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| Unleash Prosperity Hotline Issue #13 1) Forbes and Laffer: Suspend the Payroll Tax Excerpt from these eminent CTUP founders in the WSJ: “The best economic idea we’ve heard in response to the coronavirus crisis is a payroll-tax suspension. President Trump restated his support for it at a recent press briefing, and for good reason: It would reward work and production rather than the growth of government. Republicans should rally around the idea as the centerpiece of their next economic revival plan. “Every worker in America would get a substantial pay raise for the remainder of the year, but because the tax is regressive, lowest-wage workers would be helped the most. The majority of low- and middle-income workers pay more payroll tax than income tax. Even minimum-wage workers would see a nice boost in their paychecks while their employers would pay less too. “By reducing employer payroll costs, this plan would encourage firms to start hiring. Several economic studies document what common sense would tell us: Lowering the tax on employment leads to more of it. Because the tax relief would be temporary, businesses would gain an incentive to hurry up and hire right away, or as soon as their work resumes. There is no time to waste: The U.S. needs to put perhaps 20 million people back to work. “This would help firms without picking winners and losers. Unlike almost every other “stimulus” plan—to bail out airlines, banks, Boeing, energy companies and the rest—suspending the payroll tax provides an equal benefit to every company in America.” https://www.wsj.com/articles/suspend-the-payroll-tax-11587316945 2) NYC subway virus deaths include employees, too This item was sent to us by our friend David Asman, who reports at Fox Business: “In New York City, a dreadful new statistic is that 68 employees of the Mass Transit Authority (MTA) have died of coronavirus. Another 2,496 MTA employees (out of 71,000) have tested positive. Think of that. Working in or around a subway or a bus is now one of the most dangerous occupations in New York. “We do know that workers complain the MTA was slow in providing them with disinfecting kits, personal protective equipment and enforcement of social distancing. “We also know, according to the New York Times, that bureaucratic supervisors reprimanded workers who brought in their own disinfectant and tried to cordon off ‘safe spaces’ among seats with their own duct tape. And new video of subway cars essentially turned into unsanitary homeless ‘shelters,’ should give subway employees and riders alike serious concerns about the utter failure of MTA administrators to assure safe travel.” https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/coronavirus-new-york-subway-workers-david-asman Asman says privatize the whole subway system and that sounds great to us. But can we start by not massively subsidizing urban mass transit with our federal tax dollars? We already spent $25 billion on these rolling virus boxes in the CARES Act. No more. 3) Heroes Of The Day: Brian Kemp and Henry McMaster The Georgia and South Carolina governors each took bold steps to reopen their states yesterday. Governor Kemp announced his Georgia’s shelter-in-place order would expire this coming Friday. The state’s economy will start to reopen in phases.  Georgia is the country’s eighth largest state with 11 million people. https://www.news4jax.com/news/georgia/2020/04/20/gov-kemp-to-discuss-how-georgia-could-reopen-amid-virus-fight/ In neighboring South Carolina, Governor McMaster rescinded his April 6 order closing department stores, sporting goods stores, book stores, and florists. Social distancing will be observed with no more than five people per 1,000 square-feet allowed in stores. Stores will be open today. Decisions on whether to reopen the state’s beaches will be returned to local governments. 4) Shake Shack Returns Small Business PPP Grant Shake Shack, one of the largest burger chains in the country has decided to return a $10 million small-business grant through the Paycheck Protection Program. Randy Garutti, the CEO of Shake Shake, told CNBC his firm has been able to access capital through traditional means and couldn’t justify holding onto the money now that the program has run dry of funds. “This industry rises and falls together,” Garutti said. https://reason.com/2020/04/20/paycheck-protection-program-shake-shack-received-a-10-million-small-business-loan-theyre-giving-it-back/ Shake Shake won’t have too much trouble rising back in a post-virus environment. The $10 million that Share Shack is returning will be worth a multiple of that in customer loyalty. But it does underscore the fundamental problem with the PPP: if you offer free money with a bunch of rules, the most sophisticated companies with the best lawyers will figure out how to get it first. That’s why we’ve consistently said we need small business LOANS. Real loans, not “forgivable loans.” 5) Facebook Does About Face On RestrictionsA lot of people have worried that Big Tech has too much power and should be regulated. We’ve been skeptics of that idea, more worried about big government than big business.But Facebook’s decision yesterday to ban posts organizing anti-lockdown rallies gave us pause, because it looks less like a private company deciding what to allow on its site than it does government dragooning a private company to suppress dissent.A Facebook spokesman told CNN the company was “coordinating with state governments” on the issue. Zuckerberg said some posts would be tagged as “harmful misinformation” and removed.FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr weighed in by Tweeting: “If state governments are instructing Facebook to censor posts that promote protests against those same governments, that would raise very serious First Amendment concerns.”After several hours, frantic Facebook representatives tried to clarify Zuckerberg’s remarks. “Unless government prohibits the event during this time, we allow it to be organized on Facebook,” a company spokesperson told Reason magazine.The clarification was welcome, but Zuckerberg’s interview was still noteworthy. He cited a theoretical post recommending bleach as a miracle cure for COVID-19 as an example of what Facebook would take down as “harmful misinformation.” But disagreeing with lockdowns is a question of values and core political speech.As an immensely popular social media outlet, Facebook has real challenges. But one thing it must avoid is both the reality and the perception that it is working with government against the interests of its customers. 6) How to lie with pictures The local news in Jacksonville, Florida is firing back hard at the New York-based national media that has the nerve to bash Jacksonville for opening its beaches for walking and swimming after doing a remarkably good job limiting spread of the virus. Yes that’s NEW YORK based media criticizing Florida. Shameless. And dishonest. Look at this side-by-side of the same beach at the same time, one with a telephoto lens to collapse depth (that ran all over the national media!) and one with an honest view from the News 4 Helicopter:  Full photos at: https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2020/04/20/slideshow-uproar-reaction-over-social-distancing-at-beaches-is-all-about-perspective/ And here’s a terrific video put out by Governor Ron DeSantis on what a great success story Florida has been so far: https://youtu.be/__MYRVVWbyE 7) The IRS Has Collapsed — more evidence we need the flat tax! Americans love to rail against the IRS, but it’s never been this bad before. Consider these facts from a politico.com story: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/20/irs-tax-refund-delays-snail-mail-193786?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000157-b838-d3f2-a35f-f87bb02d0000&nlid=630318 “The IRS is piling unopened business tax refund requests into storage trailers and advising companies to file by fax instead. It’s stopped answering phone calls on taxpayer assistance lines. And it’s not processing millions of paper tax returns filed by individual Americans. “The coronavirus pandemic has nearly crippled the tax collection agency, which relies on antiquated technology and still does a lot of business on paper… “As a result, millions of individual taxpayers and businesses could face lengthy delays before they receive refunds they desperately need as the coronavirus halts their incomes. Taxpayers disputing how much they owe or waiting to see if they qualify for tax credits also could have to wait indefinitely.” Democrats will, as always, say the solution is to enlarge the bureaucracy with a hefty funding boost. But maybe when the virus/lockdown crises are over, Congress could finally pull the broken IRS bureaucracy out by the roots and adopt a simple, clean tax system with a consumed income base. Why not the Forbes flat tax? 8) Los Angeles County finds antibody positives outnumber confirmed cases by 28x to 55x A large scale testing project run by the county health department and USC has found results similar to the widely attacked sero survey in Santa Clara a few days ago, suggesting that there are far more asymptomatic cases than models have assumed and therefore the fatality rate must be much lower. “We haven’t known the true extent of COVID-19 infections in our community because we have only tested people with symptoms, and the availability of tests has been limited,” said lead investigator Neeraj Sood, a USC professor of public policy at USC Price School for Public Policy and senior fellow at USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics. “The estimates also suggest that we might have to recalibrate disease prediction models and rethink public health strategies.” http://www.publichealth.lacounty.gov/phcommon/public/media/mediapubhpdetail.cfm?prid=2328 This is in line with other recent antibody testing, such as a study done in Chelsea, Massachusetts by Mass General that found nearly 30 percent were antibody positive. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/04/17/business/nearly-third-200-blood-samples-taken-chelsea-show-exposure-coronavirus/ Several European countries have begun antibody testing as well, including Denmark which screened blood donations and found antibody positives at 30x to 80x confirmed cases. https://www.thelocal.dk/20200408/danish-health-agency-says-400000-could-have-been-infected More accurate antibody surveys in the United States could go a long way towards giving Americans the confidence to resume a normal life. 9) Villains of The Day: The Tulip Police Dalton Farms, a Swedesboro, New Jersey business, has long delighted visitors with an annual display of its 252,000 tulips during their April blooming season. With the coming of the virus, the farm quickly shifted to offering a drive-through tour for visitors that met all social distancing rules. But on Sunday, New Jersey officials shut down the 99-acre-farm. They said that while farms are allowed to sell flowers to visitors picking them up, no tours would be allowed because lockdown rules bar all “social gatherings” – apparently, even if nobody exits their motor vehicles. Dalton Farms said in a statement. “We’re heartbroken to get this news in the middle of the day and would like to thank all those who came out over the last few weeks.” It promised to refund all tickets it had pre-sold to visitors. https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2020/04/farm-says-state-shut-down-drive-thru-tulip-festival-due-to-coronavirus-gathering-rules.html 10) Update! The skate park that was buried in sand has been partially dug out by skaters… who are now using it as a dirt bike course. American innovation!  |
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