COVID fear over pope’s trip to Iraq
Adams counters Yang with plan to boost tax credits
VATICAN CITY — Infectious disease experts are expressing concern about Pope Francis’ upcoming trip to Iraq, given a sharp rise in coronavirus infections there, a fragile health care system and the unavoidable likelihood that Iraqis will crowd to see him.
No one wants to tell Francis to call it off, and the Iraqi government has every interest in showing off its relative stability by welcoming the first pope to the birthplace of Abraham.
The March 5-8 trip is expected to provide a spiritual boost to Iraq’s beleaguered Christians while furthering the Vatican’s bridge-building efforts with the Muslim world.
But from an epidemiological standpoint, as well as the public health message it sends, a papal trip to Iraq amid a pandemic is not advisable, health experts say.
Their concerns were reinforced with the news Sunday that the Vatican ambassador to Iraq, the main point person for the trip who would have escorted Francis to all his appointments, tested positive for COVID-19 and was self-isolating.
In an email to The Associated Press, the embassy said Archbishop Mitja Leskovar’s symptoms were mild and that he was continuing to prepare for Francis’ visit.
Beyond his case, experts note that wars, economic crises and an exodus of Iraqi professionals have devastated the country’s hospital system, while studies show most of Iraq’s new COVID-19 infections are the variant first identified in Britain.
“I just don’t think it’s a good idea,” said Dr. Navid Madani, virologist and founding director of the Center for Science Health Education in the Middle East and North Africa at Harvard Medical School’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
The Iranian-born Madani co-authored an article in The Lancet last year on the region’s uneven response to COVID-19, noting that Iraq, Syria and Yemen were poorly placed to cope, given they are still struggling with extremist insurgencies and have 40 million people who need humanitarian aid.
In a telephone interview, Madani said Middle Easterners are known for their hospitality, and cautioned that the enthusiasm among Iraqis for welcoming Francis to a war-torn part of the world might lead to inadvertent violations of virus control measures.
“This could potentially lead to unsafe or superspreading risks,” she said.
Nearly 700,000 people in Iraq have been infected by the coronavirus, with over 13,400 dead.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams on Monday will unveil a plan to provide cashstrapped New Yorkers with relief through a program that would pay out tax credit benefits monthly and in advance.
The plan, which Adams has dubbed NYC Advanced Income Deployment, or NYC AID, aims to boost the earned income tax credits poor families receive by more than 10 times. Adams estimates it would cost the city $1 billion annually.
Such credits are usually paid out at the end of the year in a lump sum, but according to a policy paper from Team Adams shared exclusively with the Daily News, the cash total would be expanded and paid out in advance.
“A New York City family with two children on the edge of poverty earning $30,000 a year would receive approximately $3,000 annually, or about $250 a month from a boosted city EITC program,” the policy paper states. “Credits would be paid out monthly as an advance by the city on qualifying New Yorkers’ past annual earnings.”
Adams is running for mayor in a crowded Democratic primary field that includes Andrew Yang, city Comptroller Scott Stringer, former HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan and Mayor de Blasio’s former legal counsel, Maya Wiley. Former Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia and former Citibank executive Ray McGuire are also in the running.
Yang, who ran for president last year, is perhaps best known for his support of universal basic income.
Adams’ plan would provide something similar in that it would put cash in the pockets of needy New Yorkers, but it differs in that it would rely on increasing the amount paid out for already existing tax credits.
Adams’ spokesman Evan Thies said the BP’s tax credit plan has been in the works since June of last year when he proposed a similar EITC increase for frontline workers.
As it now stands, people who qualify for the earned income tax credit with the federal government receive the benefit from the feds. New Yorkers also receive from the city a matching credit of 5% of what they receive from the feds. Under Adams’ plan the city’s matching benefit would increase significantly.
If elected, Adams plans to increase the earned-income tax credit the city pays out to 60% — up from 5% — for households earning $30,000 or less, and to 30% for households that bring in between $30,000 and $50,000 a year.
James Parrott, director of economic and fiscal policies at the New School’s Center for New York City Affairs, reviewed Adams’ proposal and described it as representing “a pretty significant commitment of tax resources to low-income households.”
“It could probably bear some tweaking here and there before it’s finalized,” he said, adding that such adjustments could include increased benefits for households with out-of-work adults and childless households.
“The city could do said.
Adams’ plan would also seek to assist recently unemployed New Yorkers whose prior year’s income may look substantial on paper — and would disqualify them for a tax credit — by making them eligible for the credits also.
“This would allow AID to cover that,” he nearly 900,000 New Yorkers,” the policy paper states. “The total amount advanced per household would reach up to $4,000 over 12 months for lower-income families with children.”
Payments to eligible households would be made through direct deposit or prepaid debit cards to bypass check-cashing joints and predatory lenders — a move Adams plans to support through working with banks to set up free checking accounts to city residents who don’t have them.
Those enrolled in the AID program would be connected with city welfare case workers as well to connect them to other city, state and federal services that they may qualify for, such as food stamps and housing assistance.
To pay the estimated $1 billion bill for the plan, Adams would institute cuts of 3% to 5% across all city agencies, through staff attrition and by pushing for a “modest increase to the city income tax on ultra-millionaires.”
“Combined, those actions are projected to save or create $5 billion to $6.5 billion in the first year, increasing year over year as headcount drops and further agency savings are found,” the policy paper states.
Sixty years ago today, President John F. Kennedy signed an executive order establishing the Peace Corps. “Every young American who participates in the Peace Corps — who works in a foreign land — will know that he or she is sharing in the great common task of bringing to man the decent way of life which is the foundation of freedom and a condition of peace,” Kennedy declared.
In other words, we’ll be white saviors.
That’s what many of my students think when they hear about the Peace Corps. Pictures of young white Americans trekking through jungles or hugging Black and Brown children conjure the “white-savior industrial complex,” which Nigerian-American writer Teju Cole coined in a well-known 2012 article. Americans who went abroad to “save” the world placed their own needs and fantasies over their hosts, who “ought to be consulted on the matters that concern them,” Cole cautioned.
That’s true, of course. For too long, too many Westerners have assumed that they know what’s best for others, even when they know little or nothing at all.
That was pretty much me in 1983, when I joined the Peace Corps and headed off to Nepal to teach English. I was 22 years old, and my only teaching experience was tutoring a rich private-school kid while I was in college.
It didn’t take me long to find out how little I knew. But I learned as I went along. And I also discovered that the critique of white saviors could embody its own version of, yes, white saviorism.
During my second year of service, a student burst into my classroom and announced that he had seen my “friend” in the river valley below our hilltop school. That could only mean one thing: Another white person had arrived.
I went outside and peered down the hill. Sure enough, there was a white guy down there. We went to investigate.
As we got closer, a man that I knew from an adjacent village accosted me. “John-Sir, your friend sold me this book,” he said excitedly, holding up a crudely published pamphlet. “Only five rupees.”
I looked at the pamphlet and knew in an instant what it was. It showed a guy with long hair and a beard, hanging on a cross. In Nepali, the caption said he had died for our sins.
I kept walking, getting angrier as we got closer to my “friend.” Five rupees was what a man received for hacking away all day on the tractor road that got washed out every monsoon. Who was this guy, and what right did he have to sell his religion in Nepal?
I found him standing on a rock, doling out his pamphlets and collecting cash. “What are you doing?” I asked, my voice rising.
“I’m bringing these people to the Lord,” he replied, in German-accented English.
“They already have a Lord — 20,000 of them, in fact,” I said, noting that we were in a majority-Hindu country.
He told me that Hindus were thieves and murderers. I told him that the German church had rolled over and played dead for the Nazis. And so it went.
It was illegal to do missionary work in Nepal, so I threatened to call the cops if he didn’t leave. He hoisted his backpack, cursed at me and started trudging up the hill.
By then, a great sea of people had gathered around us. None of them understood what we were saying, but they could tell it wasn’t good.
“Why don’t you friend?” one asked.
“He’s a very bad man,” I said. “He doesn’t like your religion.”
Then I heard someone say, “Hey, John-Sir’s friend told me that if I believe in his religion, I’ll go to heaven forever and I won’t be reborn.”
Another said, “Hey, can I buy his book off you? I’ll give you six rupees for it.” And so it went.
My German “friend” thought himself a white savior in the most literal of ways: He believed he was saving souls. By contrast, I believed I was saving them from the white savior. But we both thought we knew what was best for them.
So by all means, let’s use the Peace Corps’ 60th anniversary to critique white saviors. Too many Americans still march blindly around the globe, imagining that they can make a difference by their mere presence.
But some of the people attacking white saviorism have a savior complex of their own. If you truly believe in human autonomy, you’ll let people come to their own decisions instead of imposing your own.
And if you don’t, stop complaining about white saviors. Just look in the mirror, and you’ll see one. like your
The pandemic hit our heroic workforce hard and devastated the MTA financially. But our commitment to achieving system-wide accessibility for transit has not wavered: even with less money to spend and less certainty about future funding, we have kept advancing accessibility projects. Our priorities remain unchanged. To speed our recovery from the pandemic, we more than ever need a transit system that truly serves all New Yorkers.
I lead the new MTA Construction & Development organization that last year consolidated all MTA planning, design and construction into a single agency-wide group. We are proud that in our first year we were able to get a $51.5 billion Capital Program approved and — despite COVID — add 11 stations to the list of accessible stations, tying the all-time record for the most ADA completions in a single year. In fact, the number of accessible stations completed last year equaled the number of stations completed in the seven-year period from 2012 to 2018. And we have awarded $576 million in contracts to build out another 13 stations, more than double the amount from the year before. This puts us on track to maintain this pace right through 2021.
Ten of those 13 new projects are contained in the plan for accessibility upgrades at 70 stations, which was announced as part of the approval of the above-mentioned 2020-2024 Capital Program. That program calls for an unprecedented $5.2 billion investment in accessibility upgrades. These stations were selected through a public engagement process that included accessibility advocates, and took into consideration geography, ridership and equity.
I am clear-eyed about the challenges of executing this historic plan as the MTA weathers the worst financial crisis in its history. Since COVID-19 eviscerated our local and state funding sources, and the Trump administration stymied implementation of congestion pricing, we have been forced to rely primarily on federal grants for this year. We are advancing as many projects as possible with that limited money, while continuing to prioritize the safety of our unionized construction workers, who have continued to show up and have kept MTA infrastructure projects on budget and on schedule.
Accessibility projects are at the forefront of work already started last year — about 20% of the entire program for New York City Transit, which includes huge repair work to maintain the system in a state of good repair as well as re-signaling, safety, rolling stock and other priorities. Reflecting that commitment, investment in accessibility projects has significantly outpaced other capital program categories. Indeed, we intentionally redirected some of the limited federal funding to 10 ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) station projects remaining from prior capital programs, in order to assure they can move forward in 2021 and 2022.
But the obstacles in our path are not always limited to funding. Several projects included in our last capital program faced significant local challenges, such as at 68 St.—Hunter College, where opposition to elevator projects from a few adjacent co-op buildings has delayed work for years. We are determined to push through these issues and finally finish this and other needed projects.
How are we getting it done faster and less expensively? By using innovative contracting methods that create incentives for contractors to cut schedules and bundle ADA projects so that we can get the most bang for our buck. This has allowed us to award 10 out of the 70 stations in 2020 alone. And the prices are coming in below estimates.
This shows we’re following through on our mandate to do better and contain costs. Take the L Train Tunnel Project and LIRR
Third Track as examples of the MTA embracing innovation and doing work better, faster and cheaper. By using a design-build model, we are able to cut down on the MTA cost “premium” and red tape that in the past has caused project budgets to skyrocket. In the end, the tunnel work was finished $100plus million under budget and five months ahead of schedule. We’ll be using the same approaches with accessibility upgrades.
We are also working outside of the MTA capital program to leverage private developer investments to further expand accessibility. For example, this week a new elevator will open on the Court Square (E-M) Manhattan-bound platform, fully funded by an adjacent developer. Anywhere we can follow this model, we want to do it. And we’re working with the city on a zoning proposal to make this process easier.
The MTA considers accessibility a top-tier priority and we are taking action to improve the lives of our customers. This will not change. In addition to all this construction work, we recently hired Quemuel Arroyo — a veteran accessibility expert — as our first-ever chief accessibility officer. We welcome Q to the team executing on the MTA’s commitment to create a truly inclusive transit system.