Horowitz: We don’t need another bailout; we need to reopen

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Why even have a Republican Party when, with control of two of the three branches of the political process, Republicans can’t provide any vision or contrast in the worst crisis of our lifetime?

Once again, Republicans are falling into a trap of getting into a bidding war with Democrats on how much money to spend to treat a self-imposed problem without addressing the cause of the problem.

Here’s the simple truth: If Republicans push to end the shutdown, curtail the unconstitutional actions of governors, suspend taxation and regulations for several years, and get the economy moving, they won’t need more bailout bills. If, on the other hand, they continue the shutdown and won’t address the other issues related to the cause and solution for the China virus, sovereignty, regulations, and supply chains, no amount of Monopoly money they print can cover destroying most small businesses in America.

The $480 billion bill pumps another $310 billion into the newly created Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses shut down by the government to incentivize them to keep their employees on the payroll. But they don’t address the actual shutdown or get governments to end their unconstitutional restrictions, a power Congress possesses through the 14th Amendment.

Furthermore, they fail to fix the unemployment insurance provision that works against the premise of the small business loan program. The entire purpose is to incentivize businesses not to fire workers. But in certain industries, the workers will now make more money on unemployment than on payroll, thanks to a provision from the last hastily passed bill. This is particularly true of workers in the restaurant industry, which has been the hardest-hit sector of the economy.

Next, the bill gives an additional $75 billion to hospitals. We certainly want to help hospitals at a time like this, but again, the root cause of their bankruptcy is not the virus, but the government-mandated shutdown. Most of the money goes to rural hospitals that were not overrun with COVID-19 patients but were shut down by arbitrary and unconstitutional orders to suspend vital procedures and medical care. Why not address the shutdown?

The bill also contains $25 billion for more testing. But as more information comes out about the virus, it appears that it has already been here for months and has spread to millions of people. We need more antibody tests. Moreover, Congress needs to spend time investigating why our government is going with only one model and ignoring so many countervailing studies from prestigious research that indicate lockdowns are either unhelpful or destructive?

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Source: Daniel Horowitz | Conservative Review