Free-marketeer: Better Than a Stimulus Plan
The nation faces “a personal and business liquidity problem,” warns economist Arnold Kling, not “a typical business-cycle recession that requires fiscal or monetary stimulus.” That, Tom Giovanetti argues at The Wall Street Journal, means that “tax cuts and delayed filing deadlines” — and even “sending checks to households” — won’t “address the core problem.” Kling and Giovanetti support giving every American bank account, “personal or business,” a federally backed “line of credit, at low interest.” It would “work like government-backed overdraft protection,” helping struggling business and individuals and shoring up banks while ensuring they would “get their money back.” Kling’s idea is “ingenious,” Giovanetti concludes — and the government should “turn it into law” before “the next wave of bankruptcies and layoffs.”
Foreign desk: US-Chinese Ties at a Crossroads
With COVID-19 pitting the world’s two biggest economies “openly against each other,” the “fiction of amicable U.S.-China relations” is finally finished, Michael Auslin declares at RealClearPolitics. It looked like “traditional engagement” might survive, but now “all that has been swept away by the coronavirus crisis,” as “Xi Jinping decided early on that concealing the truth about the outbreak” was “a national priority.” That put China “on a collision course with Washington and the world.” The “evidence is mounting by the day that the epidemic is far from controlled in China,” and Xi’s response is a “global propaganda campaign” blaming America. “Given Xi’s coverup, it is not only reasonable but necessary to ask how any U.S. government, let alone the rest of the world, can anymore trust what Chinese officials say.”
From the heartland: Finding the Right Mix
Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) “has issued at least two dozen executive orders — the biggest one being a stay-at-home order from March 27 to April 10,” reports Bonnie Kristian at The Week. The approach may overlap with other states’, but it really is “unique” — and “in a good way”: It’s “two weeks of the stay-at-home order, followed by three weeks of social distancing, followed by ongoing distancing for vulnerable populations.” And Minnesota’s orders are “not quite as strict as shelter-in-place commands.” The goal “to strike a proper balance of making sure our economy can function,” protecting the most vulnerable and slowing the infection rate to buy time, says Walz. The state’s ideas may be “different,” says Kristian, but “in these uncharted waters, they’re worth a closer look.”
Culture critic: Cut the Skeptics Slack
National Review’s Michael Brendan Dougherty calls himself a “virus doomsayer” yet advises “patience and even appreciation of the virus skeptics.” Peter Hitchens, for example, argues that lockdowns are not worth “the cost of lost livelihoods, careers, homes and nest eggs if these dire warning[s] turn out to be wrong.” First Things editor and virus-skeptic Rusty Reno contends that Christians are “not obliged to do ‘everything’ ” conceivable, including evil, in the name of preventing deaths. Dougherty has his differences with both skeptics, but believes “scorn” for their arguments is “misdirected.” After all, they may be wrong, but at least they remind us that we still “have free men among us.”
Professor: Learning From Asian Countries
As the pandemic inflicts huge economic costs, it’s “essential” to use the next weeks to find ways to “lift the quarantines and get Americans back to work,” warns NYU professor Arpit Gupta at City Journal, and looking at non-Chinese East Asian countries can be “helpful.” South Korea, formone, has “led the way on scaling up testing,” our “most urgent task.” South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore have shown the benefits of “extensive social-tracing efforts.” Some countries have even begun to use cellphone location data to trace contacts. Temperature checks are “a regular part of life across many Asian countries,” as are masks. Bottom line: It’s vital to “take advantage of the time that we gain” from current “shelter-in-place measures” and invest now in strategic planning to move forward.
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
