It’s Wednesday, December 15th, and this is your Morning Wire. Listen to the full podcast:
1) Vaccine Mandates Hit Schools
The Topline: The Los Angeles Unified School district, which has some of the strictest COVID-19 policies in the nation, is set to delay enforcing its school vaccine mandate because tens of thousands of students have yet to be fully vaccinated.
Quote Of The Day: “I feel that I was forced to make my son get the shot.”
– Jesenia Salazar, Los Angeles parent
David Crane/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News/Contributor via Getty Images
The Mandate
The Los Angeles Unified School District’s vaccine mandate is one of the strictest in the country and requires that all students 12 and up get two doses of the shot.
There are around 34,000 kids in the district who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19. The current deadline for enforcement is January 10th, but it’s now too late for children who haven’t gotten their first shot yet to be fully vaccinated in time.
Now, Interim Superintendent Megan Reilly has proposed delaying the vaccine mandate deadline until fall of 2022.
If the unvaccinated children want to remain enrolled in the public school district, they would need to sign up for the remote learning program, which is already overwhelmed with issues including staffing shortages, enrollment delays, and poorly trained teachers, leading some kids to miss weeks of school.
Oakland
Public schools in Oakland are attempting to implement a similar mandate, but are experiencing the same problems seen in Los Angeles, though their response has been to double down.
The Oakland Unified School District is planning to kick out unvaccinated students from public school enrollment entirely, or transfer them to independent study schools if they don’t get the shot by January 1st. If a student refuses to be transferred, they will simply be dropped from public school enrollment.
Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images
2) Elon Musk Named Time’s ‘Person Of The Year’
The Topline: Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX and the richest person in the world, has been named Time’s Person of the Year for 2021.
Quote Of The Day: ”I admire anyone who is making a positive contribution to humanity, whether that is in entertainment or technology. I think anyone who is sort of doing things that are really useful for the rest of humanity, I admire them greatly.”
– Elon Musk
‘Person Of The Year’
Time magazine gives out the title of ‘Person of the Year’ to the one person who they say has had the biggest influence over the past year. They describe the title as “the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or ill, and embodied what was important about the year, for better or for worse.”
Time’s editor-in-chief described Musk as “a person with extraordinary influence on life on Earth, and potentially off earth too.”
The award often goes to those in politics, such as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in 2020, Donald Trump in 2016, Rudy Giuliani in 2001, even Joseph Stalin in 1939 and 1942, and Adolf Hitler in 1938.
Musk isn’t the first technology giant to receive this award, however, with Andrew Grove, the chairman and CEO of Intel, receiving the award in 1997. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon was given the award in 1999, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg in 2010.
Reactions
Time’s choice garnered backlash from the mainstream media and radical Left, largely because Musk is known for being an independent thinker who occasionally champions positions that can be characterized as Right-wing.
For example, CNN ran an opinion piece titled “What Elon Musk as ‘Person of the Year’ says about us,” arguing that our culture rejected the scientists who developed the COVID-19 vaccine and health care professionals who treated those with COVID, because we’re fixated on the wealthy, even when their actions are “selfish and irresponsible.”
NBC News ran an article titled “Elon Musk is Time’s 2021 ‘Person of the Year.’ He doesn’t deserve it.” The article rejected the notion that Musk is one of a few Americans whose bold vision for the future can “rescue” the country from stagnation.
Even though Musk is working on multiple projects which could help solve climate change, or lead to the colonization of Mars, his enormous wealth remains a focus for his critics. Musk has also vocally opposed mandatory vaccinations.
SAUL LOEB / Contributor / AFP via Getty Images
3) Understanding The ‘Build Back Better’ Act
The Topline: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has vowed to hold a vote on President Joe Biden’s signature legislation, the “Build Back Better” act, before Congress breaks for the Christmas holiday.
The Bill
The Build Back Better act is a social spending initiative President Joe Biden has said will “transform” the nation’s social fabric. It contains new government programs for taxpayer-funded daycare, government payments with no work requirement, as well as a controversial immigration provision that could pave the way for amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report saying the bill would add $367 billion to the national debt over 10 years as it’s written, but many say those numbers will be even higher in the long term, as the current proposal doesn’t take into account that many provisions will be permanent, not temporary.
For example, in the current proposal, The Child Tax Credit — which gives families a government check of $250 to $300 a month per child — is set to expire in one year, and the universal pre-K and childcare programs disappear after six years, even though lawmakers have said they want all of these programs to be permanent.
At the request of Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the CBO scored the cost of the Build Back Better act if all of its provisions lasted all 10 years, which is likely if the bill passes.
In total, the CBO estimated that without the budgetary sleights-of-hand, the Build Back Better act “would increase the deficit by $3 trillion over” 10 years, which adds almost $25,000 in new debt for each and every American household.
Childcare
The act establishes a sliding scale of payments based on people’s income.
The government would cap childcare costs at 7% of income for almost everyone, meaning even those in the top 10% of income earners could qualify for government subsidies, but mothers who want to stay at home and raise their own children receive nothing under the bill.
In addition, these taxpayer subsidies are offered “without regard to the immigration status” of the recipient.
The Build Back Better act would substantially raise the cost of childcare by forcing nearly every childcare worker to earn a bachelor’s degree; then making daycares pay workers the same as elementary school teachers.
Immigration
The bill allows approximately 6.5 million illegal immigrants to become lawful permanent residents of the United States, which would broaden its recipients’ eligibility to receive such government programs as food stamps, Obamacare subsidies, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, the Child Tax Credits, and other government programs.
The CBO estimates this will cost U.S. taxpayers nearly half-a-trillion dollars over the next 20 years — $483.4 billion, to be specific.
Other Items
The act will expand the Affordable Care Act, making those who earn up to 400% of the poverty level eligible for government subsidies. It would also essentially override states that chose not to expand Medicaid under the original Obamacare act by making those people eligible for no-pay insurance plans on Obamacare exchanges.
Tasos Katopodis/Stringer/Getty Images
Other Stories We’re Tracking
January 6
The January 6 Committee voted to hold former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress this week and is demanding access to his personal communications. After initially handing over official communications records, Meadows has stopped cooperating with the committee. Republicans have generally dismissed the ongoing Jan. 6 investigations as political theater.
NFL
The NFL is now requiring COVID-19 booster shots for all coaches and staff in the league. The booster is required by December 27th for Tier 1 and Tier 2 personnel. Tier 1 contains coaches, physicians and trainers. Tier 2 includes general managers and front office staff. Players are currently exempt from the booster, pending negotiations with the Players Association.