so they can get through this. Once we get through this, hopefully in the next three months we get the economy functioning again, we can hit the ground running and have these missed this is these businesses fired up. We want a vshaped recovery where we will fall by 10 to 25 . We dont know how much the economy will falter, but we want to see us booming out of that as soon it is it is over, so we get back to where we were in january and february. These loans to the businesses i think are important. They have to be repaid. They are not giveaways, they are low interest loans. Every company from the small retail store down the street to United Airlines or Delta Airlines is going to need these loans so they can stay functional, so they can get going. These are companies that employ millions of people, so i think that is the most important thing, the loans to the businesses so they can get up and running. Nobody hates bailouts more than i do. I think bailouts are horrific. I dont want to see favoritism from one industry to another, but you have to do something when the government is telling businesses they have to shut down. Host what about restrictions on this money . Just saying you cannot buy back stock or use it for competition, it has to be used to help the worker in your business. Guest of course those things make a lot of sense. Stock buybacks are just a way to make sure the company is financially sound. I dont understand why stock buybacks have been so demonized. There is a good article in the wall street journal about them. These companies are not doing stock buybacks right now. They need this money to stay afloat, to be able to pay their payroll. You need the money to pay the loans they already have outstanding, to make sure the Companies Already to go when the economy recovers. I think there is this idea that this is just a giant corporate bailout, i think, is somewhat nonsensical. Host we go to california. Jim, go ahead. Caller good morning. I want to comment on steves assumptions. It all sounds nice, but i have been as i have been paying attention to cspan with Mitch Mcconnells comments yesterday demonizing the democrats for not signing onto his bill for the mnuchin toto allow determine, at his discretion, where the money is spent and how it gets paid back. I have an issue against that. I remember United Airlines giving bonuses to their Corporate Executives with our tax dollars, and if it wasnt for a strike by the airline mechanics, the public would not have known about it. This idea that only the democrats are the demons here is ridiculous. This expenditure by Mitch Mcconnells attitude, he wont do anything that wont go back to the president to be signed. We need to be fair and acrosstheboard with this, and i dont see it happening. Guest this is a fair point. As i said at the outset of this discussion, i think both parties are to blame with how bloated this bill has become. There is so much stuff in here that i dont like, that you dont like, and it should not take 1400 pages to help the businesses that need loan and workers who need immediate assistance. Right. Are this is politics at play and both parties are politicizing this right now. It is a shame because the aid needs to get out there yesterday, not a week from now area lets get the bill done. I think there are 80 to 90 there. Im hearing from the leaders of both parties where they think they are getting close. Put that aside, get it done, get the stuff out there, but dont put this extraneous stuff in here that has no business being in a shortterm aid package. Kent, washington. Willie is watching there. Oh ahead with your question or comment. Mr. Andgood morning misses america. I have a question for mr. Moore. We need to prime the pump, and im wondering what you thought about the idea, if not nationwide, a Pilot Program for employers to try to pay their workers every week instead of every two weeks, every month, however it is done now. We need to prime the pumps so we can get the economy going and more money circulating so people are paid every week. A Pilot Program with the local county governments or state governments, whatever. Guest i think it is an interesting idea. The more money we can get circulating in the economy, the better. I think theres a lot to what youre saying. , greta. He idea i think the president was able to do this unilaterally from moving tax today from april 15 two i believe july 15. Dont quote me on that, im not 100 certain. People dont need to be paying massive tax bills right now. Its put that off. I like the idea of maybe suspending in the payroll tax for the rest of the year so that when the economy does start getting on good footing, we can get juice into this economy. 7. 5 pay raise for every worker in america, giving a real incentive for people to get right back on the job. For employers, you talk about a 7. 5 reduction in their payroll costs, allowing them and incentivizing them to hire more workers. You ask the question, how do we get those 30 Million People back on the job . Something like a payroll tax cut, just for the next nine host michael is our last call. Very upset cspan moore on. Llowed mr. I spoke with you when he put the last tax cut. You couldnt understand how i as a trump folder my taxes went up or you didnt know that they eliminated the 10 minimum tax bracket and pushed it up to 12. That is why my taxes went up. Now you are advocating giving this money away to the same old people, the friends of donald trump to rip us off one more time. Didnt vote for nancy pelosi wouldnt. Evenot one penny should be to business, unless they sign binding contracts that theyre going to use this money to help the workers. Otherwise, forget it. Host im going to jump in. Businesses that are healthy and profitable, there are no jobs. It is that simple. Without businesses and employers there are no jobs. So the idea of some of these loan programs isnt to give a big bailout to businesses, it is to make sure that we get back in commerce and we have a functioning economy. By the way, i am not a big fan of this bill. I dont like bailouts and i dont like giving out money to people or businesses. I am a limited government guy but the government is who shut the economy down and they will have to bear the cost of getting the economy back on its feet. The tax cut, come on, my goodness we had the best economy in 50 years just three or four weeks ago and the tax cuts were a spectacular success. With the lowest Unemployment Rate in 50 years. Just as this woman who was on before me was saying that her business was booming until three or four weeks ago. We have this virus attack that nobody could have predicted. I am so pleased we have a president who is dealing with in such a direct way, a guy who knows how businesses run. We have a blessing that we have a guy would Donald Trumps talents trying to lead us out of this great tragedy. Lets hope that the next time you have me on, i am sure this judgment will call again, but hopefully that is in three or four months and we arent even talking about coronavirus and we are talking about the economy back on its feet and people working again and businesses making profits. The stock market is up. That benefits everyone. One last thing, the people who are suffering the most from the shutdown of the economy are not rich people. Rich people are fine. The people who will feel a real crunch if we keep our economy close down for three to six months is the lowest income people, the people at the very bottom of the income scale. No matter how much money the government prints, no matter how many aid programs that Congress Passes to help people, if you dont have a functioning economy, you cant help people because you need production. We have to get this 20 trillion economic Engine Running again. Host cspans washington journal, live every day. Lowng up this morning, the Income HousingCoalition President and ceo discusses how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting the Housing Needs of the nations poor and homeless. Impact oflk about the the coronavirus on small businesses. U. S. Naval Institute News on the role of the hospital shifts in the coronavirus response. Watching cspans washington journal. Join the discussion. Today, the White House Coronavirus task force provides an update on the outbreak in the federal response. Watch live on cspan. Announcer next, Governor Phil Murphy gives an update on the coronavirus update with state health officials. Speaking from newark, this is an hour and a half. Governor murphy thank you. Sorry for being a few