By Leo Hindery, Jr.

The coronavirus pandemic has already wreaked havoc on the U.S. economy, bringing business to a grinding halt and leaving millions of Americans worrying about where their next paycheck will come from. This is a nearly unprecedented public health crisis that demands meticulous coordination by top scientists and doctors. It’s also an economic emergency that calls for drastic intervention.

In fact, experts say New Jersey’s economy is among those that could be hardest hit, as many of the state’s growth centers depend on a robust hospitality industry.

But the lack of leadership from the Trump administration and the constant deluge of misguided, contradictory and often erroneous statements have Americans worried not only about the future but also about the present.

In this unprecedented time of fear and uncertainty, the Garden State and America need a coordinated team of nonpartisan experts in place on every front. Trump’s inner circle of economic cheerleaders is unfit for the job.

In good times, the value of having a meticulously assembled economic team in place can be elusive. But in times of crisis, the absence of such a team is unmistakable. And the threat posed by the current ragtag cast of yes-men is severe.

For the health of the nation, the president must look beyond Larry Kudlow and the rest of the National Economic Council to get a reality check and put a comprehensive economic response plan in place.

We need a separate coronavirus economic task force that is laser-focused on protecting businesses and workers. We need the same kind of expertise and experience that President Barack Obama brought together to combat the 2008 financial crisis.

Before he took office, President Obama knew that he would be inheriting an economic mess. The economy was shrinking at an annual rate of over 8% and businesses around the country were hemorrhaging more than 800,000 jobs a month. Major industries, including the auto industry, were in critical condition.

Following a steep decline in manufacturing and increases in foreclosures and unemployment, President Obama appointed Harvard University economist Larry Summers, former New York Federal Reserve Bank President Timothy Geithner, and especially Christina Romer, an esteemed macroeconomist best known for her work on America’s recovery from the Great Depression, to his economic policy team.

"I've sought leaders who could offer both sound judgment and fresh thinking; both a depth of experience and a wealth of bold, new ideas; and, most of all, who share my fundamental belief that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street without a thriving Main Street," Obama said of his advisors.

President Obama also tapped Vice President Joe Biden to lead the “Middle Class Task Force” – an initiative targeted at raising the living standards of middle-class families in the midst of the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression.

The reality is that everything from employment to inflation to consumer confidence will be affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Income inequality will worsen, businesses will close, consumers will stop spending, and people by the thousands will lose their jobs.

As former Vice President Joe Biden has proposed, providing guaranteed emergency paid sick leave and care-giving leave for sick workers, establishing temporary small- and medium-sized business loan programs, protecting union health funds, and providing relief of student loans and federally backed mortgages are all a must. These are policies the president should also rally behind.

To help meet these needs, as suggested by Michael Lind, a New America fellow, and James Galbraith who teaches at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, Congress should also do its part by creating a time-limited government corporation modeled on the Reconstruction Finance Corporation created during the Depression and used to support the New Deal and the World War II mobilization.

But the devil is always in the details. And figuring out what those details should look like requires a team of experts from all backgrounds. We certainly don’t have such a team today.

It’s time for the president to be presidential. The time to forge a qualified dedicated COVID-19 economic task force is now.

Leo Hindery Jr. is co-chair of the Task Force on Job Creation and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Formerly the CEO of the YES Network and former CEO of AT&T Broadband and its predecessor, Tele-Communications, Inc., he is currently an investor in media properties. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own.

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