{"id":52741,"date":"2020-07-14T01:51:55","date_gmt":"2020-07-14T07:51:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sen-michael-bennet-talks-deficit-covid-response-and-masks-in-durango-visit\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:01:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T10:01:10","slug":"sen-michael-bennet-talks-deficit-covid-response-and-masks-in-durango-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sen-michael-bennet-talks-deficit-covid-response-and-masks-in-durango-visit\/","title":{"rendered":"Sen. Michael Bennet talks deficit, COVID response and masks in Durango visit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"U.S.
U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., speaks with The Durango Herald editorial board on Monday on a dock behind the Herald. Bennet praised Durango\u2019s efforts to deal with COVID-19, praising the town\u2019s requirement to wear a mask in public spaces and to adhere to social-distancing rules.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet is infuriated by one issue that gets the goat of many Americans \u2013 especially his political opponents in the Republican Party \u2013 the $26.5 trillion federal deficit<\/p>\n

But Bennet, D-Colo., does not see limiting growth of programs as a key aspect to deal with the red ink \u2013 the country set a one-month record in June adding $864 billion to the deficit.<\/p>\n

Instead, he told a meeting of The Durango Herald<\/em> editorial board on Monday that the federal government should have used the low-interest rate environment of the last few years to underwrite massive infrastructure building to repair America\u2019s decaying roads, bridges, hospitals, airports and other public facilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should have invested in every bit of infrastructure we could find in a zero-percent interest rate environment. But we didn\u2019t do that,\u201d he said. \u201cInstead, we invested in a health care system that is two times as expensive as any other system in the industrialized world. We fought two wars in the Middle East, and we used it to finance tax cuts for the wealthy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bennet drew upon a metaphor, saying the way the federal government took on debt the past several years could be compared to a hypothetical decision by Durango City Council to assume debt not to finance roads, sidewalks, utility repairs but to instead spend \u201cimproving the two wealthiest neighborhoods in Durango.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, the nation has not had to pay for taking on ever greater amounts of debt with the interest rate hovering near zero, but Bennet said when the interest reaches 5%, it\u2019s likely paying back the national debt will become increasingly difficult, crowding out other needs that demand federal attention \u2013 and spending.<\/p>\n

\u201cDemocrats don\u2019t care about the debt, and Republicans say they care, but they are lying about it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dealing with the challenges of COVID-19, Bennet said, meant the nation has no alternative but to increase the debt to overcome the economic hit the novel coronavirus has delivered to communities across the country.<\/p>\n

\"U.S.
U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., said he regrets the near zero-percent interest-rate environment of the past few years was not used to finance repairs to America&#x2019;s aging infrastructure. Bennet was in Durango on Monday and visited with The Durango Herald editorial board.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
Coronavirus relief<\/div>\n

Congress is likely to pass further relief measures to aid in the recovery from the novel coronavirus, but future relief measures are likely to be limited \u2013 chiefly at the insistence of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.<\/p>\n

\u201cMcConnell wants the measure to be limited for reasons I don\u2019t completely understand,\u201d Bennet said.<\/p>\n

However, Bennet said President Donald Trump \u2013 if acting only on instincts of self-preservation in an election year \u2013 is putting pressure on Senate Republicans for a more robust relief measure.<\/p>\n

Conversations he\u2019s had with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Bennet said, convince him the administration is looking for a bigger package in the next round of COVID-19 relief than the majority Republicans in the Senate.<\/p>\n

Unemployment insurance, which has given those out of work $600 more per week since the March passage of the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, combined with other measures such as the Paycheck Protection Program has worked \u201cfairly well,\u201d Bennet said.<\/p>\n

He noted unemployment insurance has kept about 12 million people out of poverty.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now need to have a conversation about ramping down enhanced unemployment so it doesn\u2019t serve as a disincentive to work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"U.S.
U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., said enhanced unemployment insurance has kept about 12 million people out of poverty since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
Masks, managing locally<\/div>\n

As COVID-19 cases are again spiking across the nation, Bennet said a lack of leadership from the president has largely wasted the shutdown period, a time frame when federal action could have added to laboratories\u2019 testing capacities for the virus.<\/p>\n

At one point, he said, testing results had been reduced to one or two days, but now as a second wave spikes across the country, some areas are seeing delays in getting results of up to seven to 11 days.<\/p>\n

Better leadership from the White House, he said, could have opened a path for the federal government to better prepare the country, not only for augmenting laboratories to deal with more tests but also to bolster contact tracing and research capabilities studying how to defeat the pathogen.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we going to manage the virus or is the virus going to manage us?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Bennet has called for $75 billion to be spent on creating what he calls \u201ca health force\u201d that would aid public health professionals with COVID-19 testing, contact tracing and delivering meals to seniors during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Fort Lewis College President Tom Stritikus, who sat in on the meeting, said the college was forced to adapt rapidly to a changing and challenging situation without much guidance from the federal government.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are managing local issues governments are meant to solve. We aren\u2019t PPE experts. We\u2019ve learned accordingly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Bennet praised Durango\u2019s response to COVID-19, saying a walk down Main Avenue on Sunday night showed to him the town has adapted to the new environment as well as any he\u2019s seen.<\/p>\n

He praised Durango\u2019s decision to require masks in public spaces and its efforts to adhere to social-distancing rules.<\/p>\n

However, he said as travel becomes more frequent and public health rules are relaxed, communities like Durango will be increasingly challenged to slow the spread of the virus.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour problem is people from Arizona or Texas walking around not wearing a mask,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said it is unfortunate the refusal to wear a mask has become a symbol of supporting individual freedom rather than viewed as a wise behavior taken in an effort to slow COVID-19\u2019s spread.<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A wasted deficit: Zero percent interest rates should have been used to fix America<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,155,13,28,29,265,25],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-52741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-education","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-politics","tag-u-s-sen-michael-bennet"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52741"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88138,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52741\/revisions\/88138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52741"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=52741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}