April 7, 2020

Is It Time For More Lead Abatement? The Answer May Shock You.

Ringo Chiu/ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

This morning brings some Kevin bait:

I think that any time is a good time to spend a big chunk of money on lead abatement. Future generations will thank us. Unfortunately, if there’s a worst time to do it, now is it.

The COVID-19 pandemic is throwing us into a recession, but it’s a purely technical, man-made recession. It’s not due to an oil spike or a dotcom bust or a housing bubble or even just a cyclical reduction in savings that causes households to cut back on spending. It’s due to specific government mandates that can be lifted at any time.

What this means is that we don’t need any kind of general economic stimulus. Household savings are high, consumer demand is fine, and there should even be pent-up demand working in our favor by summer. Instead, we need to specifically help the people and businesses who have been affected by the government mandates so that they can stay afloat until the emergency is over. This means:

  • Workers who are laid off thanks to coronavirus restrictions.
  • Small businesses that are shuttered for the duration.
  • Large businesses facing revenue shortfalls.
  • State and local governments who are losing revenue and facing higher expenditures.
  • Hospitals and other health care providers.

Any follow-up rescue package—which we’ll probably need—needs to be directed toward these victims of the coronavirus lockdowns. A small amount of generalized stimulus—the $1,200 checks, for example—doesn’t hurt since any targeted program is bound to miss some people, but it shouldn’t be large and it shouldn’t be the focus of congressional action.

The exception to this might come later in the year. If the pandemic starts taking off in the global south just as the north is recovering, we might suffer a classic recession due to trade losses, supply chain disruptions, loan forfeitures, and so forth. If that happens, we might need a classic stimulus package to get us back on track. That would be the time for infrastructure projects and lead abatement. There’s no telling if we’ll need this, but it would certainly be wise to plan for the possibility by spending a few billion dollars now to identify and and do prep work for a trillion dollars worth of infrastructure.¹ When the time comes, it would be nice to have plenty of shovel-ready plans on the shelf ready to go if we need them.

¹Including lead abatement!

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate