Volume 8, Issue 13
We are most grateful for the front-line healthcare professionals and providers who put their lives at risk for society’s benefit.
This pandemic may have historical precedence. The looming economic crisis does not. Never before in history have all businesses of a non-essential nature been shut down in a nation at the same time. Not in World War I, not in World War II, and not even in the fall of the Roman Empire. Even in the Great Depression, economic circumstances were dire, yet some businesses stayed open.
Like in war or depression, our thoughts and actions are dominated by the immediate need at hand. This is normal and as it should be. However, never during World War II or the Great Depression did Americans forget the purpose of our existence. Nor did they forget their commitment to the truth manifested in our national character.
The ultimate goal of the Great American Experiment is the protection of freedom.
Through shortages by war, through despair by depression, through grief by pandemics, Americans have always known that they would get through it together and come out on the other side stronger in their commitment to the promises of freedom. This crisis economically, as unprecedented as it is, must be no different. Our call and commitment to each other, regardless of the cost and indifferent to the time required, must be to protect, for our children and the next generation, the same opportunity that individual freedom provides. Birth is not destiny. Station in life is not predetermined. The creativity of the mind in our pursuit of happiness is a God-given gift. Our rights are not to be short-circuited by government demands for the maintenance of state control. Imperative is our recognition that all rights are unalienable as a covenant with the Creator.
Why is it important to keep these tenets in mind while we deal with the oppressing circumstances of this crisis?
Because the required government policies for business and individual economic rescue are also unprecedented. Lawrence Kudlow, Director of the U.S. National Economic Council, stated recently that the total cost of the federal government’s economic stimulus package totaled $7.2 trillion. This would include $2.2 trillion of the recently passed Congressional package that expends direct cash to businesses and individuals. Two weeks ago, the Federal Reserve infused the federal banking system with $1.5 trillion of liquidity. And, payroll taxes have been deferred.
It is unanimity among economists that another rescue package will be required for support of individuals in the next six weeks, estimated at another $1 trillion. It is important not to forget that the federal budget at $4.5 trillion was $1 trillion in deficit. This was while the economy was operating at full employment prior to the coronavirus outbreak. This $1 trillion deficit added to the current cost estimates of the economic rescue brings the total expenditures to $9 trillion. This is a deficit of twice the annual federal budget. And that only takes us through June. This does not include the cost of lost revenue and taxes in an economic downturn. Nor does it address the cost of restarting the economy. Nor does it account for the temperament of the consumer who is less likely to be spending money on anything but essentials for some time.
The most vulnerable government entities likely to face challenges in September are cities and municipalities. Most cities in America operate on a close margin. Sales tax based on consumer spending is their main source of revenue. A two-month decline in collection of sales tax is a gaping hole in their revenue stream. Only the federal government can design a package for their relief and rescue. Add to this the cost of reequipping and stabilizing the healthcare system, pressure on government financing will continue for at least a year.
The electorate will face the temptation to explore and consider the options of socialism. In such an economic system, the government must control all means of production and resources to provide critical services. Such a system eliminates most freedoms sought and desired by our Founding Fathers. The government always doubles down on control to maintain government power and priorities through the beguilement that totalitarianism is necessary to provide security.
One only has to look at China today to see the future of that lie.
China operates in a distorted reality wherein the citizens are controlled in every major decision of their lives. Each Chinese citizen is given an obedience index rating. A number, if you will, like a credit score. This obedience indicator is even used to get to the front of the line for a concert. Facial recognition is the technological tool of trade for Chinese government control. That’s why Hong Kong protestors wore surgical masks. China is the only country in the world that last year spent more money on surveillance of its own people than they did on the military.
President Xi knows that a communist-designed economic system does not work. The only way they can survive is to become the only globally viable economic system. They will continue to offer struggling countries cheap financing through an unreliable currency. In 1991, I argued with then senior elder of China, Deng Xiaoping, that the communist system of managing currency would not work. I advised that if they implemented such a plan, their currency, the Yuan, would never be tradable in international financial markets based on a free-floating exchange rate. His rejoinder was that it didn’t matter because the Chinese people would do what he told them. I was right about the currency. He may have been right about the Chinese people. This communist strategy is implemented through the false premise that, if the economy becomes large enough and broad enough throughout the world, then by some miracle, the currency system will stabilize. It will not.
Only the United States has the economic capacity and the constitutional structure to lead the world through this historic health, government, and economic crisis. Central and South America, with the exception of Venezuela, will look to the United States first for leadership. Europe is the real question mark. Italy and Spain were broke before the pandemic. The EU has shown little intention to present member nations with an economic bailout package. The UK is in the middle of executing Brexit. The economic strain on the system is a perfect storm. Germany will have to decide what role they are willing to play financially to hold the European Union together. It is critical that the U.S. not allow China to absorb any members of the G-7 banking consortium into their banking system.
We will get through this together. We will do it with compassion. And we will do it by honoring the belief that freedom is the lifeblood of the heartbeat of humanity.
Cities are essential in formulating government policy. Families are the authoritative unit of moral decisions. And individuals are uniquely responsible for their destiny of purpose. These priorities are the reflection of the American character.
As China, progressives, and those who claim that standardization of security is more important than freedom, continue doubling down on their ideology, may we recommit our resolve to the promise of 1776 . . .
Nothing is superior, in this world in life or purpose, to the unalienable right of freedom.
My name is Marc Nuttle and this is what I believe.
What do you believe?