House Relief Bill

Here’s what’s in the House “relief” bill, written in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D, CA) kitchen where she could have ready access to her special ice cream. The bill was written with zero Republican input, zero Republican amendments, carefully limited debate on the House floor, and passed almost entirely along party lines; although the bill did make 14 Progressive-Democrats choke to the point of voting against it, and one Republican was too timid to oppose it.

  • $1 trillion in funding for state and local governments

Money that State and local government do not need. To the extent that Federal funds—the dollars of taxpayers who are citizens of other States—are needed in a particular State, those funds should go directly to the point of need: the individual citizens and those citizens’ individual businesses.

  • relief to wealthy residents of high-tax states like New York by waiving the $10,000 cap on the federal State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction for 2020 and 2021

These look like the same 1% that the Progressive-Democrats hate so much, and they look like the folks ex-President Barack Obama (D) disdained as having made enough money. But they’re not the same 1%—their the rich donors to the Progressive-Democratic Party and Party-supported causes.

  • explicitly omitting Hyde Amendment limits on Federal abortion funding
  • explicitly withdrawing the work requirement criterion for food stamps

It’s important to keep in mind, on that last, that the work requirement wasn’t limited to requiring actual work. In lieu of work, the recipient could seek work, train for work (vis., take community college classes, intern, etc), do volunteer work, and so on.

Other goodies include

  • student loan debt forgiveness
  • $25 billion for the Postal Service
  • $3.6 billion to states for planning and preparation of elections

That last contains a national requirement to hold elections by mail—the Progressive-Democrats’ unconstitutional attempt to Federalize our elections.

All that money, and all of it is irrelevant to the supposed need for additional relief from the economic dislocation to which the Wuhan Virus situation has led. The Progressive-Democrats could have passed an actual relief bill, but they’ve chosen—again—to hold relief hostage until they’re paid their ransom in the form of their leftist wish list.

The Progressive-Democrats also could have sat back and done nothing for the moment, following the Senate’s recommendation that Government stop throwing money around and instead observe the effects of the money already shoveled out into the firebox.

No. The Progressive-Democrats chose instead to provide in Bill form, Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden’s campaign platform.

How cynical. Especially during this period of economic distress.

Time for a New Plan

That’s what Dr Marty Makary, Professor of Surgery at Johns Hopkins Medicine, says.  Broad lockdowns might have been justified at the outset of the present Wuhan Virus situation, but new information has arisen.

Since that time, we have data that has taught us that this infection is associated with public transit, with density, with mass gatherings, with city-to-city travel and it is associated with climate[.]

And

What we do know, [is that] there are safe ways to conduct activities in society if we use certain precautions and we probably need a targeted approach where we find areas where there is either an outbreak or an ongoing increase in cases, and use some of the more aggressive strategies in that particular location.

A man once said, When the facts change, I change my mind—what do you do, sir?

Some State governors, when the facts change, reemphasize their original positions, denying that change has occurred.

Expanding Its Economic War

The People’s Republic of China is expanding the economic war it’s been waging against the US to include an important American ally and friend in the Pacific: Australia.

China has blacklisted four red-meat-processing plants in Australia, suspending beef imports from them.

According to one analyst interviewed by national broadcaster ABC, the three plants [in Queensland] combined produce some 35% of beef exports to China, Australia’s largest trading partner.

People’s Republic of China Ambassador to Australia Cheng Jingye, in April:

Maybe the ordinary people will say “Why should we drink Australian wine? Eat Australian beef?”

The move comes as Australia calls for an investigation into the PRC’s role in its Wuhan Virus breakout and rapid spread to the rest of the world.

This is a war that we, and our Aussie friends (and the EU, should that entity find the courage), need to prosecute zealously to a strongly favorable conclusion. Japan and the Republic of Korea need to be ready to join the effort: the PRC will turn on them next.

The PRC, this Warring State, cannot be allowed to succeed in its economic destruction attempts or its threats of same. Crushing the bully also will prove favorable for the Republic of China, and it will prove beneficial for other nations trying to break away from the PRC, including in particular Vietnam.

Reducing Investments

The Federal government is leading by example in withdrawing taxpayer dollars from People’s Republic of China businesses.

National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow and National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien have sent a letter (which was up on Scribd, but which has since been removed) to Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia instructing him to not allow Federal retirement funds—taxpayer dollars—to be invested in shares of stock in PRC businesses.

Scalia then relayed those instructions to Michael Kennedy, Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board Chairman. Scalia instructed Kennedy to reverse the board’s decision to move the TSP’s International Stock Index Investment Fund investments to match an international index that would explicitly include PRC companies in the mix.

Scalia noted a prior bipartisan group of Senators’ request that the management board not move to invest in entities that

include those involved in military activities, espionage, and human rights abuses by the Chinese government.

However, in response to the Senators’ request,

the Board declined to reverse the decision.

Scalia also noted the additional concerns carried in the O’Brien/Kudlow letter to him:

…risks to investors resulting from inadequate investor disclosures and protections under Chinese law…this investment risk is augmented by the Chinese government’s concealment of critical information concerning the novel coronavirus, which exacerbated the COVID-19 pandemic and, they note, materially increases the risk that Chinese companies will be subject to sanctions or boycotts.

And he emphasized the concerns provided in Scalia’s to him:

Several of the companies listed on the [new index] arm the People’s Liberation Army, provide equipment that is used to oppress China’s religious minorities, and have violated US sanctions by engaging in economic activity with Iran and North Korea.

It’s about time, too.

Economic Reopening, Resistance, and Perspective

As States reopen for business, and as increasing numbers of businesses reopen and customers patronize them against State government encouragements or outright diktats to the contrary, Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden is nattering on that President Donald Trump’s policies are undermining the core pillars of our economic strength. In the meantime, the NLMSM is focusing ghoulishly on body counts and not mentioning any other relevant information.

The following table looks at some data for three States mentioned in one Wall Street Journal article, another State mentioned in a different WSJ article, and two States mentioned by Fox News.

State Wuhan Virus Deaths Wuhan Virus Recoveries Ratio of Wuhan Virus Recoveries to Deaths
Illinois 3,406 Not Reported
California 2,719 Not Reported
New York 26,682 58,006 2.17
Georgia 1,441 Not Reported
Michigan 4,555 22,686 4.98
Texas 1,095 21,022 19.20

Wuhan Virus data are from Johns Hopkins University’s CSSE Dashboard and were current as of 11 May.

Carefully ignored by Biden in his meandering and by the NLMSM in their panic-mongering are those recovery rates and ratios. Check the CSSE data—all of the States reporting recovery rates are reporting recovery-to-death ratios of at least 2:1, and generally much larger.

Progressive-Democrats in charge of their States, despite these favorable trends though, want to keep their States locked down and having no economic activity—all in the claimed name of safety. Of course the longer States stay shut down, the deeper will be the economic recession we’re facing at the end of summer and into the November elections.

Note, though, that wanting a recession explicitly as a means of defeating President Donald Trump in this election has been a key part of the Progressive-Democrats’ playbook for two years.

Be very heads up this November.