 |
| Unleash Prosperity Hotline Issue #22 Written By Stephen Moore 1) CTUP and FreedomWorks Grade the GovernorsWe released our coronavirus economic scorecard of the governors today. The governors who are liberating their economies from government controls quickest get the A grades. If you live in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Virginia or New Jersey…we’re sorry. The full report is available on our website:https://committeetounleashprosperity.com/committee-to-unleash-prosperity-coronavirus-response-scorecard/   2) Trump Must Be Listening to Us!It is more important than ever that we cut taxes to reward work and get the economy up off the floor rapidly. That’s why it’s the heart of the CTUP recovery plan. Fortunately, President Trump gets it. At his Lincoln Memorial town hall last night the president said:”We’re not doing anything unless we get a payroll tax cut. That is so important to the success of our country.”https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1257106561207590916 3) Happy Opening Day (Again)Here are today’s openings:Alaska opens retail and restaurants at 25% capacity and barbers and hair salons at a 1:1 staff/customer ratio. Florida opens retail and restaurants at 25% capacity except for Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. Kansas opens restaurants with tables six feet apart or separated by a barrier. Missouri opens non-COVID medical procedures and nonessential businesses. Nebraska opens non-COVID medical procedures and restaurants at 50% capacity. (They never had stay-at-home.) West Virginia opens small businesses with 10 employees or less, barbers and salons by appointment only, and restaurants for outdoor seating. 4) Nations Look At the Evidence, Prepare To Reopen SchoolsAs evidence piles up that children rarely get sick from or transmit the coronavirus, officials overseas are increasingly not standing in the schoolhouse door blocking students from returning.'”Primary schools are due to reopen as soon as June 1, as part of Boris Johnson’s blueprint for gradually ‘unlocking’ Britain,” Britain’s Sunday Telegraph reports.https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/02/primary-schools-reopen-june-part-blueprint-unlock-britain/In Australia, that country’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer Nick Coatsworth, writes:“When school closures were initially proposed to control an epidemic, planners had influenza in mind. Flu spreading within schools and children are the main source for transmission in the community. But COVID-19 is not the flu. Far fewer children are affected by COVID-19, and the number of transmissions from children to children and children to adults is far less.”https://www.health.gov.au/news/getting-our-kids-back-to-school-a-matter-of-trustAs we reported last week, researchers in Iceland have not found a single case in which a child brought the virus into their family and the Netherlands reports zero percent of cases were infected by children. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the European Union’s public-health agency, says that child-to-adult transmission “appears to be uncommon.”Denmark reports “no signs that the COVID-19 epidemic is accelerating” after opening their schools two weeks ago.https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-denmark-idUSKBN22C2EUIsrael has opened for grades 1 to 3 and will phase in other grades. Swiss and French schools start May 11.There are no announced U.S. school openings yet that we know of, but we note this from our U.S. CDC: “For children (0-17 years), COVID-19 hospitalization rates are much lower than influenza hospitalization rates during recent influenza seasons.”https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html 5) Legislators and Sheriffs Bucking Governor’s Arizona LockdownOne reason we gave Arizona Governor Doug Ducey a middling “C” on his COVID-19 report card is that he can’t even convince some officials to go along with his extension of a stay-at-home order until May 15.Last Friday, GOP leaders in the legislature had to squash a revolt among their members that aimed to overturn some of the governor’s actions. “The only reason the revolt fizzled is that leadership noted that every Democrat would oppose it and block it from passing,” one legislator told us.However, two Arizona county sheriffs haven’t been shut up. They won’t enforce Ducey’s stay-at-home because they think it is unconstitutional.Doug Schuster of Mohave County (population 212,000) and Mark Lamb of Pinal County (population 463,000) told reporters they would discourage residents who didn’t obey the order. But neither would arrest anyone.Lamb told the Arizona Republic that the 330 deaths caused by COVID-19 in the state can’t justify moves the “continue to ruin the economy.” Ducey’s office responded to the two sheriffs by saying violators are still subject to fines, jail and losses of business licenses.Some businesses aren’t waiting for the loss of their license to close. Melissa Lucas, the owner of a steak house in Mohave County, closed her doors for good last week. She tried to sell tacos in her parking lot one evening “There were all little groups of small families eating tacos and didn’t mingle with other groups,” she wrote on Facebook. But a county health inspector threatened her arrest if she sold any tacos. “I closed my business over this,” Lucas wrote, saying she hoped to reopen someday. “This whole situation is a disaster and it was very devastating to me.”https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-health/2020/05/02/arizona-sheriffs-say-they-wont-enforce-governors-stay-home-order/3070491001/ 6) Social Isolation Can KillAn advisor to Boris Johnson’s government reports that the social isolation imposed by a lockdown is as damaging to your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.Professor Stephen Reicher, a behavioral scientist, told Britain’s Daily Telegraph: “The problem with lockdown is isolation; being cut off from people is bad for you psychologically and physically. It is the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day.Human beings are social animals. Being connected is remarkably important not just for your mental health but for your physical health.”Reicher also cited a 2015 study by researchers from Brigham Young University that found that “individuals lacking social connections…. are at risk for premature mortality” with the risk highest among those under 65 years of age.https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/02/isolation-dangerous-smoking-15-cigarettes-day-lockdown-adviser/ 7) Contact tracing the right way — voluntary and private sectorThe idea of government tracking and tracing all of us sounds like an Orwellian nightmare. Fortunately, Apple and Google said no to turning their location data over to government-run systems — even in Europe where they were under enormous pressure. Instead they built their own voluntary system that lets users *opt-in* and protects their privacy. If it is OPTIONAL and can speed up economic recovery…we are for it!Here’s a Heritage paper on how it works:https://www.heritage.org/technology/report/the-apple-google-partnership-fight-covid-19-understanding-the-promises-and-perilsand an article from our libertarian friends at CEI:https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/contract-tracing-let-the-private-sector-lead 8) Was Michael Flynn framed?Mario Bartiromo has been on the story for years and promised that Donald Trump’s former national security adviser to the Michael Flynn would be exonerated last week. The documents disclosed last week might do it. They show that FBI agents in interview prep discussed getting Flynn to lie (a perjury trap) so they could get him prosecuted or fired — even though they knew he had not committed any crime.Where was the ACLU on this story? Amazing that the left doesn’t seem to care about prosecutorial misconduct any longer. Do they still believe innocent until proven guilty? Sean Davis has the story at the Federalist:https://thefederalist.com/2020/04/29/explosive-new-flynn-documents-show-fbi-goal-was-to-get-him-fired/We’ll keep an eye on new developments this week in what’s shaping up at the biggest non-COVID, non-economy story. 9) Hero of the DayThis CEO rejects taxpayer bailouts!”We believe in markets. We see demand for gasoline down more than 50 percent in six weeks, which has never happened before in our industry. But we don’t believe in bailouts from government and we don’t want one.” Chevron CEO Michael Wirth on Mornings with Maria, Fox Business News, May 1. 10) Quote of the DayAndy Puzder, author of the great new booklette Getting America Back to Work:”The economy will rebound with astounding speed if – and only if – we put our faith in the vast potential of enterprising individuals in a free market economy. That will require ending much of what the government is doing to address the Coronavirus crisis and resisting the inevitable urge for government to do more once the crisis abates. Rather than restructuring ‘things to fit’ a misguided Progressive ‘vision,’ as Congressman Clyburn would prefer, it will require acknowledging that a government which grows to address a crisis, must recede when that crisis ends.”Three simple words hold the key to restoring prosperity as quickly as it tanked in weeks following the economic shutdown, for creating millions of jobs, for reviving the careers that have been interrupted, for better wages for workers, for more money for education at all levels, for creating wealth that our charities and non-profits need, for stock market recovery so that our retirees are protected, and for surging the revenue of state and local governments: Let capitalism work.” 11) Despicable Them…Over the weekend The Washington Post reprinted this “cartoon” by Mike Luckovich from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It is so tasteless, vile, and despicable that we thought we would show it to you, to get a sense of how awful the media has become. We can’t decide which is more disheartening: that the AJC published it in the first place or that the Washington Post reprinted it. It is not in the least bit funny or clever, which we thought was the point of a cartoon, but the far-left has long ago lost any sense of humor.  |
| Know anyone else who would appreciate the Hotline? Please direct them to subscribe at: https://committeetounleashprosperity.com/hotline/ Have an idea for an item that should be in our newsletter? Send us any charts, statistics, heroes/villains, or humor that you’d like to see featured! |
