Economics are life: Balancing the COVID19 response

When the Great Depression hit no one got sick but many suffered and died.

The reality is that if unemployment hits 20% or higher people will die for a variety of reasons including suicide, malnutrition, etc.

More recently the massive loss of manufacturing jobs in middle America has led to a significant reduction in US life expectancy.  Amazingly a Washington Post columnist cites two economists saying:

[A] rise in deaths linked to long-term economic hardship — suicide, overdoses and the like — has caused devastation in communities across the middle of the country, leading to a troubling recent decline in U.S. life expectancy.

Economic prosperity is a matter of public health, too — the necessary condition for it, in fact. The United States must respond to the coronavirus accordingly.

Hence when looking at how we can deal with COVID19 it means that simply shutting America down for a few months will have negative health consequences. The question is will those long term consequences be worse than the consequences of not shutting down America?

Of course when asking that question we have to remember that the Democrat base is largely immune to the impacts of America shutting down.

The rich Silicon Valley social justice warriors can all work from home so they're not bothered.

Government workers will keep getting paid whether or not they work so they don't care.

Those on welfare or government assistance will keep getting paid too.

Politicians will keep getting paid.

That's why Democrats are fine with destroying the economy by demanding same day voter registration before they'll support economic relief for Americans who don't have the economic security that the people that Democrat politicians care about have.

The correct answer to the question may be to shut America down.  But Democrat politicians don't know that. Instead what's clear is that no matter what Trump does they will condemn it.

Instead of coming together in this crisis Democrat politicians are demonstrating that what matters to them is getting more power and advancing their ideological agenda.

Can you imagine the outcry, including from pro-lifers, if Republicans were holding up the desperately needed economic stimulus until Democrats agreed to ban abortions after 20 weeks?

This bill is about helping Americans due to the consequences of government policies that are restricting people's ability to work.  By making it about everything from ensuring that community newspaper workers have retirement plans to airlines being carbon neutral by 2025 Democrats are making a clear and unambiguous statement:  They care about power and their agenda and they don't care about we the people.