The Patriot Post® · Biden's COVID 'Rescue' Plan
Never fear, Joe Biden has announced his “American Rescue Plan,” a $1.9 trillion proposal to “change the course of the pandemic [and] build a bridge towards economic recovery, and invest in racial justice.” Wait… “racial injustice”? Why does everything have to be about this leftist canard?
Anyway, back to the economy, which Democrats are such experts at fixing. Headlining Biden’s plan is $400 billion earmarked for a national vaccination and testing program, with the expressed focus to reopen schools and protect vulnerable populations. Biden also wants Americans to receive another round of stimulus checks of $1,400 per person, adding to the $600 recently distributed in Congress’s last COVID-19 relief bill to reach the $2,000 sum that President Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer stumped for last month.
Biden’s plan also includes one of the Democrats’ favorite and ill-advised agenda items — a $15-an-hour federal minimum wage. Small businesses are already struggling with the economic burden of COVID. Forcing them to pay extra to hire back workers is not going to help them or workers who still won’t have jobs. But it sure will appear compassionate.
Aside from a few leftist goodies like that, however, when compared to the actions the Trump administration has taken in response to the pandemic, the truth is that Biden is still largely plagiarizing. His plan is more about how he talks about the pandemic than any real substantive change in action. Of course, he’ll have the advantage of a supportive press to praise his “decisive” action, and we predict the novel virus will soon stop dominating the headlines for that reason.
Meanwhile, almost as if on cue, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is planning to begin releasing his state from his draconian economy-stifling lockdown shackles. Sounding ironically like Trump, Cuomo argued, “We simply cannot stay closed until the vaccine hits critical mass — the cost is too high. We must reopen the economy, but we must do it smartly and safely.”
Cuomo’s not the only Democrat leader pushing reopening in the midst of what Biden once warned would be a “dark winter.” Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot also insists that the city must reopen bars and restaurants “as soon as possible.” She swears, “I am very, very focused on getting our restaurants reopened. If we look at the various criteria that the state has set, we are meeting most if not all of those. So that’s a conversation that I will have with the governor. But I want to get our restaurants and our bars reopened as quickly as possible.”
It’s funny how as soon as Biden is about to take up residence in the White House, Democrat are suddenly concerned about getting the economy up and moving again, even as the number of COVID infections and deaths continue to hit records. The Chicago Tribune reports, “State health officials on Thursday reported 6,652 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19. The seven-day average of new cases hit 6,377, roughly the same it was a week ago after spiking to 6,990 average daily cases for the week ending Sunday. In all, there have been 1,052,682 known cases statewide throughout the pandemic.”
We argued right from the beginning of the pandemic that Democrats would exploit it to force the economy into recession in order to defeat Donald Trump. Naturally, now that Joe Biden is coming to the “rescue,” those same Democrats find it politically advantageous to call for reopening the economy. Don’t get us wrong — we want economic recovery and have been calling for it since the beginning. But now that Democrats want to end “15 days to slow the spread” after a mere 10 months (and after all election challenges had played out), we’re just calling a spade a spade when we say it’s a cynical play to make sure Ol’ Joe gets the credit.