Maxwell School News and Commentary

Yingyi Ma, associate professor of sociology, assesses that Trump's executive order suspending the entry of foreign workers seeking H1-B visas "seriously undermines American leadership in fields such as technology and medicine where skilled immigrants serve as the backbone."

Áron Tóbiás, assistant professor of economics, says the most important lesson that state authorities can learn from the economic fallout of this pandemic is "the unexpected happens—better be prepared." He adds, "From a public finance perspective, state governments (and the federal government, too) might want to think about setting up more robust rainy-day funds once this crisis is over."

"You want to come to the aid of the states when states can’t take care of themselves," says Professor Emeritus William C. Banks, about President Trump's threat to invoke the Insurrection Act.

James E. Baker, director of the Institute for Security Policy and Law talked to the New York Times regarding the federal governments, authority over the security of our medical supply chain, amid urging by State and local authorities.

"The Insurrection Act may be invoked only following an invasion, insurrection or widespread domestic violence," says William C. Banks, professor emeritus of public administration and international affairs. "Only if states attempt to leave the Union would state defiance enable Insurrection Act authority. Otherwise the states control their citizens' health, welfare and safety."

"If martial law were invoked, the government would be conducted ad hoc by the president or a military commander based entirely on his or her opinion of what was needed to meet the emergency, unbound by any laws and with no transparency or public participation, and probably no accountability afterward," writes William C. Banks, professor emeritus of public administration and international affairs. 

"If there is a gap between voluntary production and what is needed, or anticipated to be needed, the DPA [Defense Production Act] is the mechanism to close that gap," says the Hon. James E. Baker, director of the Institute for Security Policy and Law.

"In the last two weeks, there are moments when he [President Trump] has sounded more ‘presidential’ than I have ever heard him," says Grant Reeher, professor of political science and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute. "At the same time, he will revert to the old Trump. It’s hard to make sense of those things."

By once again deploying its crisis tool kit, Fed officials indicated that the pandemic could drive the global economy into a more severe shock than anything seen in more than a decade, says Associate Professor of Political Science Daniel McDowell and his co-authors.