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| Unleash Prosperity Hotline Issue #17 Written By Stephen Moore 1) Wisconsinites rally for reopening their stateWisconsin’s stay-at-home order was supposed to expire on Friday. But Governor Tony Evers has extended them for another month.That explains why thousands of frustrated state residents drove to the capital in Madison for a Freedom Rally.  Protestors note that while Milwaukee County has had 154 virus deaths, most counties have zero or one fatality. More than 400,000 people have lost their jobs after countless businesses have been deemed “nonessential.”“I’ll tell you what irritates me — to be treated like a child, almost like being told to go to your room,” Gerry Holton, a business owner from Waukesha County, told The Federalist. “Tell us about the virus — I get that. We’re adults. We will adjust. Even with our workers, we give them masks, we give them hand sanitizers, make sure they have it constantly, tell them to keep their distance from each other.” In the absence of clear guidance from the state, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce has released a plan after consulting with health experts to get the state “Back to Business.” The plan evaluates a number of risk factors and provides a timetable for employers to learn when and how they can begin to reopen. https://www.wmc.org/backtobusiness/Governor Evers hasn’t offered a meaningful response to the plan. His strategy for many small business is apparently “Steady As You Go – Into Bankruptcy.” 2) Amid the Coronavirus Crisis, Heart and Stroke Patients Go MissingThat was the headline from the NYT of all places, picked up by other liberal outlets who had been ignoring this tragic issue for weeks while we’ve been sounding the alarm.https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/25/health/coronavirus-heart-stroke.htmlRemarkably, NYT, which stoked as much corona panic as anyone, now admits: “ERs have about half the normal number of patients, and heart and stroke units are nearly empty, according to doctors at many urban medical centers. Some medical experts fear more people are dying from untreated emergencies than from the coronavirus.”We’re seeing these stories from all over the locked down world. We haven’t seen U.S. data yet but suspect it looks similar to this chart from the UK:  And many docs also expect a surge in cancer deaths over the next several years, because of the lengthy ban in so-called nonessential medical procedures, including screenings, biopsies, and non-emergency surgeries.It is increasingly likely that lockdown mania will kill more people than it saves even before considering the considerable health impacts of mass unemployment.3) And Hospitals Are Starting to Close — PermanentlyWere the lockdowns supposed to preserve health system capacity? Instead they are destroying it.Rick Jackson is CEO of Jackson Healthcare, which helps staff over 3,000 hospitals as third-largest health care staffing firm in the country. He warns that directives to halt so-called elective medical procedures (which means everything that is not an emergency) have left hospitals with historic numbers of empty beds and about half of their former revenues.“Hospitals in every corner of the country might close for good,” Jackson warns in a piece for Newsweek magazine. “Health care’s footprint—large and small, rural and urban alike—will be forever changed by this crisis unless our government gets out of the way and allows doctors to go about their business of healing patients. After all, it’s doctors and patients who should make decisions about care, not bureaucrats.”https://www.newsweek.com/most-us-hospitals-are-empty-soon-they-might-closed-good-opinion-1500028 4) Pandemic Shutdown Costs Far More than BenefitsFormer White House economist Casey Mulligan has launched a tracker at PandemicCosts.com.  5) More on unemployment now paying more than workLast week, the Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed from Kurt Huffman, whose Portland, Oregon restaurant company had to lay off 700 people. But some restaurants have adapted with takeout and delivery, so he needs to hire some back. But a starting wage for a line cook is about $640 a week. Oregon’s unemployment offers about $416 per week. But thanks to the $600 a week federal bonus, that same worker now collects $1,016. Huffman asks, why would anyone take a pay cut to go back to work?https://www.wsj.com/articles/our-restaurants-cant-reopen-until-august-11587504885DC’s local FOX affiliate spoke to a bartender out of work. He says he typically he makes at least $1,000 a week. On unemployment, he’s making the Virginia state unemployment maximum, about $383 a week, plus an additional $600 a week due to the coronavirus crisis.“I’m making more than my mom right now. She works at a restaurant as a manager and she’s doing 50-55 hours a week and doing every single job because it’s just managers and I’m sitting at home making more than her, doing nothing,” said Jeremy Meyer-Thomas, a bartender.Reminder, politicians did this on purpose and are already demanding it be extended from its current July 31 expiration to the end of September. Republicans need to hold the line against any extension and make the case to the American people that unemployment should not pay more than work. 6) Hero Of The Day: Democratic Mayor Will Reopen Town Despite Jail ThreatMayor Martin Hicks of Grants, New Mexico knows he faces potential arrest if he opens up his town’s so-called non-essential businesses today in violation of his governor’s lockdown order. But the Democratic mayor of the town of 9,000 says he has no choice. “The governor is killing us. She’s totally killing us,” Hicks told the Associated Press. “So we have no choice. So right now, we are reopening. Let State Police come down here.”Hicks has some advice for stores given a ticket by the New Mexico State Police. “Open up, when the state police come and cite them, ask for a warrant. The state police cannot come into your business and shut you down without a warrant, in order to get a warrant to do that they have to go to a judge, and the judge is going to ask them what law the owners are breaking a law. They can’t cite a law, they can cite an executive order, and the judge will throw them out, because you have to cite a law.”The office of Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham insists her executive orders carry full legal weight, but Mayor Hicks says he’s happy to see her in court.https://www.cibolacitizen.com/breaking-news-news/mayor-determined-stand-his-ground 7) Anti-Hero Of The Day – Judge Jenkins Faces A RevoltIn Texas, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins is emerging as an arbitrary and capricious opponent of opening up his county of 2.6 million people.Take Hobby Lobby, which stayed open after Jenkins slammed “non-essential” stores shut. The chain argued it sold everything people needed to make masks for themselves and others. Jenkins sent law enforcement to shut down the stores, even chasing shoppers out of them.Jenkins then used Twitter to urge residents of Dallas to snitch:  Last week, he also bizarrely announced anyone not wearing a mask outside would be subject to $1,000 fines. Dallas County Commissioners were appalled and called an emergency meeting. The commission voted to not only roll back mask penalties, but allow Hobby Lobby to reopen so it could sell materials for those masks. Democratic Commissioner John Wiley Price says Jenkins’ order was nonsensical: “All of a sudden we come up with a knee-jerk reaction because everyone else is doing it.”https://www.redstate.com/brandon_morse/2020/04/20/judge-who-accused-hobby-lobby-of-putting-profits-over-people-is-eating-his-words/ 8) Quote of the DayNew York Times columnist Bret Stephens:”I don’t see why people living in a Nashville suburb should not be allowed to return to their jobs because people like me choose to live, travel and work in urban sardine cans.” 9) The clearest explanation of lockdown rules we have seen yet: |
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