Horowitz: GOP to sign on to trillion-dollar COVID bill to ‘stimulate’ lockdowns

If we are going to enslave our children with incorrigible debt by spending endless trillions of dollars on a stimulus bill, why won't Republicans at least ensure the funding stimulates growth rather than facilitating more lockdowns?

The mayor of Los Angeles has now essentially criminalized basic physical and economic activity outside one's home. Nearly every state is doubling down on eight months of failed policies that dangerously violate our core liberties and crush our lives and our economy. Republicans are now prepared to underwrite yet another bill that will enable them to continue this nuclear winter on America's economy rather than at least using the funds as a carrot and stick to end the lockdowns and violations of civil liberties.

Last week, a bipartisan group of liberal senators unveiled a draft bill to throw another $908 billion at the COVID economic crisis they helped create. The group of senators includes Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Angus King (I-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), and Mark Warner (D-Va.). In addition, Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), and Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) indicated they would support the broad framework.

Undoubtedly, our politicians owe small business owners reparations for shutting down their businesses. But who should bear the burden for those policies? The ones who perpetrated them: the state and local governments. Let them be forced to either raise taxes to pay for them or to end the lockdowns altogether. I'm not against the $288 billion in the bill for small businesses, but it should come with strings attached to the states.

Also, the bill spends another $180 billion on unemployment benefits. A stimulus bill should stimulate employment, not unemployment. It should offer tax and regulatory incentives to business owners and perhaps certain employees to work – not to stay locked down.

Moreover, the bill gives state and local governments another $180 billion. Yes, the very people who are shutting down our lives, who belong in jail for their abuse of power, are being rewarded by Republicans with a massive slush fund to pay off special interests and further spy on us and enforce COVID fascism.

To add insult to injury, the proposed "stimulus" would throw another $80 billion at the education system. But for what? Zoom classes? More mask mandates and social isolation of our children? The evidence is now clear that children should be left alone to live their lives normally, yet this bill would not even pretend to use the funding to incentivize school districts to end the child abuse.

Almost every other line item of this bill fuels the counterproductive nature of the status quo from these states. The draft plan will basically underwrite every lockdown goal of the local fascists. Not only would Congress hand money to schools without conditioning it on full reopening, but the bill spends another $10 billion on child care. The premise of this funding is to help parents stay employed while their children are out of school. But again, how about a bill incentivizing more schooling, thereby obviating the need for childcare funding to begin with?

Likewise, the bill throws more money at "opioid treatment." However, the reason why there is a massive increase in drug abuse is because of the depression brought on by the lockdowns and school closures that this bill helps stimulate and perpetuate. The proposal would further fund food and nutrition programs to the tune of $26 billion, but we already spend an enormous sum through the school systems. Reopen the schools and you will solve that problem.

The most tragic and ironic outcome of these "stimulus" bills, which help ensure cowardly governors can keep kids out of school without suffering the consequences, is that the children are the ones who will pay for this unfunded liability. They are paying for the destruction wrought by lockdowns, and they will pay all the debt on the bills that are allowing these governors to virtue-signal on the taxpayer dime.

The bill also offers billions in additional funding for contact tracing, aka spying on the American people. How can Republicans sign off on this without first fixing the problem with overly sensitive PCR testing that ensures the contact tracing and quarantines are locking down the wrong people?

The proposal further bails out the airlines with another $45 billion, after they received hundreds of billions earlier this year. Airlines are abusing passengers (even more than usual) with draconian mask mandates. It's time for them to own their miserable travel accommodations, which were terrible even before COVID, and suffer the consequences.

Republicans, especially those running in the Georgia Senate runoffs, incessantly accuse Democrats of promoting socialism. But when it comes to the most expensive market-distorting bills, they are pushing them right alongside the Democrats. If this is not socialism, then what is?