Our nation has been gripped by coronavirus terror for the last two months.
Governors have shut down our economy, added trillions to our nation’s debt, and put more than 26 million people out of work.
To make matters worse, elected officials are tossing the Constitution aside, going so far as criminalizing the sale of gardening equipment and arresting parents for tossing a ball with their children in deserted public parks. The Constitution is not something that can be tossed out at the whim of a public servant. It is a set of rights available to every American and should be safeguarded by those elected to serve.
These draconian policy decisions will have lasting impacts on our nation and if that wasn’t bad enough, incomplete and unreliable data are driving our nation’s response to the coronavirus. The models we rely on for realistic predictions have shown to be inaccurate and are being revised downward on an almost daily basis.
Just last week, researchers behind the widely cited IHME model reduced their original projection of up to 240,000 American COVID-19 deaths to just 60,000. These overblown models have been drastically lowered time and time again, yet we continue to operate under their doomsday predictions. Contrast this with the Centers for Disease Control estimate that roughly 61,000 people died during the 2017-2018 flu season.
Because of our overreliance on unreliable projections, the goalposts keep moving. First, we were told we need to shut down our country and spend trillions of taxpayer dollars to make up for it. Then, we hammered on having enough ventilators and beds available, which are now in surplus in many localities. Now, we’re being told that having the ability to treat patients alone is insufficient.
What’s next? Will we need to “flatten the curve” and stay at home until there are no COVID-19 patients whatsoever? Or until researchers find a vaccine?
Such expectations are unrealistic. We cannot keep the country at home for much longer while we spend money we don’t have.
At this rate, there will be no economy to revive once we finally reopen America. Once stay at home orders are lifted and we look at the impacts of our decisions, we’ll find ourselves faced with a plethora of serious, long-lasting issues. How will we grapple with the spike in suicides and domestic violence reports? What will we do for the millions of children who have lost months of education? How can we turn a blind eye to worsening income disparities when affluent families can make the switch to online education while poor families are left ever further behind? How do we expect future generations to bear the weight of our decision to add trillions to our national debt?
Congress has sent $2 trillion out the door without so much as a proper debate in front of the American people. When we look at the rate of recovery, that equals out to about $33 million per life saved. It is perfectly reasonable for the federal government to give taxpayers back their own money, but members of Congress might never be held accountable for their approval of billions of dollars in extra pork in these bills. With so much at stake, we need a recorded vote from each and every member.
We are engaged in a bipartisan bankruptcy of this country. Our country might never recover from the bailout mentality created by this crisis.
It is time for those in charge to admit that they have taken things to the extreme. We need to ease up on these authoritarian and downright unconstitutional restrictions on daily life. We must put an end to the incessant spending.
There is no shame in admitting that we might have acted wrongly out of compassion, but it is unforgivable if we continue to punish Americans when we know better.
If we don’t take action now, we might not see the same America we once knew.
Rep. Ken Buck, a Republican, represents Colorado’s 4th Congressional D.
