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| Unleash Prosperity Hotline Issue #7 1. Nancy and Chuck’s Big Blue State BailoutDemocrats are holding up $250 billion more funding for the business loan program (they only passed the $2.2 trillion less than two weeks ago!) because they want tens of billions of federal dollars to bail out financially-strained states and cities. But, of course, the federal government can only give states money if it takes the money from the citizens of the 50 states in the first place.So which states will win and which will lose? Well, we know that the states that have been hit the hardest are the blue states like New York, of course, and California, Illinois and New Jersey. With the exception of Louisiana, these are all the bluest of blue states.But this is reverse Robin Hood. The states that already spend and waste by far the most (and are mostly the richest states) are going to be subsidized by the states like Arizona and Utah that spend the least.There is zero evidence that states that spend the most have better services than states that spend the least. Few states have worse public services than New York – look at the dreadful schools in New York City. Meanwhile, Tennessee, which has better state and local services than New York spends one-half as much per person as does the Empire State. And it spends one third as much as California, Illinois and New Jersey.So instead of these blue states’ politicians coming to Washington begging for money, why don’t they ask the folks in Tennessee (or Arizona or Florida) how they can cut their costs of government nearly in half and get better results for their residents. Maybe they could start with pension reform – are you listening Governor Pritzker? Our hearts ache for the residents of New York, Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco who have seen their cities paralyzed by the coronavirus. But Republicans in Congress would be crazy to let Pelosi take money from their states to subsidize the flabby and inefficient government services in blue state America.  2. Contact tracing — lifesaver or Orwellian nightmare? Am I the only one nervous about this? If it is used only to quarantine those who test positive, then it may make sense, and versions of it seem to be working in Asian countries. But I worry about this expanding in Orwellian ways. By the way, won’t these programs be run by the same health bureaucrats who messed up the whole testing rollout in the first place? Let us know what you think! 3. Some Americans got fined for celebrating Easter Members of the King James Bible Baptist Church of Greenville, Mississippi held a drive-in service using a low-frequency radio-station signal. Everyone in the parking lot kept their windows up. Attendees were quickly surrounded by police cars ordering them to leave. Just after the 2 minute, 5 second of mark of this video you can hear a police officer yelling “Your rights are suspended!” https://www.facebook.com/charles.hamilton.336/videos/2815225008513294/?d=n Our John Fund reports that many local officials needlessly suppressed the practice of religion yesterday on the day Christians celebrate the Resurrection: https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/in-some-places-easter-isnt-being-celebrated-its-being-fined/ 4. Boris Johnson Is Released. Will He Be the “Golden Eagle” Of Ending the UK Lockdown? The U.S. isn’t the only place where there’s a fierce debate over when to loosen the lockdown. In Britain, the debate is between lockdown “hawks” who want to begin to lift restrictions in early May and lockdown “doves” who believe any easing should wait until May 25, with some restrictions continuing for months. The London Times reports that Johnson, who was only released from the hospital on Sunday, “is the biggest hawk in government.” Indeed, “‘More a golden eagle’, as a source who was in close contact with ministers last week put it.” https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/coronavirus-boris-johnsons-aides-were-told-his-survival-chances-were-50-50-6txf6m8fd? 5. Doctors make the case for ending the lockdowns We expect to see a lot more of this. In this post, a group of doctors made a strong eight-point case for ending the lockdowns. Their first and most important point? The curve has been flattened. Wasn’t that the goal when we shut down? The site Medium censored the post for wrongthink but it’s back up now under a disclaimer. Let’s see if they delete it again. https://medium.com/@jbgeach/eight-reasons-to-end-the-lockdowns-as-soon-as-possible-b7bb0bc94f00 6. Quote Of The Day British historian Niall Ferguson of Stanford’s Hoover Institution, writing in The London Times on the perverse incentives of bailouts. “I see the need to get money to those workers who will be unemployed… But the Fed’s current policy would appear to be a generalized bailout of investors, even those whose positions were known to be risky. And the US Congress has, in great haste and amid frantic horse-trading, passed legislation that commits taxpayers to writing down hundreds of billions of dollars of “loans” to businesses large and small. Moreover, the legislation would appear to make more than half of American workers better off being unemployed than they would have been working.” 7. This looks about right.  |
