Opinion
COVID-19 – Governments help or hindrance?
While I am reasonably concerned about having a new virus that affects global health, I am even more troubled by our governments’ overreaction. I’m taking a moment to vent in an effort to limit my frustration.
As with the government overreaction to 9/11 that gave us the Patriot Act and the TSA, which increased government intrusion in our lives and reduced personal liberty, the state and federal proposals to address COVID-19 are equally troubling. Wide-ranging economic and societal damage will result from their mitigation plans. Their social separation and business closing recommendations and spending proposals will cause much more difficulty than the disease itself! As of March 18, there were only approximately 8,000 test positive and only 118 deaths in a population of approximately 330 million. That demonstrates that the health effect of this disease is EXTREMELY low, and not even comparable to the flu that has become an accepted part of our daily lives (12,000-62,000 deaths/yr), even though the new virus may have a higher contagion rate. Government reaction to the 2009 swine flu (10,000+ deaths) was extremely minimal compared to what’s happening today, and the public should be educated on how we were able to take that new health risk in stride without up-ending the social and economic apple cart.
While having any additional health risk to seniors is unfortunate, especially those with underlying medical issues, that circumstance is much less damaging to society than the economic and quality of life results being caused by government reaction. Disrupting an economy that was functioning at the top of its game, and was the envy of the world, is nothing short of calamitous. Adding more debt without any plan to return to fiscal sanity is lunacy on steroids. How can we justify ‘kicking the can down the road’ regarding the responsibility of addressing our country’s debt problem? We keep putting the same self-absorbed lame-brains in office that refuse to be fiscally responsible, so it’s on us, not them!!!
Virginia’s Governor has brilliantly (NOT) ordered restaurants and work-out facilities to limit itself to 10 patrons at a time. This all but closes those establishments and puts people out of work because it’s not profitable to stay open for such a low amount of business. Exercise machines and restaurant tables were basically 6 feet apart anyways so the separation was occurring under normal conditions without the Governor’s short-sighted restrictions. With masses of people in grocery stores and other retail establishments, the comparative effect of this order was like a drop of water in a 5-gallon bucket. How about we continue business as usual, except that some will get sick but most will survive, and we’ll produce helpful antibodies and give science time to create reasonable therapies.
Closing the schools, with its effects on parents needing child care, is a disastrous disruption. Kids receive scant beneficial education from our low achieving system anyways (teaching to the test rather than giving critical thinking skills), and having them out of school just exacerbates this problem.
The proposed Federal actions are even more alarming and will cause much more difficulty. Everyone staying home will damage small businesses, kill jobs, increase the unemployment rate, interrupt the supply chain and ultimately increase crime. Let the capitalist system of open market resolve this. The strong will ultimately thrive, and the weak will be consumed by the strong, and we’ll be better off in the end. While providing cash stimulus to the public may be beneficial, since our economy is based on public spending, it should be explicitly limited to the lower level earners who are most affected. Targeting a cash grant to low-income earners based on last year’s IRS tax filing would be a good starting place. With so many companies closed, and many were put out of business, there will not be as many places to even spend the stimulus. Plus, now that the government has got the public in a panic, many will probably just save it for another rainy day anyways.
Since our economy depends on the success of small businesses, some financial assistance to them would be helpful as in grants or loan guarantees. The FED institution is already ensuring financial market liquidity and has lowered interest rates to about zero, more efforts there are probably ill-advised. Bailouts to airlines, who recently elected to buy back stock versus saving for a rainy day, should not be part of the plan. Having the public cover losses to other affected industries is contrary to the open market system and should not be supported. Any action in that area should involve the public getting part of the business as an offset so when they recover under normal economic conditions the citizens share in that benefit. Additionally, I think its a better idea to let the airlines, hospitality and cruise-line businesses survive via bankruptcy rather than the public footing that bill.
The source of our problem is not the addition of another disease affecting our health but the adversarial relationship in our two-party system. President Trump tried initially to be pragmatic by not over-hyping the effect of the new virus, but the Democrats and their co-conspirator media, in their consistent effort to damage our President, pitched such a fit that he was forced politically to bend to the single focus health officials and go overboard with reactions. Politicians are rushing to throw OUR money at the problem rather than responsibly accepting a greater demise rate in our seniors with certain underlying medical issues as compared to the economic and societal damage government mitigation would cause to the majority of our population. Being in my 69th year and having an 89-year-old mother and an 80-year-old uncle, my position cannot be alleged to be one that affects others but not me.
Also, the oil supply war happening between Russia and the Saudis is harming our oil industry and should not be tolerated. Put tariffs and other economic sanctions on both to urge them to find other ways to solve their differences. While I enjoy low gas prices, it’s better for all to have energy independence as a country and that can’t continue if our fracking industry is destroyed.
The one silver lining in his whole debacle is that I believe there’s been a realization that we need more domestic manufacturing of ‘critical products’, such as pharmaceuticals, health products, and electronic components, etc. China is an adversary, not an ally, and being reliant on them for anything critical is a bad idea. For too long we’ve been buying their cheap crap and funding the growth of their military that we may have to challenge in the future. Let’s produce more in the USA and have more jobs even if we need to pay a bit more for a few things.
Bottom line is that we need to contact our elected leaders and slap them across the face (like Loretta did in Moonstruck) and say SNAP OUT OF IT. Stop with the overreaction, the panic, job-killing proposals, the irresponsible spending, debt creation, and socialist initiatives. Life continues to involve risk, so pull up your big boy and girl pants and accept that new health problems will come with globalization and world population growth. Yes, certain high-risk populations will be affected more than others but that’s the real world we live in. Come on America, we’re tougher than anyone else on the planet!
Enough with the political games! It’s time to start doing something to help America, not continue to damage it! Oh, and don’t forget to cough into your elbow and wash your hands!
Gary Kushner
Front Royal, Virginia