IN THE BIDEN ERA FALL BY WAYSIDE INFLATION FEARS · 2/16/2021 · emy fire started pelting the...
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U(D54G1D)y+"!:!?!$!= WASHINGTON — Presidents who find themselves digging out of recessions have long heeded the warnings of inflation-ob- sessed economists, who fear that acting aggressively to stimulate a struggling economy will bring a return of the monstrous price in- creases that plagued the nation in the 1970s. Now, as President Biden presses ahead with plans for a $1.9 trillion stimulus package, he and his top economic advisers are brushing those warnings aside, as is the Federal Reserve under Chair Jerome H. Powell. After years of dire inflation pre- dictions that failed to pan out, the people who run fiscal and mone- tary policy in Washington have decided the risk of “overheating” the economy is much lower than the risk of failing to heat it up enough. Democrats in the House plan to spend this week finalizing Mr. Bi- den’s plan to pump nearly $2 tril- lion into the economy, including direct checks to Americans and more generous unemployment benefits, with the aim of holding a floor vote as early as next week. The Senate is expected to quickly take up the proposal as soon as it clears the House, in the hopes of sending a final bill to Mr. Biden’s desk early next month. Fed offi- cials have signaled that they plan to keep holding rates near zero and buying government-backed debt at a brisk clip to stoke growth. The Fed and the administration are staying the course despite a growing outcry from some econo- mists across the political spec- trum, including Lawrence Sum- mers, a former Treasury secre- tary and top adviser in the Clinton and Obama administrations, who INFLATION FEARS FALL BY WAYSIDE IN THE BIDEN ERA A WORRY SINCE THE ’70S Policymakers See More Danger in Passing a Small Stimulus By JIM TANKERSLEY and JEANNA SMIALEK Continued on Page A13 When the Pennsylvania Su- preme Court unanimously re- jected a Republican attempt to overturn the state’s election re- sults in November, Justice David N. Wecht issued his own pointed rebuke, condemning the G.O.P. ef- fort as “futile” and “a dangerous game.” “It is not our role to lend legiti- macy to such transparent and un- timely efforts to subvert the will of Pennsylvania voters,” wrote Jus- tice Wecht, a Democrat who was elected to a 10-year term on the bench in 2016. “Courts should not decide elections when the will of the voters is clear.” Now Pennsylvania Republicans have a plan to make it less likely that judges like Justice Wecht get in their way. Republican legislators, dozens of whom supported overturning the state’s election results to aid former President Donald J. Trump, are moving to change the entire way that judges are se- lected in Pennsylvania, in a gam- bit that could tip the scales of the judiciary to favor their party, or at least elect judges more inclined to embrace Republican election challenges. The proposal would replace the current system of statewide elec- tions for judges with judicial dis- tricts drawn by the Republican- controlled legislature. Those dis- tricts could empower rural, pre- dominantly conservative areas and particularly rewire the State Supreme Court, which has a 5-to-2 Democratic lean. Democrats are now mobilizing to fight the effort, calling it a thinly veiled attempt to create a new lev- el of gerrymandering — an escala- tion of the decades-old practice of drawing congressional and state legislative districts to ensure that political power remains in one party’s hands. Democrats are marshaling grass-roots opposi- tion, holding regular town hall events on Zoom and planning so- cial media campaigns and call-in days to legislators, as well as an enormous voter education cam- Pushing to Tilt State’s Courts To the G.O.P. Pennsylvania Bill Aims at Judicial Districts By NICK CORASANITI Continued on Page A17 AUSTIN, Texas — A massive winter storm bulldozed its way across the southern and central United States on Monday, leaving millions of people without power amid freezing temperatures, sending vehicles crashing into one another on ice-glazed high- ways and bringing blizzard-like conditions to places where snow- fall is usually the news from else- where. The storm was notable for its enormous reach — 150 million people were under storm warn- ings — and for a particularly per- ilous element it brought nearly ev- erywhere: ice. It left a treacher- ous varnish on roads across a mid- section of the country, including places where driving on ice is a rarity. It was as confounding a storm as it was punishing. Snow blan- keted Gulf of Mexico beaches and people went ice sledding on the roads of southern Louisiana. Ala- bama was warned of brutal ice storms in some places and of pos- sible tornado outbreaks in others. Temperatures were lower in Austin than in Anchorage, Alaska. “It’s snowing in Houston and it’s going to be raining in Pennsyl- vania,” said Charles Ross, a me- teorologist with the National Weather Service in State College, Pa. “When does that ever hap- pen?” The state of Texas woke up on Monday to the worst winter on- slaught in decades. The state was blanketed by one of its largest snowfalls on record and grappling with hundreds of thousands of power outages, flight cancella- tions and urgent warnings from government leaders and emer- gency supervisors to stay put and reduce electric consumption. The 8 degrees recorded in Austin was the lowest in 32 years, forecasters said, and the 6.4 inches of snow Winter’s Icy Grip Wreaks Havoc Across the U.S. This article is by David Mont- gomery, Campbell Robertson, Clif- ford Krauss and Marie Fazio. A group of students from the University of Texas at Austin, where snow rarely falls, helped push a car off the road on Monday. TAMIR KALIFA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Southern States Are Hit Hard by Slick Roads and Power Losses Continued on Page A13 WASHINGTON — As the Re- publican Party censures, con- demns and seeks to purge leaders who aren’t in lock step with Don- ald J. Trump, Adam Kinzinger, the six-term Illinois congressman, stands as enemy No. 1 — unwel- come not just in his party but also in his own family, some of whom recently disowned him. Two days after Mr. Kinzinger called for removing Mr. Trump from office following the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, 11 members of his family sent him a handwritten two-page letter, saying he was in cahoots with “the devil’s army” for making a public break with the president. “Oh my, what a disappointment you are to us and to God!” they wrote. “You have embarrassed the Kinzinger family name!” The author of the letter was Karen Otto, Mr. Kinzinger’s cous- in, who paid $7 to send it by certi- fied mail to Mr. Kinzinger’s father — to make sure the congressman would see it, which he did. She also sent copies to Republicans across Illinois, including other members of the state’s congressional dele- gation. “I wanted Adam to be shunned,” she said in an interview. A 42-year-old Air National Guard pilot who represents a cres- cent-shaped district along the Chi- cago’s suburbs, Mr. Kinzinger is at the forefront of the effort to navi- gate post-Trump politics. He is betting his political career, profes- sional relationships and kinship with a wing of his sprawling fam- ily that his party’s future lies in disavowing Mr. Trump and the conspiracy theories the former Lonely Quest To Repudiate Trump Wing By REID J. EPSTEIN Continued on Page A17 Capt. Paris Davis was in the thick of a pre-dawn raid on an ene- my camp in Vietnam when a grenade blasted out several of his teeth and, more troubling, tore off part of his trigger finger. Then en- emy fire started pelting the Spe- cial Forces team he commanded. His most experienced sergeant was shot down. Then the demoli- tions specialist. Then the only medic. It was June 18, 1965, and accord- ing to after-action reports, 26- year-old Captain Davis was sud- denly the last American standing with a ragtag company of 90 South Vietnamese volunteers, pinned down by hundreds of enemy troops. Certain that he was as good as dead, he began fighting without fear of consequence, pulling his M-16 trigger with his pinkie, sprinting repeatedly into open ground to rescue teammates, and refusing to leave the fight, even af- ter being shot several times. He made it out alive, and was immediately nominated for the military’s highest award, the Med- al of Honor. But the Army some- how lost the nomination. His frus- U.S. May Honor a Black Soldier, 56 Years Later By DAVE PHILIPPS Veterans Ask Why the Paperwork Vanished Capt. Paris Davis, center, showing his camp in South Vietnam to Gen. William Westmoreland, left. VIA RON DEIS Continued on Page A15 Fifteen-year-old Braden Wilson was frightened of Covid-19. He was careful to wear masks and only left his house, in Simi Valley, Calif., for things like orthodontist checkups and visits with his grandparents nearby. But somehow, the virus found Braden. It wreaked ruthless dam- age in the form of an inflamma- tory syndrome that, for unknown reasons, strikes some young peo- ple, usually several weeks after infection by the coronavirus. Doctors at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles put the teenager on a ventilator and a heart-lung by- pass machine. But they could not stop his major organs from failing. On Jan. 5, “they officially said he was brain-dead,” his mother, Amanda Wilson, recounted, sob- bing. “My boy was gone.” Doctors across the country have been seeing a striking in- crease in the number of young people with the condition Braden had, which is called Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Chil- dren or MIS-C. Even more worri- some, they say, is that more pa- tients are now very sick than dur- ing the first wave of cases, which Covid Syndrome in Children Growing in Severity By PAM BELLUCK Inflammation Malady Is Still Rare, Doctors Say Continued on Page A6 LAYLAH AMATULLAH BARRAYN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES A line formed before dawn to honor Cicely Tyson, the pioneering actress and paragon for civil rights who died last month. Page A15. Harlem Salutes Its ‘Trueborn Queen’ Two weeks after a coup, growing work stoppages are undermining the gener- als’ attempt to assert authority. PAGE A8 INTERNATIONAL A7-11 Myanmar Goes on Strike The cancellation of parades was a blow. But Elliott White, above, and others still had a plan for the floats. PAGE B1 BUSINESS B1-6 Salvaging Part of Mardi Gras Spring training begins this week as Major League Baseball and the nation cope with steep challenges. Above, Cubs fans in Mesa, Ariz. PAGE B7 SPORTSTUESDAY B7-9 A (Small) Break in the Clouds Two House impeachment managers have emerged as the high-profile faces of an increasingly young and diverse Democratic coalition. PAGE A14 NATIONAL A12-17 Impeachment Trial’s Star Turns Whether playing a singer (in “Lola”) or an aging lesbian (in “Two of Us”), the actress Barbara Sukowa brings a deter- mined persona to her roles. PAGE C1 ARTS C1-6 As Headstrong as Ever State antitrust cases have created openings for numerous private lawsuits against Google and Apple. PAGE B1 Helping the Little Guys Kaliningrad, Russia, searches for mean- ing in a building many see as an egre- gious architectural mistake. PAGE A7 Revamping a Soviet Symbol A Twitter account that reports sightings of rare birds in New York City has exposed a rift among birders. PAGE A12 Upsetting the Pecking Order This week’s section includes articles on new research on vaccines, the rise of coronavirus variants and efforts to stop the next pandemic before it starts. SCIENCE TIMES D1-8 A Changing Virus, and World The governor said his administration’s lack of transparency on the scope of virus deaths was a mistake. PAGE A4 TRACKING AN OUTBREAK A4-6 Cuomo Admits to Data Delay Bret Stephens PAGE A19 EDITORIAL, OP-ED A18-19 Late Edition VOL. CLXX .... No. 58,971 © 2021 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2021 Today, early rain, some heavy, ice in- land, clearing later, high 47. Tonight, partly cloudy, colder, low 23. Tomor- row, mostly sunny, cold, high 32. Weather map appears on Page B10. $3.00
Transcript of IN THE BIDEN ERA FALL BY WAYSIDE INFLATION FEARS · 2/16/2021 · emy fire started pelting the...
C M Y K Nxxx,2021-02-16,A,001,Bs-4C,E1
U(D54G1D)y+"!:!?!$!=
WASHINGTON — Presidentswho find themselves digging outof recessions have long heededthe warnings of inflation-ob-sessed economists, who fear thatacting aggressively to stimulate astruggling economy will bring areturn of the monstrous price in-creases that plagued the nation inthe 1970s.
Now, as President Bidenpresses ahead with plans for a $1.9trillion stimulus package, he andhis top economic advisers arebrushing those warnings aside, asis the Federal Reserve underChair Jerome H. Powell.
After years of dire inflation pre-dictions that failed to pan out, thepeople who run fiscal and mone-tary policy in Washington havedecided the risk of “overheating”the economy is much lower thanthe risk of failing to heat it upenough.
Democrats in the House plan tospend this week finalizing Mr. Bi-den’s plan to pump nearly $2 tril-lion into the economy, includingdirect checks to Americans andmore generous unemploymentbenefits, with the aim of holding afloor vote as early as next week.The Senate is expected to quicklytake up the proposal as soon as itclears the House, in the hopes ofsending a final bill to Mr. Biden’sdesk early next month. Fed offi-cials have signaled that they planto keep holding rates near zeroand buying government-backeddebt at a brisk clip to stokegrowth.
The Fed and the administrationare staying the course despite agrowing outcry from some econo-mists across the political spec-trum, including Lawrence Sum-mers, a former Treasury secre-tary and top adviser in the Clintonand Obama administrations, who
INFLATION FEARSFALL BY WAYSIDEIN THE BIDEN ERA
A WORRY SINCE THE ’70S
Policymakers See MoreDanger in Passing a
Small Stimulus
By JIM TANKERSLEYand JEANNA SMIALEK
Continued on Page A13
When the Pennsylvania Su-preme Court unanimously re-jected a Republican attempt tooverturn the state’s election re-sults in November, Justice DavidN. Wecht issued his own pointedrebuke, condemning the G.O.P. ef-fort as “futile” and “a dangerousgame.”
“It is not our role to lend legiti-macy to such transparent and un-timely efforts to subvert the will ofPennsylvania voters,” wrote Jus-tice Wecht, a Democrat who waselected to a 10-year term on thebench in 2016. “Courts should notdecide elections when the will ofthe voters is clear.”
Now Pennsylvania Republicanshave a plan to make it less likelythat judges like Justice Wecht getin their way.
Republican legislators, dozensof whom supported overturningthe state’s election results to aidformer President Donald J.Trump, are moving to change theentire way that judges are se-lected in Pennsylvania, in a gam-bit that could tip the scales of thejudiciary to favor their party, or atleast elect judges more inclined toembrace Republican electionchallenges.
The proposal would replace thecurrent system of statewide elec-tions for judges with judicial dis-tricts drawn by the Republican-controlled legislature. Those dis-tricts could empower rural, pre-dominantly conservative areasand particularly rewire the StateSupreme Court, which has a 5-to-2Democratic lean.
Democrats are now mobilizingto fight the effort, calling it a thinlyveiled attempt to create a new lev-el of gerrymandering — an escala-tion of the decades-old practice ofdrawing congressional and statelegislative districts to ensure thatpolitical power remains in oneparty’s hands. Democrats aremarshaling grass-roots opposi-tion, holding regular town hallevents on Zoom and planning so-cial media campaigns and call-indays to legislators, as well as anenormous voter education cam-
Pushing to TiltState’s Courts
To the G.O.P.
Pennsylvania Bill Aims at Judicial Districts
By NICK CORASANITI
Continued on Page A17
AUSTIN, Texas — A massivewinter storm bulldozed its wayacross the southern and centralUnited States on Monday, leavingmillions of people without poweramid freezing temperatures,sending vehicles crashing intoone another on ice-glazed high-ways and bringing blizzard-likeconditions to places where snow-fall is usually the news from else-where.
The storm was notable for itsenormous reach — 150 millionpeople were under storm warn-ings — and for a particularly per-ilous element it brought nearly ev-erywhere: ice. It left a treacher-
ous varnish on roads across a mid-section of the country, includingplaces where driving on ice is ararity.
It was as confounding a stormas it was punishing. Snow blan-keted Gulf of Mexico beaches andpeople went ice sledding on theroads of southern Louisiana. Ala-bama was warned of brutal icestorms in some places and of pos-sible tornado outbreaks in others.Temperatures were lower inAustin than in Anchorage, Alaska.
“It’s snowing in Houston andit’s going to be raining in Pennsyl-vania,” said Charles Ross, a me-teorologist with the NationalWeather Service in State College,Pa. “When does that ever hap-pen?”
The state of Texas woke up onMonday to the worst winter on-slaught in decades. The state wasblanketed by one of its largestsnowfalls on record and grapplingwith hundreds of thousands ofpower outages, flight cancella-tions and urgent warnings fromgovernment leaders and emer-gency supervisors to stay put andreduce electric consumption. The8 degrees recorded in Austin wasthe lowest in 32 years, forecasterssaid, and the 6.4 inches of snow
Winter’s Icy Grip Wreaks Havoc Across the U.S.This article is by David Mont-
gomery, Campbell Robertson, Clif-ford Krauss and Marie Fazio.
A group of students from the University of Texas at Austin, where snow rarely falls, helped push a car off the road on Monday.TAMIR KALIFA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Southern States Are HitHard by Slick Roads
and Power Losses
Continued on Page A13
WASHINGTON — As the Re-publican Party censures, con-demns and seeks to purge leaderswho aren’t in lock step with Don-ald J. Trump, Adam Kinzinger, thesix-term Illinois congressman,stands as enemy No. 1 — unwel-come not just in his party but alsoin his own family, some of whomrecently disowned him.
Two days after Mr. Kinzingercalled for removing Mr. Trumpfrom office following the Jan. 6 riotat the Capitol, 11 members of hisfamily sent him a handwrittentwo-page letter, saying he was incahoots with “the devil’s army”for making a public break with thepresident.
“Oh my, what a disappointmentyou are to us and to God!” theywrote. “You have embarrassedthe Kinzinger family name!”
The author of the letter wasKaren Otto, Mr. Kinzinger’s cous-in, who paid $7 to send it by certi-fied mail to Mr. Kinzinger’s father— to make sure the congressmanwould see it, which he did. She alsosent copies to Republicans acrossIllinois, including other membersof the state’s congressional dele-gation.
“I wanted Adam to be shunned,”she said in an interview.
A 42-year-old Air NationalGuard pilot who represents a cres-cent-shaped district along the Chi-cago’s suburbs, Mr. Kinzinger is atthe forefront of the effort to navi-gate post-Trump politics. He isbetting his political career, profes-sional relationships and kinshipwith a wing of his sprawling fam-ily that his party’s future lies indisavowing Mr. Trump and theconspiracy theories the former
Lonely QuestTo Repudiate
Trump WingBy REID J. EPSTEIN
Continued on Page A17
Capt. Paris Davis was in thethick of a pre-dawn raid on an ene-my camp in Vietnam when agrenade blasted out several of histeeth and, more troubling, tore offpart of his trigger finger. Then en-emy fire started pelting the Spe-cial Forces team he commanded.His most experienced sergeantwas shot down. Then the demoli-tions specialist. Then the onlymedic.
It was June 18, 1965, and accord-ing to after-action reports, 26-year-old Captain Davis was sud-denly the last American standingwith a ragtag company of 90 SouthVietnamese volunteers, pinneddown by hundreds of enemytroops.
Certain that he was as good asdead, he began fighting withoutfear of consequence, pulling hisM-16 trigger with his pinkie,sprinting repeatedly into openground to rescue teammates, andrefusing to leave the fight, even af-ter being shot several times.
He made it out alive, and wasimmediately nominated for themilitary’s highest award, the Med-al of Honor. But the Army some-how lost the nomination. His frus-
U.S. May Honor a Black Soldier, 56 Years LaterBy DAVE PHILIPPS Veterans Ask Why the
Paperwork Vanished
Capt. Paris Davis, center, showing his camp in South Vietnam to Gen. William Westmoreland, left.VIA RON DEIS
Continued on Page A15
Fifteen-year-old Braden Wilsonwas frightened of Covid-19. Hewas careful to wear masks andonly left his house, in Simi Valley,Calif., for things like orthodontistcheckups and visits with hisgrandparents nearby.
But somehow, the virus foundBraden. It wreaked ruthless dam-age in the form of an inflamma-tory syndrome that, for unknownreasons, strikes some young peo-
ple, usually several weeks afterinfection by the coronavirus.
Doctors at Children’s HospitalLos Angeles put the teenager on aventilator and a heart-lung by-pass machine. But they could notstop his major organs from failing.On Jan. 5, “they officially said he
was brain-dead,” his mother,Amanda Wilson, recounted, sob-bing. “My boy was gone.”
Doctors across the countryhave been seeing a striking in-crease in the number of youngpeople with the condition Bradenhad, which is called MultisystemInflammatory Syndrome in Chil-dren or MIS-C. Even more worri-some, they say, is that more pa-tients are now very sick than dur-ing the first wave of cases, which
Covid Syndrome in Children Growing in SeverityBy PAM BELLUCK Inflammation Malady Is
Still Rare, Doctors Say
Continued on Page A6
LAYLAH AMATULLAH BARRAYN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
A line formed before dawn to honor Cicely Tyson, the pioneeringactress and paragon for civil rights who died last month. Page A15.
Harlem Salutes Its ‘Trueborn Queen’
Two weeks after a coup, growing workstoppages are undermining the gener-als’ attempt to assert authority. PAGE A8
INTERNATIONAL A7-11
Myanmar Goes on StrikeThe cancellation of parades was a blow.But Elliott White, above, and others stillhad a plan for the floats. PAGE B1
BUSINESS B1-6
Salvaging Part of Mardi GrasSpring training begins this week asMajor League Baseball and the nationcope with steep challenges. Above,Cubs fans in Mesa, Ariz. PAGE B7
SPORTSTUESDAY B7-9
A (Small) Break in the Clouds
Two House impeachment managershave emerged as the high-profile facesof an increasingly young and diverseDemocratic coalition. PAGE A14
NATIONAL A12-17
Impeachment Trial’s Star TurnsWhether playing a singer (in “Lola”) oran aging lesbian (in “Two of Us”), theactress Barbara Sukowa brings a deter-mined persona to her roles. PAGE C1
ARTS C1-6
As Headstrong as Ever
State antitrust cases have createdopenings for numerous private lawsuitsagainst Google and Apple. PAGE B1
Helping the Little GuysKaliningrad, Russia, searches for mean-ing in a building many see as an egre-gious architectural mistake. PAGE A7
Revamping a Soviet Symbol
A Twitter account that reports sightingsof rare birds in New York City hasexposed a rift among birders. PAGE A12
Upsetting the Pecking Order
This week’s section includes articles onnew research on vaccines, the rise ofcoronavirus variants and efforts to stopthe next pandemic before it starts.
SCIENCE TIMES D1-8
A Changing Virus, and World
The governor said his administration’slack of transparency on the scope ofvirus deaths was a mistake. PAGE A4
TRACKING AN OUTBREAK A4-6
Cuomo Admits to Data Delay
Bret Stephens PAGE A19
EDITORIAL, OP-ED A18-19
Late Edition
VOL. CLXX . . . . No. 58,971 © 2021 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2021
Today, early rain, some heavy, ice in-land, clearing later, high 47. Tonight,partly cloudy, colder, low 23. Tomor-row, mostly sunny, cold, high 32.Weather map appears on Page B10.
$3.00
