Crisis Legislation

When a crisis comes up in your world, who do you turn to?

I turn to God, who has all power.

Some people turn to government, which has all the power—that is, all the power we people had already, that we granted to government to do for us—plus all the power it usurped from us.

Neither God nor government is a wish-granting service.

I plan to continue turning to God for what is actually essential. And I’ll keep an eye on government because of its power-usurping propensity.

One of my concerns during this pandemic is government response. Will it be enough to do what we need for protection of life, liberty, and property? Or will it be an interference that will do the opposite of the life-liberty-and-property-preserving goal?

CDC Coronavirus illustration, found here

We’re in the middle of things, and there’s so much we don’t know that I can’t clearly predict. But I want to have a way of looking at things that is principle based, which means it will apply even in these unusual circumstances.

Should everyone not in a critical job be staying home, working from there if possible, or just waiting things out and hoping to recover economically later? I think so. We’re doing that. We worked from home beforehand, so it’s our non-work life that is largely affected. That doesn’t mean we’re not economically affected. It has been scary.

And what about all those little businesses, working so very hard to make a success of things? This isn’t their fault. This isn’t—as the crisis in 2008 was—the result of a whole lot of really bad business decisions. This is more like Hurricane Harvey, where a disaster came upon us. Some businesses got wiped out. Others held on and slowly worked their way back up.

In that case, the rest of the economy—outside the flood zone—was doing pretty well. This time, there is no outside unaffected zone.

I think a government disaster response is appropriate in this case—to preserve life, liberty, and property. So now it’s a matter of what response is appropriate.

This past weekend the Senate put forth a bi-partisan relief bill, of almost $2 trillion. There have already been two other bills; this is a phase 3. The purpose is to keep businesses and individuals afloat so that, after the crisis has passed, the economy can naturally get back into full production. If there’s mass bankruptcy, that will greatly hinder a bounce back.

However, the Congress, led by Nancy Pelosi, put the kibosh on it.   It wasn’t to her liking. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is angry. My Congressman, Dan Crenshaw, is angry—and as a veteran specially trained to take strategic action rather than give in to emotion, anger is not common for him. 

I think I have questions we can ask about what might be acceptable in such a relief bill:

·         Does this mitigate economic damages to businesses and individuals caused by the virus and our response to it?

·         Does this help preserve businesses so that recovery will be possible faster following the end of the crisis?

That’s pretty simple, in theory. If we have such a bill, it should help individuals get by for now, while they may not be able to work for no fault of their own or their employer’s, so that they can continue to have food and housing necessities. And it should help businesses who would otherwise face bankruptcy or massive downsizing (job losses)—not because of their bad decisions, but because of the pandemic’s effect on supply and demand—so that those businesses still exist and can keep people hired, or hire people back on, following the crisis. Without businesses available to hire people, it will be a longer, harder time to get back on our feet economically.

But the House Majority Whip James Clyburn let slip their real reason for refusing to accept, reject, or even discuss the bipartisan Senate bill that was sent to them: “This is a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.” Similar to Rahm Emmanuel, Obama’s chief of staff, referencing basic Marxist theory when he said, “Never let a crisis go to waste.”

House Majority Whip James Clyburn and Speaker Nancy Pelosi
photo credit Greg Nash, image found here

In the Spherical Model, we can see that it’s a tyranny approach: use the fear people have during chaos (create the chaos, if you need to), so you can offer them security if they will just grant you power over their freedoms. You move from chaotic tyranny to statist tyranny, because they’re really close together.

As a result of the Democrat stonewalling, the market dropped this morning. If the procedural vote had gone the other way, chances are good the market would have had a bit of a rally.

Rep. Crenshaw sent out examples of what the bipartisan Senate bill would have done:

·         Provide immediate relief to businesses large and small. Payroll, rent, and utility expenses FORGIVEN for small business loans.

·         ‪Put cash in the hands of Americans in need with direct payments.

·         ‪Bolster unemployment benefits for people out of work.

·         Limit relief money from going to CEO compensation or stock buybacks.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw post, from Facebook

Then he passed along examples of what the Democrats put in their 1,119-page alternative emergency relief bill: 

·         Conduct risk-limiting audits of results of elections.

·         Bail out the US postal service from its current debt.

·         Compare pay among racial and ethnic minorities.

·         Require early voting nationwide.

·         Require same day voter registration.

·         Protect collective bargaining and official time for federal employees.

·         Require airlines to fully offset their carbon emissions.

·         Improve consumer information regarding release of greenhouse gases from flights.

·         Modify minimum funding standards for community newspaper plans.

While this wasn’t on the list he sent out, I heard from The Blaze that Pelosi was trying to put an abortion slush fund into the coronavirus relief bill. And Guy Benson added in a tweet, expansion of wind and solar tax credits.

Apply the questions. Pelosi fails to convince me that postal debt, same day voter registration, taxpayer-funded abortions, or alternative energy tax credits will help mitigate damage to anyone, businesses or individuals, who might be suffering economic damage caused by the virus and our response to it.

Earlier today on the STA Money Hour, the guys were talking about this game-playing by the Democrats, on a show that is rarely political: 

This is an illness, a global pandemic that came from some other part of the world that ultimately infected our country, and now we have to deal with this. And we have told businesses and people to just shut it down. Close your doors. Stop coming in. So there is the demand shock, and then there’s the supply shock, because you can’t get anything made, can’t get anything bought, unless it’s just generally the essentials.

And that’s what these payments are for. To vote that down because ultimately it didn’t provide things that they wanted longer term is unbelievable to me.

They agreed that, with all the gains of the first three years of the Trump presidency wiped out suddenly, while not his fault, the recession we’re probably already in will cause political difficulty for his reelection. However, the obvious game playing by Democrats in this time of crisis is shameful and ought to cost them politically as well.

At the Spherical Model, we have a general list of questions about whether a policy is a proper role of government, or will be an interference that will cause unintended consequences, likely the exact opposite of the stated purpose. These are the questions:

·         Is the policy being debated something that an individual has the right to do, and therefore has the right to delegate to his/her government? 

·         Does the policy infringe in any way on natural right, including but not limited to those enumerated in the Bill of Rights?

·         Is the idea being debated a proper role of government, as enumerated in the Constitution?

My reflex is to say, if there’s an economic problem, government should do nothing but get out of the way. So I’m definitely skeptical that whatever is in the $2 trillion Senate relief bill answers those general questions the right way. But, if something indeed should be done this time, then, under difficult circumstances—time pressures, and legislators themselves being quarantined—we won’t get “perfect,” and may have to settle for “acceptable for now.” We’re doing damage control—for our economy and, probably later, for our Constitution.

At least I see reason to trust my Congressman to be asking these questions and applying them to policy. And I’ve been pleased with our president’s approach of involving the free market, rather than dictating to it.

What I don’t trust are Democrat legislators who see this crisis as leverage to purposely go against our Constitution, against the proper role of government, and against the good of the American people.

via GIPHY