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Webinar: Where things stand on economic stimulus

The Bipartisan Policy Center and Yahoo Finance team up to break down the latest on unemployment insurance, economic stimulus, the state of the US economy. Featuring Jason Grumet, founder and president of the Bipartisan Policy Center, and Yahoo Finance's Kristin Myers.

Video Transcript

JASON GRUMET: Good evening. Thank you for joining the Bipartisan Policy Center and Yahoo Finance for a conversation about the challenges facing our economy, economic stimulus, and in particular, I think we're going to dig in a little bit on issues around unemployment insurance. BPC and Yahoo Finance are starting a series of conversations leading up to the November election that is focusing on the critical economic issues facing the country. True to form, we are going to be bringing in perspectives on the left and right, and we are going to be having constructive dialogue anchored in evidence. It is our solemn hope that Chris Wallace is able to do some version of the same tonight when economic issues come up in the first presidential debate.

But today's conversation is the first in the series that we are doing together and is focusing on the stalled efforts on Capitol Hill to provide relief to struggling families and businesses necessary to support an economic recovery. With public health and economic outlook quite uncertain, major employers are discussing significant layoffs-- the airlines is in the front of that line. And we are also finding that many small businesses are shutting the doors for good.

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At the heart of the negotiations on Capitol Hill right now is the question about unemployment insurance. The additional $600 in weekly benefits that were critical to so many families lapsed in July. And now roughly two months later, lawmakers continue to be at odds about how to balance financial relief with the challenges of rebuilding a labor market.

It is not the only unresolved issue Congress is grappling with. They're also trying to figure out what to do about state and local government funding. Questions about how we can restore and encourage small businesses. And lawmakers are also grappling with how to best support schools and child care program. According to a study we did at the Bipartisan Policy Center, 70% of parents report that their child care options are shut down or operating with very limited opportunities. And 3/4 of all parents indicate that their school systems are either virtual or hybrid. As I can speak from personal experience, this is a logistical and technical challenge for our economy and our families, and further complicating ability for us to get the economy back up and running.

So we have lots to talk about and it is a pleasure now to turn today's discussion over to our moderator, Kristin Myers of Yahoo Finance. Kristin?

KRISTIN MYERS: Jason, thank you for that introduction. Welcome, everyone, and thank you all for joining us. Today's discussion is coming at an important time as at the end of August, nearly 14 million people still remain unemployed. That's largely due to the coronavirus pandemic. That's an unemployment rate of 8.4%. According to a July survey from the US Chamber of Commerce, 70% of small business owners worry about financial hardships due to their business closures.

And women are feeling the strain the most. With schools closed and child care options limited, 25% of women are staying out of work to take care of their kids. For context, that's compared to less than 10% of men. And with the first presidential debate coming up tonight, it's likely we will be hearing from the president and presidential candidate, Joe Biden, on these issues. So I'm giving you just some of the statistics, but for a better perspective on how this pandemic is impacting people across the country, I want to start today's conversation with Cynthia Swick. She's the executive director of the anti-poverty group, Wildfire, based in Phoenix, Arizona. Cynthia, thank you so much for joining us today.

I want to start on the CARES Act. That expired. Congress is currently stalled over the next package. And in your state of Arizona, extra unemployment benefits of $300 that were authorized by the president through that executive order, they've already run out. I'm wondering if you can explain for us how people are being impacted by this not just in Arizona, but also, across the country.

CYNTHIA SWICK: Sure, good morning, Kristin. Well, I think it's a fairly significant impact. What we're seeing now is that folks who are eligible for unemployment in Arizona are relying on a $240 a week payment, which is insufficient to live on. We're seeing a lot of folks now who have been sick because of COVID struggling with health care bills, particularly those who have been under insured or uninsured completely.

And we're facing a significant eviction crisis here in Arizona as many other states are facing, as well. So this is a really-- a really difficult time for a lot of people. Utility companies have suspended disconnections for folks. So there's-- there's an opportunity for a whole lot of debt to be aggregating for these families that are continuing to struggle with unemployment generally.

KRISTIN MYERS: So I know that you just mentioned evictions, I'm wondering-- and also debt. But I'm wondering for you, as someone who works in anti-poverty trying to prevent people from falling into poverty, what is the greatest concern for you as you look forward for the next couple of months?

CYNTHIA SWICK: Well, I think one of the biggest concerns that we have is there doesn't appear to be any federal relief coming to the states. And while the CDC has postponed evictions through the end of the year-- as I said, utility companies have now postponed disconnections through the end of the year-- we don't see any funding to help those families coming from the federal government and the states are pretty tapped out.

So I think from a couple a month perspective, we have the potential to see hundreds of thousands of people evicted here in Arizona. We have the opportunity to see a lot of people lose their electric service, which affects not only individuals just needing to survive, but kids who are now studying from home. And so we're really concerned about this overall crisis.

It's also affecting small businesses in our state, many of which have closed. We have a heavy service industry economy here, and so a lot of those families are now unemployed, underemployed. And many of the businesses that have employed them are shutting down or have laid them off indefinitely. So we think there is a huge crisis brewing, frankly.

KRISTIN MYERS: So as I mentioned just a moment ago, talks in Congress have stalled. I know that you're mentioning issues around debt around homelessness. I'm wondering if you can highlight for us what's needed in future legislation to prevent a looming poverty and homelessness crisis that you're mentioning.

CYNTHIA SWICK: Well, I think we need a significant influx of funding to help not only tenants who are struggling, but we're concerned about landlords who are also not receiving their monthly rent payments. We're concerned about homeowners who are unable to pay their mortgages. So I think-- honestly, what I think we need is a significant influx of funding that looks more holistically at the needs of our communities, and really weaves together support that will sustain a pretty broad swath of the economy that's struggling. And not just focusing on kind of these siloed approaches to some of the support, though those have been important, and have been utilized fully here.

But I think what we really need to look at is what is going to happen in January, for example, or before, that is going to affect so many families. And we need a significant influx of support that really bolsters of the economy, not just those who are at risk of being evicted from their homes. So they certainly our first priority.

KRISTIN MYERS: All right. Well thank, you, Cynthia Swick. I want to turn now over to our panel. We're joined now by Mandy Doppler, senior fellow for fiscal policy at the National Taxpayers Union, and economist, Betsey Stevenson. She's a former member of the Council of Economic Advisors under President Obama and a former chief economist at the Labor Department.

So I want to get right to it. We just heard some of the concerns highlighted by Cynthia. Now Republicans and Democrats are still trillions of dollars apart on economic relief packages. One of the thornier issues that Jason had been mentioning as a part of that debate is around enhanced unemployment insurance, particularly how much money-- extra money should be doled out to folks in need of that benefit.

So Maddie, I want to start with you here, given your experience working in the House Republican Conference. Republicans want reductions in the amount of enhanced UI. We just heard from Cynthia about the poverty crisis that could be looming. I'm wondering from your perspective is the right path for Republicans to be taking or should they back down on that $600 that Democrats want as a part of the next package?

MADDIE DOPPLER: Well, let's be clear. It would not be a reduction at this point, because the expansion of the $600 a week has of course, expired. So now the conversation is do we put new benefits on top of the benefits that people are already eligible for at the state level. This was a conversation that took place during the CARES Act debate-- so during-- in April, when Congress passed its last COVID relief legislation bill. There were several senators who raised concerns about the fact that a worker could be paid more on unemployment than when they were working.

Now I do think particularly in April when we did not know the depth of the coronavirus crisis, we did not know how long it was going to beleaguer the economy, and we didn't know a lot about how the economy was going to recover, this was a little bit of a tone deaf argument. Arguing over whether or not a server should make a couple dollars extra in the depths of a recession, I think, is not necessarily where policymakers should be concentrating their energy.

Now that we're several months through this, there are considerations that policymakers are making. One is that over the course of the summer, while the public health situation was certainly worse than anticipating-- than most had anticipated, the economic circumstances were much more positive than a lot of estimates had suggested. We certainly saw a resiliency to the American economy on display that I don't think either Congress nor most economic observers were expecting.

That to me indicates that there is-- there's a lot of work being done here by American businesses, workers, and consumers to figure out how to live life and to engage in commercial activity that, you know, in April, we just simply didn't know how to do before there was a vaccine for the coronavirus. So I think that that is a silver lining to the debate now.

Now as policymakers continue to talk about the UI benefit, that is a sticking point, but I would say that the conversation in Washington has actually turned more to this focus on top lines-- how much the total package is going to cost. To me, this is a frustration that I think folks across the political spectrum share, which is that we're not using data and we're not talking about the effect of public policy. Whether or not the final bill is 2.3 trillion or 3 trillion doesn't matter if the policy doesn't have the impact that it was intended to have. We just heard from Cynthia about her concerns on the ground in Arizona about preventing homelessness, preventing utilities from being shut off, preventing more mortgage foreclosures.

What I think policymakers should be doing is looking at their policies and asking whether or not it accomplishes those goals, regardless of the top number. Certainly, prudence in financial policy making is important. But when you're at a point right now-- Fed chairman Jay Powell, I think, has a great line on this. He says we went from the best employment landscape in nearly 50 years to one of the worst employment situations in nearly 100 years. That is the acute crisis that we're suffering through right now and policymakers need to be asking what we can do with tax dollars-- with a limited number of tax dollars-- but what we can do that gives us the best bang for our buck to ensure that the most number of people are protected during these unprecedented circumstances.

Right now, Congress is not asking that question. The administration and House Democrats are continuing to have these negotiations. My hope is that we can move past this arguing about top line numbers and have a real conversation about policy that actually provides a social safety net that Americans are looking for as we wade through the fall and the winter, where the public health situation is very much still uncertain.

KRISTIN MYERS: So Betsey, Maddie obviously hit on a lot of issues just now in her response. I want to pick up on one of them, which is that critique about the enhanced UI-- about it being a disincentive to work. We've heard that line repeatedly. You are an economist, you worked at the Labor Department. I'm wondering, one, how we should be approaching the debate specifically around that enhanced UI, but also, how should we be approaching the debate? Part of what Maddie just said, that top line number, how we really should instead be thinking about how effective and how efficient some of the policies and programs as a part of that next package should be.

BETSEY STEVENSON: So Maddie and I agree on that, right? We should be looking at what policies are going to be effective, and then figuring out how much we really need to spend. You know, the top line number does matter in terms of fiscal policy-- you know, how big is a hole we need to fill. But I think-- you know, that's what really mattered in March and April.

And what I think we learned from the really incredibly rapid response from Congress with the CARES Act was that when Congress acts, when they immediately do targeted relief that puts money back in people's pockets, they make a huge difference. You know, what we saw in May was that the pandemic was far from over, but the worst of the recession was. And that was really directly a result of the amount of money that was handed to people, and they were able to pick their spending back up, because spending had fallen off a cliff. Not because of shutdowns, but because people were terrified-- terrified not just of getting COVID, but terrified of not being able to pay their bills, not being able to put food on the table. And so they really cut back on all sorts of spending.

And I think what-- what we're looking at right now is asking the question what do we need to be giving people who are unemployed? We still would benefit a lot from getting money to people who are-- who are unemployed. Those are some of the hardest-hit folks. So I think going through the unemployment insurance system does actually match our goal of targeting to people who need money, right? Other policies like cutting payroll taxes is targeting the wrong people. Those are the people who kept their job. We want to be targeting the people who've lost their job. So how much money should we give them?

The problem is our unemployment insurance system is kind of broken, right? You know, it doesn't give people very much. You often hear that it gives people 50% of their pay, but that's only up to a cap, and that cap varies across states. And I would say the typical person earning median earnings in the United States is maybe getting a third of their pay through unemployment insurance. And that's just too little. It's too little to have them not face foreclosures and hunger and all the kinds of problems we've heard about.

So what do we need to do? It would be great if we had a UI system where we could just dial it up and say let's hit people at 100% of their pay because that's what they deserve right now. Unfortunately, we don't. And I think that's a problem that I hope we could actually address at some point. But until then, I think we do need to be aiming to getting people something close to 100% of their salary, because right now, there are so many people unemployed that people can-- there are plenty of people to take the jobs.

Our problem is all the people who don't have jobs. We're still seeing 800,000 people a week filing brand new unemployment insurance claims through the regular state program. That was the worst week in the 2008 recession. And now our recovery looks like the worst week in the 2008 recession. So we really do have to bolster this system for quite some time.

And I think the last thing I really want to say, because nobody is talking about it, is it's not just about the supplemental payments. These supplemental payments are necessary, but we are barreling towards the end of the year when all the additional people that we've provided unemployment insurance to through the pandemic unemployment insurance program are going to lose eligibility. Right now, there are 26 million people getting some kind of benefit, and roughly half of them are getting it through that expansion of the number of people who are covered. And when that comes to an end, we're going to see really catastrophic outcomes as millions, if not over 10 million people are kicked off of getting any kind of benefits at all.

KRISTIN MYERS: Betsey, I'm going to stick with you for just a moment. We're obviously talking about how this pandemic is impacting millions of Americans on an individual basis, but I want to turn now to small businesses in particular-- PPP is also a large part of any economic relief packages. And small businesses like restaurants for example are saying frankly that the money that they've received is running out and we have winter coming up. I'm wondering for you what the concern is. As you're looking at small businesses, how you see them faring and the biggest concerns and top line issues that could be facing them through these winter months?

BETSEY STEVENSON: You know, PPP was an innovative program that, you know, again, it's just remarkable how quickly Congress acted in the spring and you just gotta contrast that with how slowly they're acting right now. It's frustrating, because they can act quickly when they want to and put together a brand new program like PPP, which early research suggests actually accomplished the goal of keeping businesses open and keeping workers attached to those businesses.

Now the goals of PPP were broader than that. The idea was to preserve employment relationships, prevent bankruptcy in the long run. We haven't had the long run yet. What we've learned is that the pandemic is far from over and I think we've been waiting around for a vaccine as if a vaccine is going to really change everything. And we're learning that a vaccine is not going to change things overnight.

So what businesses need to be doing is thinking about how they can run their business safely in a world in which there are and is a contagious disease that is potentially lethal for some people. I think a lot of businesses are going to need to invest in new HVAC systems improving their airflow, they're going to need to be have fewer people in the space.

I'm not sure how businesses can survive that, but what Congress can do is help the businesses that need to make infrastructure investments in order to be able to make it to the other side-- make those investments. So I do think that it's more than just keeping people on payroll until a vaccine comes. We've got to figure out how we help some of these businesses transform for a new era-- an era in which-- that could last a few years, in which people are vigilant in protecting themselves against a contagious virus.

KRISTIN MYERS: So Maddie, picking up on what Betsey just said about how legislators can get small businesses particularly through the winter months, which is very hard for them, I'm wondering, because in one interview, I was watching you called the politics and the reality around COVID as two very different things. Now you were talking about efficiencies as a part of programs and any sort of stimulus package, and while the PPP program was very innovative, as Betsey just mentioned, it also was full of a lot of failures-- a lot of inefficiencies and a lot of holes.

I'm wondering for you as you're looking at this, how should legislatures-- legislators, excuse me-- be approaching PPP in the next program? And to Betsey's question, how can they get them through the next couple of months and through the year?

MADDIE DOPPLER: So one of the things that I've been working on-- I am also a senior fellow at the National Taxpayers Union-- something we've been arguing for a while is that what Congress needs to do is harmonize some other elements of care as with PPP to allow for broader support in to the end of the year for small businesses. So we're looking at things like the employee retention tax credit, which was also a part of CARES, which allowed for employers to take a bigger tax break on the wages that they plan to pay their employees.

Because Congress didn't want to see double dipping with federal funds going out the door with PPP and the ERTC, they disallowed for employers essentially to participate in both we've been arguing that there's a way to harmonize those benefits so that when funds and when loans run out for PPP, businesses then can take advantage of the ERTC. The draft actually released last night by House Democrats does do some of that by expanding the use of ERTC.

We think that would be one way that A, Democrats and Republicans can join forces to continue to build on the bipartisan success of CARES but B, also provide that continued support. The things like Betsey mentioned like capital expenses for businesses, I think are so important. Those, of course, are already deductible and fully deductible as a result of the tax cut and JOBS Act.

But that's something that businesses are going to be struggling with through the coming months and years. Betsey is right when we look at the vaccine, that's really kind of the starting goalpost and how we get businesses back to a quote, unquote, "normal." And by normal here, I mean really just being able to function in an environment where they're not afraid for their employees getting sick or at least not to the extent that they are now. And consumers feel that they can engage in behavior again.

Data suggests that even before states started shutting down businesses, consumers were already staying home because they were afraid of the coronavirus and we didn't know enough about COVID itself to know what kind of behavior was safe to participate in. That's the exact same phenomena we're going to be experiencing as we try to recover, which is that consumers aren't going to start engaging in behavior, and businesses aren't going to start engaging in the same kind of commercial behavior they were engaged in prior to the shutdowns until they know for sure that they can do that safely, both for themselves, their employees, and for their customers.

So I think that's really where Congress needs to be focused. How do they provide certainty in an arena where there is so much uncertainty right now-- it's what, September 29-- so right now, we're at the end of September. September, I think, has always been a very tricky month, because you see a lot of those support-- a lot of the support that was in CARES start to run out. The SBA lending authority for those PPP loans expired, it's done. The support for the airlines, the payroll support for airlines runs out tomorrow. And of course, we haven't seen any further activity from Congress to extend that.

And then the other elements of the unemployment insurance system that Betsey mentioned that were put into place by the Families First Act and by the CARES Act is expanded unemployment benefit that allows people for whom they've-- they've used up all of their employment benefits as they start to get off those payrolls and into the expanded programs that are in place right now-- that's going to start to expire at the end of the year. And of course, all of this is happening against the backdrop of colder weather, which we know is dangerous for the virus, and is also going to force people indoors, and a presidential election. So there's political uncertainty here, too.

So what Congress can do, first and foremost, if I was just going to put one fine point on it, is provide certainty for employers right now, because a lot of employees, even though we're still seeing 800,000 people claim unemployment benefits every week-- a lot of employees still believe they're on temporary furlough. Congress's job is to ensure that it's temporary so people can get back to work.

KRISTIN MYERS: Betsey, I want to move over now to child care, because obviously, if businesses are able to stay open, people are able to keep their jobs. I mentioned a little bit earlier that unfortunately, women are suffering in this area. 25% of them choosing to stay out of work to take care of their children. I'm wondering if you are concerned that because of child care, that we could be sending back women, who are already struggling with the wage gap, for years to come because of this pandemic? And how should Congress approach child care issues in any future stimulus packages?

BETSEY STEVENSON: You know, in December, women hit, really, a milestone, which was they became the majority of non-farm payroll job holders. And they held that position in January and February. And they were really on track for that kind of growth to continue.

Women have invested more in education than men for several decades. They have increased their job tenure and experience on the job to be equal of that of men and in some cases, obviously, exceeding. And they are-- they have increasingly become equal earners in the home and sometimes top earners in the home at higher rates. So we have women having really come into their own in the economy and then the pandemic hit. And they got hit really extra hard in two ways.

One was I really call it a gendered shutdown, because the industries that shut down the most are ones that had greater than 50% of their employees were women. Women work disproportionately in leisure and hospitality. That's still-- the employment is still down 25% from where it was pre-pandemic. And it declined-- fell in half at the worst part. So they lost jobs in the industries in which they're focused, and those jobs are not all back. And one of the maybe blessings as for some of these women that were losing jobs-- well, they don't have a job, so they could stay home with their kids who didn't have school.

So unfortunately, though, that's now not a blessing. It's a curse. They can't take new jobs. There are a lot of women who haven't gone back to work. Their employers said, OK we're going to open the office, and they're, like, I got nowhere to put my kid. And so they're the one who doesn't go back. And I think that's one of the reasons why we're seeing a lot of employers, you know, they're going back to maybe 90% staff, and hey, it's OK, because the 10% who are coming back really can't, because they've got these kids at home.

The problem I see is, you know, as that lasts a long time-- we know that when women stay in the labor force for a long time it becomes harder for them to get back in. It means that they're going to be on a lower career trajectory, a lower wage trajectory probably for the rest of their life. And as these women are out at home taking care of their kids, they're also starting to potentially struggle with eldercare issues. And they may find by the time their kids go fully back to school, which may not be until the fall of 2021, that they've also taken on other caregiving responsibilities in their family, and they're just not the bandwidth to go back to work.

So I am very frightened that women have set themselves back decades. What we see is women's labor force participation is where it was in the mid-'80s, right? So where are we today? It's 2020 and women have tumbled all the way back to the mid-'80s. And it's going to be a struggle to get us back to 2020. So I am extremely concerned about this.

Childcare employment remains 20% below where it was at the peak, so one in five childcare workers have not gone back. And we already have a shortage. And what we've learned about the virus is that it's airborne, right? And that's what's really become clear over time. And so we talk about the winter months, I think a lot of parents are going to feel nervous and concerned about putting their kids back in facilities that perhaps really haven't done the investment necessary to ensure that they have the air flow that can mean their kids stay healthy.

I mean, look, when I had kids, the first thing I joked about was putting them in childcare-- was putting them in a Petri dish of germs, and we were all going to be sick all winter long. We all know that's what child care is about-- it's about bringing the germs home. And now, the germs are actually much more dangerous than they've ever been. And I think a lot of families are wrestling with that. It's a really difficult situation, and so I am incredibly concerned about what this is going to mean.

And really, Congress isn't doing enough. I've seen what Congress can do when it wants to save an industry. Look what it did for the banks in 2008. Look what it's done for the airlines. It's got to say that child care is as important a part of our economy as banks were and are. And it's got to say that child care is as important as airlines and it needs to make it a priority. It needs to bend over backwards to make sure that they can do the infrastructure improvements that they need to be able to bring kids back safely, to be able to boost employment.

To ensure that wages and training for child care improve in a way that will attract women back and that will make families feel safe putting their kids back in childcare. This is going to be not just what we need to do right now, but what we're going to have to be putting a lot of our energy towards over the next year or two-- is building back up our childcare infrastructure so that we-- and helping women who've stepped out of the labor force get back in and get back to where they were before.

KRISTIN MYERS: Now Maddie, obviously, Betsey raising a lot of alarm bells. And as she just mentioned, Congress can do more and should do more. This is something that you've also said throughout this discussion. But I want to turn now to the White House. We have a presidential debate tonight, the election is just 35 days away. I'm wondering in your mind, what do you think needs to be a priority for the next administration, whether it is a Trump administration or a Biden administration-- what should they prioritize as soon as the election is over and they take office to really support any recovery going forward?

MADDIE DOPPLER: Well, the only thing I disagree with-- with what Betsey said is that I don't think the child care question when it comes to public policy is going to be pervasive for the next year. I think it needs to be front and center for the next 10 years until we get it right. I'm one of those people who have a one-year-old at home wondering why it took a pandemic for all of a sudden, the rest of the country to realize that unless we support families, we can never get to the full economic recovery. But that was the conversation all summer, right?

All of a sudden, these families who hadn't had to contemplate what they do with their kids because school had always been an option for them because they had older kids, were saying, well, wait a second, We can't have a full economic recovery until kids go back to school. That's absolutely correct. But in this country, it's a proposition that we force people with kids under five to reconcile with every single day. So I do-- you know, if there's one silver lining here, I hope that it's public policymakers on all ends of the spectrum start to acknowledge that child care is a crucial component of infrastructure for not only a healthy economy, but for a robust-- a robust and prosperous economy for all Americans. This is something that can help start bringing down some of the achievement gaps that we see in our country.

But moving onto your point about the administration-- it's an interesting time for this presidential election, because what we see in polling and data damage indicates that Americans see coronavirus as a once in a lifetime event, which it likely is. As a result, though, they see the current economic conditions as temporary. So a lot of people who are already [INAUDIBLE] they want to vote for [INAUDIBLE] Trump [INAUDIBLE] a tribute to what he [INAUDIBLE] to having a strong economy up until last year they see right now as being anachronistic. And that eventually, the recovery will get us back to where we need to be.

You know, the other side, of course, of that is why I think we'll see Vice President Biden argue today, which is that this was avoidable, we didn't have to have as much of an economic collapse in dealing with the coronavirus as we did. And the reason that we're in these dire circumstances now is because we didn't have a public policy in place to support such acute circumstances.

And I think both sides actually are right. I think the argument can be made to both sides of the political ledger that these circumstances could have been avoidable or could have been worse if the economy had been in worse shape in 2019. So it'll be interesting to see how they can do that today with the first debate [INAUDIBLE] in the coming weeks. I [INAUDIBLE] typically, what we see are Americans, their opinions on the economy, crystalize a lot sooner in an election cycle.

By this point, most Americans would have their minds made up about what-- how they feel about their own economic circumstances, and as a result, how they would vote in a presidential. I think in this year, what we'll see is candidates can really run all the way up to the post in order to make that argument to two Americans up until election day.

KRISTIN MYERS: All right, well, I will have to leave that there. That was a great talk. I want to thank both Maddie and Betsey for participating. I'm going to send this now back over to you, Jason. I wish we had more time. There were so many more topics that we wanted to get into, for example, around state funding. But unfortunately, as always happens, not enough time to get through all of the topics that we wanted to chat. So I'll send it now back to you.

JASON GRUMET: Well, thank you, Kristin. You know, the key to the Bipartisan Policy Center is always keeping wanting more. And that's why we're delighted that this is just the first in a series of discussions will be co-hosting with Yahoo Finance. I want to just share your thanks to Maddie, Betsey, and Cynthia for a really great discussion. I think it revealed what we know, which is the economy is at an inflection point.

And I think the revelation that our ambivalent recovery is kind of barreling towards a cliff when it comes to small businesses, out of work folks, and I think the real focus on child care is very important. It's something that the Bipartisan Policy Center has cared and thought about a lot. I want to suggest if anyone is interested, they hop on bipartisanpolicy.org, where we have a number of specific recommendations on child care and unemployment insurance and some other of the key points of contention. True to the Bipartisan Policy Center, we are proposing ideas that have resonance with the core beliefs and ideologies of both parties. And so we hopefully encourage the Congress to step up and engage what we know is a continuing crisis.

So with that, on behalf of the Bipartisan Policy Center and Yahoo Finance, thank you for joining us. Our next segment is going to be on tax policy in the 2020 election and I hope that this conversation was a little bit of a warm up for what's going to be, I'm sure, a rather special presidential debate starting just in a few hours. So Kristin, thank you so much.