The Coming Reckoning Over the Economic Shutdown
By Michael G. Zey
AmericanThinker.com
June 7, 2020
As a result of states’ governors and mayors shutting down the U.S. economy for well over two months, forty-two million Americans have lost their jobs and thousands of businesses have gone bankrupt. Even as the economy shows signs of improving and the coronavirus abates, governors in California, New Jersey, New York, Illinois, Michigan, and elsewhere stubbornly resist calls from their citizens and the president to fully reopen the economy.
The media would have us believe that once all governors have lifted their lockdowns those most negatively impacted by the governors’ decisions during this period will simply forgive and forget.
Nothing could be further from the truth. As Americans begin to assess the lockdown’s legacy of shuttered businesses and shattered lives, injured parties will seek accountability and even compensation, from the governors who shut down the states, the experts who prodded the politicians to do so, and the media outlets that encouraged the prolonged lockdown while ignoring the resulting economic devastation.
Sensing a looming economic catastrophe, Americans have successfully sued states like Wisconsin, Oregon, and North Carolina to fully or partially reopen. California and Michigan citizens are trying to recall their governor, while tens of thousands of Pennsylvanians have signed petitions to impeach their governor, Tom Wolf.
This is only the beginning. Expect a barrage of lawsuits and other actions directed against those involved in implementing state lockdowns, including the “dead-ender” governors still adamantly refusing to open their economies even as the virus subsides.
Expect thousands of newly unemployed workers and bankrupt business owners to sue states for loss of income caused by the mandatory lockdowns. University of Central Florida law professor Enrique Guerra-Pujol argues that such citizens could sue the state for just compensation under the U.S. Constitution’s “takings clause.” New Jersey legislators are using the Constitution’s “equal protection” clause to sue on behalf of small business owners for compensation lockdown-related losses.
Would anyone be shocked if Governors Andrew Cuomo of New York and Phil Murphy of New Jersey become subjects of criminal investigation and lawsuits stemming from their introducing COVID-infected patients into nursing homes where more than 10,000 elderly residents subsequently died?
Ambitious lawyers might prod citizens to seek class-action judgments against “expert sources” like Imperial College and even Dr. Anthony Fauci, whose advice panicked governors into locking down.
The Rest…HERE
Trump can use this crisis to his and our advantage. First, he needs to quickly extend the enhanced unemployment and add one final stimulus check to fend off riots so huge even the entire military wouldn’t be able to contain. He may have let the apes run wild thinking they’d burn off anger and won’t be so volatile during arrests and re election. That’s true BUT … if $ runs out all that’s tossed to the wind.
Protect the people with unemployment a little longer and one last stimulus check, but let blue cities / states go bankrupt.
Do NOT bail out pensions etc from the demoncrats … let everyone SEE the rep’s THEY VOTED IN did it.