"Never waste a good crisis,” now Mayor of Chicago Rahm Emanuel famously said. If anything, the Coronavirus Pandemic has provided the media and left-wing establishment with great opportunities. In researching this article, I discovered such a mass of conflicting information it made me want to throw up my hands and quit, but it no doubt made millions keep clicking in search of bias affirmation. For the first time in memory, the media has a chance to earn public trust, but instead seize the opportunity to spin. As for the Speaker and her House cohorts, they passed a bill providing roughly 4 times the funding requested by the president. At the time of this writing, summaries of the text are “in process.” But after wading through the “Families First Coronavirus Response Act” to see what is says, my view is that they’ve opened the door to economic upheaval that they hope will lead to a socialist revolt. Moreover, as of today (3/23/20), according a White House public outreach email, the house dropped the president’s suggested stimulus package in favor of pushing a 1,110 page bill that, among other things, audits election results, reduces airline carbon emissions, establishes corporate diversity requirements, adds collective bargaining for federal workers and more. A great opportunity indeed. Hopefully, the senate will stop it.
Now, let’s clear up fake news about President Trump’s response to Covid-19. According to the White House website and a separate press calendar, on January 22, the day after the first American contracted the virus, Trump told reporters he had a plan to combat it. On January 29, he announced a task force, which consists of members of his staff and heads of appropriate government entities, such as the CDC. On January 31, he restricted travel with China. Thereafter, the team took weekly meeting with Trump and gave press updates. As of mid-Feburary, the president took daily, sometimes twice daily, meetings on Covid-19 with both government officials and private sector leaders. As of this writing, battling the virus occupies his day and his task force makes daily televised press briefings.
So far, the president has: 1) restricted travel with China, Iran, South Korea, Europe, and the UK, which applies to foreign nationals, not cargo; 2) pushed an economic assistance assistance package to help support businesses and workers who have been harmed by this outbreak; 3) instructed the Small Business Administration to exercise to provide loans to businesses affected by the coronavirus; 4) instructed the Department of the Treasury to defer tax payments for certain individuals and businesses negatively impacted by the coronavirus; 5) called on Congress to pass payroll tax relief, 6) declared a public health emergency, then a national state of emergency; 7) incentivized public/private development of therapeutics and vaccines to treat and prevent. Working across the public and private sectors, the Trump Administration continues to expand testing capacity. More than 5 million tests have been distributed nationwide. The task force’s goal, as you may’ve seen is to pushed down the natural arc of the virus so that hospitals won’t be overwhelmed as in Italy. Keeping the public home buys the government and medical concerns time to stockpile equipment and medicine.
While critics attack Trump and Pence for delayed testing, a timeline posted on Fox News shows that, in fact, the president’s actions made up for CDC efforts to control the process. On January 11, the Chinese posted the genetic code for the test. Within days, Australia developed a viable test. But the CDC insisted on creating their own, announcing it on January 24 and releasing on February 6. On 2/12, the CDC recalled these faulty tests. The FDA simultaneously prevented universities and private labs from creating their own tests. So, it wasn’t until the president got involved on 3/3 that the red tape dissolved and a public/private partnership was announced on 3/13.
The House bill provides important necessities: coverage of co-pays for the insured, coverage of testing and care for the uninsured (the president donated his 4th quarter 100K salary to this), support and protection for health care workers and forbidding use of social security funds But a few provisions are not only unnecessary, they subject our country - in particular, small businesses - to socialism until “the date on which the qualifying need related to a public health emergency concludes.” Even a business with 1 employee must provide paid leave, for care-givers as well as the sick, and though owners can request government money, we know this requirement sets a precedent. Oddly, the benefits extend beyond caregivers, but to victims of domestic violence (2 pages on this.) General benefits and accommodations need not just be posted but written into employee handbooks, which implies permanency beyond the crisis. Lastly, the bill was voted on quickly, with seemly little discussion. But the bill’s text, which consists mostly of arcane sentences such as “in sub-section B in the first sentence, by striking ‘and’ before ‘(10)” reveals the time and man-power required to truly understand it.
During this time, straight facts may provide the only antidote to stress. Check out the links referenced below.