The failure of imagination when it comes to fighting Covid-19 boggles the mind. There are so many good ideas kicking around that they at least deserve a solid hearing.
For example, what does it take for the administration to realize that tens of millions of Americans want to defeat Covid-19, but feel like there is no chance to do so.
We faced a similar issue when this country decided it was going to defeat polio. A private organization, the March of Dimes, asked that the nation give dimes for research. The gambit worked, millions of people mailed in dimes and Jonas Salk, a rogue scientist, created a vaccine with the money the March of Dimes gave him. He did his work out of the University of Pittsburgh and he was using a dead, not live, virus to create a vaccine. It wouldn't have happened without the March of Dimes.
That's why I am so adamant about the Safe and Sound $1 trillion thirty-year bond that I want to make our people safe and our economy sound. Split 50-50, it would give $500 billion to be sure that we have national testing and everyone has to be tested -- just like everyone had to take the polio vaccine and we would actually build the PPE factories that we need and put people to work in mills again, like we used to before globalization wiped out good jobs that paid the bills.
We could also use OSHA -- remember OSHA -- to make sure that everyone wore a mask at the office, now that we finally realize that masks helped immensely in Asia. OSHA, which is run by the Labor Department, must feel like a bunch of dopes with that website that treats Covid 19 like it is some sort of trench and excavation hazard. Truly.
The sound side is about the soundness of the economy and here, because we need a stay at home policy and we need it enforced, we have to pay people to stay home. This idea makes so much sense and it's being done in Europe in some of the more-successful countries in defeating Covid. My suggestion is that you get a scrip for the month. Law enforcement punches your scrip if it finds you in a crowd or even in a pair -- like Madrid which is strictly illegal. This way the curve is automatically bent. If we do that and we have everyone take tests not just for potential covid but, retrospectively for antibodies, from the first $500 billion of the Safe and Sound bond, we can figure out who can go back to work because they won't get sick and we can reopen the economy before we have a depression.
Believe me, it is a footrace and we don't want to be shut down for more than a month. If we are, the consequences are far greater than just what's owed by the bond. Remember, though, we are hungry for a thirty-year and we can afford to give the people who want to stop Covid a 2% yield. The Democrats will insist on a one-month moratorium on rent or mortgage money. No problem. Tack it on to the last month. Health care? Again, no problem, do the same.
Finally what is the aversion to using the military here? We sure were willing to sacrifice our soldiers for Iraq or Afghanistan for dubious goals. Why not take half the 125,000 men and women with medical knowledge and have them help out in the hot spots. I am tired of hearing about how the Chinese built hospitals out of whole cloth. Why not borrow some of the people who work for Doctors without Borders and ask for their help in building quick hospitals. That's their stock in trade. Why are we not building 248-bed Combat Support Hospitals, or CSH units? Why is the Army not volunteering to do so? What or who is everyone so afraid of?
Let's kick these ideas around. Just because they haven't been thought of doesn't make them wrong.
