Action to help people who are struggling chris lou joins us for the lead in congress ation on this edition of politicking hes a veteran of the Obama Administration he served as deputy secretary of labor he is in Arlington Virginia but course the trumpet administration recently announced the plan to open up america again is that too soon well there they put out a series of guidelines that will leave that up to governors and i think thats the rational decision and you see governors on a regional basis whether its on the west coast or east coast that are going to make those decisions in conjunction with their neighboring government governors and it will be based on both the. Case that load in each of the states as well as their testing capacity. The administration recently tweeted its time to liberate minnesota michigan and virginia what do you make of that i mean this is troubling you know this is a president who a week ago said he had total 30 to make decisions about reopening and then after he received pushback bipartisan pushback from members of congress he sensibly left that decision up to governors in conjunction with Public Health experts laid out a series of guidelines that made sense and then obviously this is a president who wasnt fired and leaving things as is and is now apparently encouraging its supporters to rally in state capitals to try to reopen the government reopen that economies and the problem is theyre not only putting themselves at rest but theyre politicizing something that really should not be politicized at this point minissha will rescue package for Small Business which 350000000000 thats gone already did accomplish what it was intended to do. Well well have to wait and see according to some news accounts the money or at least the bulk of the money went to some large or Small Businesses and important to understand that in this country a Small Business is to find anything with up to 500. 00 ploy or so thats not necessarily the mom and pop delicatessen or dry cleaner that many of us were hoping that this money would benefit i know personally of a couple of business many businesses that have been left very far back next year and were not able to get this money so hopefully congress provides another tranche of money that will continue to expand the relief to more affected business occurs republicans that resist to democratic effort just money directly to the states to mow calories what do you make of that i think its a huge mistake you know. President trump has now shifted the burden of testing potential. Of people infected with covered nights and he shifted that burden now to the state but hes not willing to pay the state or help us pay the freight the cock we know in new york for instance Governor Cuomo said that he is now running a 15000000000. 00 budget deficit and states like the federal government dont have the ability to run deficits and hes indicated that if you let the get relief from the federal government hes going to have to start cutting funding for education which means that teachers look at furloughs he would also have to cut payment a hospital which Means Health Care workers get furloughed and thats obviously not something that should happen in this period of time and so the rational thing for congress to do would be provide some assistance the states are in this very difficult period. Americans filed for and point 2000000. 00 jobless claims all together pushing the 4 we totaled over 22000000. 00 is that going to get or is it is going to get worse i would expect several more 1000000 people to apply for unemployment for the next a couple of weeks at least and to put that in perspective that 22000000 people filing for unemployment has not wiped out basically every job created since the Great Recession and and the reason we know its going to get worse is because we know that the Ripple Effect of this economic slowdown has now reached Additional Industries that hadnt been reached the past things like manufacturing and construction and white collar industry we also know that because of the new legislation a lot of people who previously werent eligible for unemployment get corkers for instance or part time workers can now apply so thats going to inflate the number of people plying as well. And president of the Federal Reserve bank in st louis predict to the United StatesUnemployment Rate could reach 30 percent in the 2nd quarter this year is that is that hard for you yeah yeah i mean it seems on the higher side but i think given what were seeing right now at this moment right now were probably around 15 percent unemployment will get the full numbers in a couple of weeks so 30 percent seems high but a lot of it frankly depends on how long this shutdown of the federal government goes on for in support im saying thats necessary because this is 1st and foremost a Public Health crisis and we need to address the Public Health crisis then the den address the economic damage thats created and so while the number might be high and it might not get to 30 percent will certainly be in the twentys but i expect that there will be some bounce back later on this year but i think unemployment will continue very high for the forseeable future. Turd. Predicts the u. S. Economy will recover from the effects of the corner virus epidemic within months he says it definitely doesnt think it will take a year how long do you think itll take i think itll take years and i think theres a v. Shaped recovery that 2nd term in nature and others are predicting i think that doesnt reflect the reality of whats happening on the ground right now what we are doing is we are shutting off the u. S. Economy to deal with his Public Health crisis and then when we turn it back on its not going to be like flipping on a light switch and everything coming back to normal mediately it will come in waves based on regions of the country based on certain types of industries and a lot of this really is dependent on peoples sense of confidence about whether its safe to go back outside whether they feel confident in spending money given their own Economic Situation so i think were going to be dealing with the effects of this downturn well into 2021 if not longer. What effect on the election. Well it certainly takes away one of the big if. Advantages that this president had which if he was planning to base his reelection on the economy obviously that wont be the case now and i think the challenge for him politically will be show that he is navigating this crisis and hes helping to resolve it in a responsible way the downside of course is that the democrats will make the argument that this is the assertion wait its 70 days to take proper action and its continued to fail to provide states the resources they need to test people as well as to help people recover who are infected with this virus chris lou as always thank you for joining us thank you eric. This week marks the 50th anniversary of earth day Actor Ed Begley Jr joins us now to talk about that and how this time of copa 19 is impacting is Environmental Activism for which hes so well known hes also a 7 time emmy nominated actor and currently lord of the stars of the a. B. C. Series bless this mess good seeing you again ed thanks for joining us larry its always good to see you. How how are you in the family doing in this crisis we do very well here are but eyes but civil guard in an arm you know im doing just fine theres a lot of people out there going through a lot of hardship so my heart and soul goes out to them and i know were all trying to do what we can for the out of the 1st responders and the people the medical personnel and everybody there are heroes of the front trenches go try to be of service any way i can to them and of course always consider the environment as our we do in all my other auctions what swimmy effect particularly on the environment of coban 19. Losing one good effect thats coming from this if you will that is when we look up and see these blue skies in cities like l. A. And other cities in america houston bakersfield that normally have a lot of small we go look at the world can be like without so much fossil fuel and small inclusion is something to aspire to you cant be hunkered down like this we dont want to be isolated like this thats not worth the price of admission to get a cleaner environment cleaner air but we can have both we could have a Clean Environment and good green jobs and Green Transportation you said that you were fiscally conservative in your early days of trying to live in an veyron mentally sensitive and sustainable fashion what changed. You know i got all my environmental d ethic from my father my father exactly sr is not only a wonderful octave a wonderful man he was a conservative the like to conserve he was a son of irish immigrants it lived through the Great Depression so he simply turned off the lights turned off the water safe during say 10 for oil stop at the time the earth they rolled around in 1970 and he died within a few days of the 1st birthday by the way i was very motivated to do something because he always said to me i know which are against some against the smog too but what are you for what are you doing about it so i start recycling i started composting you know turn off the lights even more and i even bought a 1970 electric car believe it or not and i did everything i could to do my part to clean up the smog which is saying the good dad was kind of a pioneer and then as he was he was of that age of people whod lived through the Great Depression simply conservative the way they lived and so i wanted to do you know what he had done with his life and i didnt have a lot of money after he passed the 1970 so i couldnt buy any solar powered some fancy stuff but i did everything i could afford i started riding my bike taking Public Transportation became a vegetarian oh you know buy degradable soaps and detergents composting all that kind of self it was cheap and easy to do and those opportunities abound today for people are limited income its not all about i flew in solar so it panels and stuff theres lots of simple things for people to do to protect the environment and to save money whats the most environmental change of scene in say the 50 years. I proposed what we talked about that 1st birthday when i got a call from 970 from 97 to date larry weve got 4 times the cards and no white millions more people but we have a fraction of this more people in l. A. Long enough to see a much better its gotten even with all those people all those additional vehicles theres a lot of small we did that together everybody did what they needed to do to clean up there d and theres plenty of jobs cleaning up out there d with catalytic converters made to put on cars cedar you know power plants spray paint boats all that stuff big and small that we did cleaned up there are no light now we gotta clean up the whole world and stay right there well have more politicking right after the break. You. Better us along russian and line says. Im a journalist its all i know being a truth teller people say i make among come from good news is like a jackhammer good drill down until you find the true news with rick sanchez because its time to do news again and question more. Federal law russian and line. Join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and ill be speaking to guests of the world of politics Small Business im show business ill see that. Thanks guys or financial survival. When customers go buy your disappearing. Didnt help well reducing our. Thats undercutting but whats good for the market is not good for the global economy. Welcome back to politicking were talking with ed begley jr is 7 time emmy nominated actor currently one of the stars of the a. B. C. Series bless this mess he is in los angeles what as disappointing to you most in terms of the environmental moving and the woman in the past 50 years. What disappoints me the most is people that think that you have to lose you know fiscally to do the right thing for the environment thats not the case theres certainly plenty of jobs in coal mines that are all there except refineries but arent there also jobs making when turbines and solar panels and electric cars and Energy Saving thermostats and at least the light bulbs insulation all that stuff those are all jobs to green jobs jobs and dignity and now with the price of solar wind plummeting we can do those Green Technologies in our Power Production we dont have to pollution just stop a kilowatt hour. In the area of legislation are you happy or have we a long way to go we have a long way to go but weve achieved much success the reason the air is cleaner in l. A. Is not just on the actions of people like me who bought electric cars and did what they could it was a clean air out sun by an environmental radical by the name of Richard Nixon he signed the clean water act the Clean Air Act and thats part of why we have cleaner air its good legislation like that that has helped us do what we need to do to clean up there in l. A. And many other cities so also when you really look at the the cost of things the cost of a home of people look at the cost of a home and see the cost of you know labor and materials thats the way we figure the price of a home but whats the cost of running that home over the long life my house here i built out of steel so it allows hundreds of years over those hundreds of years this house will last what is the cost of you know energy and because i have the 9 kilowatt system of solar pounds on my roof solar hot water all the other green things that i put into this home 12 inch thick walls 10000 gallon rainwater tank grey water system everything that i did to make it a greenhouse makes it short on grain in the long run that is to say need a little greed or money to operate and thats good planning. Nixon was an underrated president domesticity would mean. He certainly was what he did for the environment with the clean water act and the clean air are very good you can get into vietnam and some of his missteps but that certainly was something that johnson did as well too in kennedy there are many people who did the wrong thing and the but as regards the environment he would be considered a moderate democrat today yeah he would the read a. B. A. Recently announced it will not accept that compliance with routine monitoring and reporting the pollution wont push new penalties for breaking these rules critics accuse the trumpet ministration of essentially a license to pollute during the penn demick abuse in that way. Yeah i think its a mistake to go backwards on the environment with our health d you know Health Issues are key when making environmental decisions and making fiscal decisions because of cost a lot of money to take care of sick people with all the respiratory ailments and you get living near to 0 pollution a power plant or some other polluting and ity you know emphysema. All sorts of pulmonary issues we need to have less pollution not more so its a good time to invest in Green Technologies the way weve been doing its been good for us to get off foreign oil to clean up their inner cities and ultimately to put money in our pocket terms claims that the United States has some of the cleanest and sharpest air and water on earth and he said he wants Crystal Clean air and water everywhere what do you make of that i think its something that is doable but i think if you need to do that need to raise the standards for Energy Efficiency going to have lots of subsidies for people so people who can least afford it can do the right thing and pay for insulation an Energy Efficient lighting those things you get a lot of bang for the buck those things that cost very little can save people a lot so increase Energy Efficiency and have federal subsidies for it if you have a Good Environment a lot of people arent getting a sick because Health Care Costs a lot and do those things that really are good Financial Planning for the long run i hope were all in it for the long run what are some some people concerned that the coronavirus will slow down by halves even in direct sales the Climate Change issue do you see that. I hope it doesnt because of the price of not dealing with Climate Change is going to be very extreme we see whats happening in south florida now miami has flooding on the streets you know often during the year we have lots of other coastal areas that have flooding the idea of millions of people being displaced and bangladesh and places like that because of global address the people that really get Climate Change youve been talking about it for decades now are the people at the pentagon the military people know that makes us unsafe and theres tremendous global danger from not paying attention the Climate Change and theyve got military bases you know base of sea level naval bases what hobby the cost of moving those bases and adjusting for Sea Level Rise is a big ticket item for the pentagon they know an Insurance Company knows about it its real its out me musume Climate Change playing a part in the election. I think it will to so