Even though President Donald Trump made a big deal about the executive orders he signed Saturday to deal with the ongoing economic crisis caused by COVID-19, it turns out they won’t help the struggling U.S. economy, according to a report from the New York Times:

“The executive actions President Trump took on Saturday were pitched as a unilateral jolt for an ailing economy. But there is only one group of workers that seems guaranteed to benefit from them, at least right away: lawyers.”

Why lawyers? Because the moves Trump made will likely be challenged on court by groups who want to protect the long-term fiscal health of Social Security and Medicare, which are directly impacted by a deferment of payroll taxes.

And that suspension of payroll taxes won’t do much to pump money into the economy, either, the Times notes:

“Conservative groups have warned that suspending payroll tax collections is unlikely to translate into more money for workers. An executive action seeking to essentially create a new unemployment benefit out of thin air will almost certainly be challenged in court. And as Mr. Trump’s own aides concede, the orders will not provide any aid to small businesses, state and local governments or low- and middle-income workers.”

In fact, Trump’s executive orders — which provide no money to state or federal governments already overwhelmed by the cost of coronavirus cases — could actually wind up leading to increased unemployment:

“Without more money from the federal government, states and local governments will almost certainly have to cut their budgets and lay off workers, increasing the ranks of the unemployed.”

Oh, and then there’s the matter of the orders being unconstitutional on their face. Even Republican Sen. Ben Sasse (NE) has slammed them as “unconstitutional slop.”

In other words, once again Donald Trump tried to use showmanship to solve a problem when he’s already proven that such theatrics do nothing but deepen the crisis the nation faces.

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