Regular readers know, one of my favorite conservative writers is Stephen Moore who is well-known for his commentaries on the economy, who founded the Club For Growth in 1999 and who currently serves as an economic advisor to President Donald Trump.
Moore published his latest column earlier this week wherein he indicts Democrats for spearheading the government lockdowns earlier this year, which lead to an economic crisis. The article is entitled “Coronavirus For Dummies.” Rather than summarize it, here is Moore’s latest in his own words.
“CORONAVIRUS FOR DUMMIES
We are now almost one year from the dark days when the coronavirus first hit these shores. Why are the politicians’ making the same policy mistakes today that they made nine months ago? The 300,000+ deaths are an act of nature, but the virus’s death and despair have been compounded by acts of man — i.e., foolish politicians.
Haven’t we learned anything about how to combat this virus without slamming shut our economy? Yes. And so, in the hopes that these errors of government are corrected, I present some well-established truths about how to keep us safe from the virus:
No. 1: Yes, COVID-19 is a very dangerous disease for those over the age of 70 and for those who are severely overweight or with preexisting health issues. For young and healthy people, the risks remain miniscule.
No. 2: Lockdowns have had very limited efficacy in reducing death rates from the virus. I recently examined the correlation between the stringency of business lockdowns in states and their corresponding death rates. The relationship is slightly positive. In other words, strict lockdowns have NOT been a smart strategy to stop the spread of the disease. Sequestering the elderly and the infirm is a much more effective strategy — something New York, New Jersey and Michigan failed to do.
No. 3: The factor most associated with death rates from the virus is the population density of an area. Pandemics are primarily urban diseases. If you want to minimize your health risks, get out of the big cities like Chicago or New York.
No. 4: The only statistically significant impact of lockdowns is SEVERE and potentially long-term damage to the local and state businesses and workers. Another way to put this is lockdowns do not flatten the curve of the virus, but they do flatten the economy and put millions of Americans in long unemployment lines.
No. 5: Almost all of the severe lockdowns are in blue states with Democratic governors, and these are the states with very high unemployment rates. Here are the unemployment rates in blue states with severe lockdowns: New Jersey 10%, Nevada 10.1%, New York 8.4%, Connecticut 8.4%, and California 8.2%. These blue-state unemployment rates are almost twice as high as the rates in states that have minimal or no lockdowns: Nebraska 3.1%, South Dakota 3.5%, Iowa 3.6%, Utah 4.3%, and Alabama 4.4%.
No. 6: The blue states of America, led by Democratic governors and mayors, have tragically turned a health crisis into an economic crisis.
My New Year’s wish is that Democratic governors stop the misery of soup lines and unemployment lines and small-business bankruptcies and open up their stores, restaurants, shopping centers and schools — now.”
END QUOTE
Dems Win GA Senate Runoffs – Complete Government Control
As of this writing, both Georgia Senate runoff elections have been declared victories for the Democratic Senate candidates John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock over their Republican opponents, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.
Thus, the balance in the US Senate will be split 50/50 among Democrats and Republicans. This will mean Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, as president of the Senate, will cast the tie-breaking vote on all split decisions in favor of the Democrats. FYI, this also means Chuck Schumer (D – NY) will become Senate Majority Leader, relegating Mitch McConnell (R – KY) to Minority Leader.
With the Democrats in control of the Senate, the House and the White House, this will mean President Biden should be successful in implementing most of the Left’s very liberal agenda – at the very least until the mid-term elections in 2022, if not even longer.
As a conservative, I view this as a very sad day for America. When Bill Clinton won the White House in 1992, I wasn’t overly concerned about America’s future. Likewise, when Barack Obama was elected in 2008, I wasn’t overly concerned about the country’s future.
This time, however, with Democrats in control of the Senate, House and White House, I am very concerned. So, what’s different now? The Democratic party has been taken over by the ultra-Left- Wing faction of their membership in recent years. This group is hellbent on implementing the most liberal agenda of the party – which includes statehood for Washington, DC and Puerto Rico, packing the Supreme Court and significant increases in taxes and regulation, just to name a few.
I’ll have much more to say about this in the days and weeks to come.
1. you are drinking the cool aid of the radical right. Joe Biden is not owned by the radical left. even if he was, Joe Manchin will not support any radical left wing policies. So no new states, and the filibuster stays.
2. I get that representation of citizens in DC is not politically convenient for a “conservative”. Further our rotten boroughs are also politically convenient. However, denying these citizens the right to be represented in Congress is not actually conservative. “one man, one vote”.
3. What we will get is tax increases, environmental protection, and leftist judges. The good news is that these judges will be actually qualified.
4. Joe Biden will work to shore up our democracy. Now that Trump is banished, Mitch McConnell will help.
5 no political leader has supported smart anti covid policies. So the failure is bipartisan. Smart policies would have been raising everyone’s serum vitamin D levels to 80 ng/ml (greatly improves resistance to all infectious disease and hundreds of other health benefits) and giving the BCG universally. this is an old tuberculosis vaccine, not given in the US anymore, probably because it is not profitable enough for big pharma. A side effect is to raise nitric oxide levels in the blood, which would greatly improve covid resistance. This would have greatly reduced the reason to close the economy.