Last December, Karyn Lewis and Megan Kuhfeld, two researchers at NWEA, a research organization, reported that student achievement at the start of the current school year was lower than for a typical year. There was a 3–7 percentage point decline in reading and a 9–11 percentage point decline in mathematics. That same month, education researchers Dan Goldhaber of the University of Washington, Thomas J. Kane of Harvard, and Andrew McEachin of NWEA plugged the Lewis/Kuhfeld data into a model to estimate how much those declines in learning would cause their lifetime income to decline. Their answer: $43,800. This number was broadly consistent with a separate study by McKinsey & Company that found an average lifetime earnings loss of between $49,000–$61,000 per student. Aggregated across all US K-12 students, these studies show more than $2 trillion in lost lifetime earnings for our youngest generation.

A recent report released by the World Bank paints a more dire picture. In that report, it estimates that the school closures could cause a loss of between 0.3 and 1.1 years of schooling, adjusted for quality. In its most pessimistic scenario, the World Bank estimates that worldwide cumulative losses could total between $16 and $20 trillion in present value terms.

A National Bureau of Economic Research study released in November 2021 analyzed recent test score data across 12 states in comparison to previous years and found passing rates declined by 14.2 percentage points on average in mathematics and 6.3 percentage points in English Language Arts. The authors found that much of the decline was due to the closing down of schools.

Historical evidence suggests that these learning losses are likely to be permanent. A 2019 article published in the Journal of Labor Economics analyzed the effect of teacher strikes in Argentina on students’ long-term outcomes in that country. The authors found that experiencing the average number of days of strikes during primary school reduced labor earnings of males and females by 3.2 percent and 1.9 percent, respectively.

In another study, researchers from the IZA Institute of Labor Economics analyzed long-term outcomes from one of the most extreme examples of learning disruptions – war. In that study, the authors compared Austrians and Germans who were 10 years old during World War II with their counterparts in neutral countries such as Switzerland and Sweden. The authors found that earning losses persisted into the 1980s. They estimated the earning losses to be about 0.8 percent of GDP.

Once these earning losses take hold, they lead to lower life expectancies. This connection was highlighted most prominently in a paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that analyzed data on school shutdowns early in the pandemic. The authors found that missed instruction in the United States could be associated with an estimated 13.8 million years of life lost.

What makes these outcomes even more tragic is that they were experienced by children who, as was known early on, never had a significant risk of dying from COVID-19. As of the first week of March 2022, out of the nearly 950,000 Covid-19 deaths, only 865 were children under the age of 18. That amounts to about 433 children annually. This is comparable to a bad flu season in the US. For example, the CDC estimates that the actual number of flu deaths for children in the 2017-18 flu season was about 600.

Moreover, the school closings and lockdowns have led to a noticeable loss in children’s mental health. This was apparent early in the pandemic. In a CDC report released in November 2020, researchers reported that the proportion of mental health-related visits from April to October 2020 for children aged 5-11 and 12-17 years had increased by approximately 24 percent and 31 percent, respectively in comparison to 2019 data. In a follow-up CDC report, researchers found that emergency department visits due to suspected suicide attempts were 51 percent higher among girls aged 12-17 years during early 2021 in comparison to the same period in 2019; among boys aged 12-17 years, suspected suicide attempt emergency department visits increased 4 percent.

In 2021, FAIR Health released a report that analyzed data from over 32 billion private health care claim records tracking data from 2019 and 2020. Claims for intentional self-harm as a percentage of all medical claims in the 13-18 age group were 90.7 percent higher early in the pandemic in 2020 than in the same time period in 2019. Furthermore, the authors noted, claims for generalized anxiety disorder increased by 93.6 percent over that same time.

Not much can be done about this now, other than to end the remaining restrictions on children. But there is a lesson for future pandemics: follow the science. If the data say that young people are at very low risk, then treat them as if they are at very low risk. Maybe we’re all in this together, as the propaganda goes, but we are not equally in this together. Treating children the way government officials did was morally wrong.

David R. Henderson

Ryan Sullivan

This article is republished with permission from the American Institute for Economic Research.

The post The Kids Aren’t Alright appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Except I was wrong.

Libertarians in Red States may still naively hold this view because they didn’t have their lives upended like those Libertarians who lived in blue states. Red States significantly fought the lockdowns. In Blue States, we were arrested for kayaking or fishing.

When fishing was banned in my state, I was throwing red flags. Yet all my Leftist friends stood by the ban. “If you’re all standing around next to each other fishing, you’re going to spread the Coronavirus,” they said. There was not a single critical thought amongst them. As Leftists tend to surround themselves on coasts amongst natural resources, you’d think more of them have been fishing before. But they haven’t. “Just buy fish from the supermarket instead,” they insisted.

Yet, anyone who has ever been fishing before knows there is much more distance between yourself and another fisherman than there is between yourself and another customer at the meat counter. For a Party of Science, it is strange that the Left can’t account for currents. It’s crazy we don’t want our fishing lines to get crossed, therefore we stand a good distance away from each other. But that’s only where The Left began to fail at science during the pandemic, as they’ve failed every other step along the way.

We saw time and time again how restaurants and salons were shut down, only to become private events for politicians…. In Blue States. A single barber refusing to shut down was statewide news and controversial. Snitch Lists arose where people reported “Non Essential Businesses” for remaining open, which was a phenomenon largely reserved for Blue States. The reports largely targeted churches and gun shops, and leftists in Blue States used it as a tool to target political adversaries. It was political from the very beginning. COVID patients forced into nursing homes only happened in Blue States.

We are now two years into the pandemic, and lifting restrictions is a cause of The Right. Once a fringe position, School Choice is being adopted into the mainstream on the right due to mask mandates and Critical Race Theory. Meanwhile, The Left has been doubling down on harm to children, pushing for vaccine mandates on elementary age school children, while fighting tooth and nail to oppose curriculum transparency. They’ve been calling concerned parents terrorists. 

I’ve always had concerns with public school, as I myself am a product of it. I lived through it and was disenfranchised by it. In the last two years however, it’s clear Blue State society at large is trying to weaponize children against their parents via school curriculum. Don’t let the enemy mold your children.

Now, the Blue States are pushing vaccine mandates on children. The vaccine does not prevent the transmissibility of Omicron. The argument is that it does prevent a worse reaction. Yet, children have had little or no reaction to COVID-19 throughout all of the variants. The vaccine itself has a larger compromising threat to children than COVID does. So this makes absolutely no sense. It’s only The Left that’s pushing this.

The Left and The Right are clearly not the same. The Left is worse, and by large orders of magnitude. The Right is also quickly adopting more Libertarian positions in the wake of the pandemic. It’s time to leverage that. 

The post I Thought the Left and Right Were the Same, Until the Pandemic appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

For example, Ohio implemented a “Vax-a-Million” initiative where it drew weekly lotteries for a $1 million prize among those who got the vaccine. Similar programs have cropped up around the country, such as “VaxCash” in Maryland and “Vax and Scratch” in New York. In all, states spent at least $90 million, likely more, Business Insider reports, on these kinds of vaccine lottery efforts.

Given the significant sums involved, it’s worth questioning: Did these pro-vaccine government initiatives actually accomplish their goals? 

The answer provided by a new study published in JAMA Health Forum is a resounding “no.” Researchers examined the 19 states with vaccine lottery schemes and compared them to states that did not enact such programs. The authors conclude that the impact these lotteries had on increasing vaccination rates was “very small in magnitude and statistically indistinguishable from zero.”

“There’s a lot of hype around these programs, and we can’t find any evidence that they helped,” economist and study co-author Andrew Friedson told Business Insider. “Each state’s doing several drawings, and these drawings are around a $1 million a pop, although some of them are less. With 19 states, you’re looking at a large amount of money that’s been spent on this.”

That’s all money that could’ve gone to more productive purposes—or better yet, left in taxpayers’ pockets to begin with.

Yes, in the grand scheme of how much governments spend, $90 million is not actually all that much money. But this utter failure is unfortunately emblematic of the government’s general level of efficiency.

After all, the federal government has lost up to an astounding $200 billion on COVID-19 “stimulus” fraud. That’s more than five times as much as it spent promoting vaccine development, to put the sum in context. And the government loses hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars every year to improper welfare and entitlement payments.

So, the millions wasted on failed vaccine lotteries are, sadly, no outlier.

Why is the government inherently incentivized toward waste and inefficiency? Nobel-Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman famously answered this question when he explained that, fundamentally, the government’s job is to “spend somebody else’s money on somebody else.”

“If I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get,” Friedman concluded. “And that’s government.”

This intuition explains why local governments were so willing to risk millions on lotteries with so little foresight. It’s easy to propose handing out multi-million-dollar prizes (promoting behavior people would’ve done anyway) when you’re handing out someone else’s money.

It’s us taxpayers, not elected officials, who are left eating the loss. Regrettably, politicians will continue to be this cavalier with our money unless they are held to account.

WATCH: TikTok’s 5 Worst $15 Minimum Wage Arguments (DEBUNKED)

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This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

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Yet at the same time that all this alarm is mounting, the actual number of COVID-19 deaths is at a nadir. Harvard Medical School Professor Martin Kulldorff pointed this out on Twitter, writing that “In [the] USA, COVID mortality is now the lowest since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.”

He shared this graph from OurWorldInData which clearly shows how COVID deaths per million are at, relatively speaking, extreme lows. Far more people were dying from COVID-19 months ago as we were winding down restrictions than are dying today as some call to reinstate them.

In USA, #COVID mortality is now the lowest since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. pic.twitter.com/bc3zRxIAiO

— Martin Kulldorff (@MartinKulldorff) July 28, 2021

Now, some would cite rising COVID-19 case counts or hospitalizations in certain parts of the country as evidence that the pandemic is indeed once again spiraling out of control. But many COVID-19 cases recorded as positive are either asymptomatic or come with very mild symptoms—especially the cases confirmed among vaccinated individuals—so high case counts are not necessarily proof of a serious problem. Hospitalizations are concerning, yes, but primarily insofar as they lead to high numbers of deaths, which, thankfully, is not the case so far with the Delta variant. 

Others would say that deaths are a “lagging indicator” that come in several weeks after the increased spread of the disease. But the Delta variant has been spreading in the US for months now, and deaths have remained relatively flat, in part due to widespread vaccination. 

“It is striking that COVID mortality is at such low levels despite the fact that we are seeing an increase in cases of late,” Stanford Professor of Medicine Dr. Jay Bhattacharya tells FEE. “By immunizing the elderly and many other vulnerable people, we have provided them with excellent protection against severe disease in case they get infected. Also contributing is widespread natural immunity from recovered COVID patients. Though cases may rise, deaths will no longer follow in proportion.  We have effectively defanged the disease with our successful vaccination rollout.”

So, there’s simply no reason to expect the long downward trend in deaths shown in the above graph to suddenly spike upwards. And we can’t make public policy based on worst-case scenarios.

“‘Emergencies’ have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have eroded,” as Nobel-Prize-winning economist Freidrich Hayek put it. “And once they are suspended it is not difficult for anyone who has assumed emergency powers to see to it that the emergency will persist.”

Examples of this timeless truth abound throughout history up until present day: from the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II to the now-permanent infringements on our civil liberties after 9/11 to the sweeping expansion of government control during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But, whether politicians like it or not, the COVID-19 crisis is largely over. So don’t fall for cynical arguments from power-hungry individuals who want their “emergency” powers to become permanent.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Image: Our World in Data

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by Aubrey Wursten

“A single mom in Texas wrote to me. She said when she couldn’t work, this [COVID] relief check put food on the table and saved her and her son from eviction.” – Joe Biden

Few tactics in war are more effective than surreptitiously creating a crisis for an unwitting enemy; then convincing them that you are not just their best friend, but also wise and their only hope for survival. 

The current left, and in particular the more progressive brand gaining popularity, markets itself as the savior of the disenfranchised, including women. In order to maintain the monopoly on that reputation, leftist politicians must consistently craft subversively oppressive policies (or just imply that existing policies are somehow damaging to women), and blame the oppression on the other political team. Then, they simply use political sleight of hand to convince women that progressive policies are the only way out of their oppressed state.

This topic could obviously consume an entire book. Fortunately, Joe Biden’s recent speech to Congress provided a concise set of quotes illustrating these tactics, so going through just a few of those should serve as a good example of the general principle.

“Madame Vice President. No president has ever said those words from this podium… and it’s about time.”

Few people are likely upset at all that the current vice president is a woman, and beginning his speech by pointing out that he chose a woman as his running mate (although he’s not even the first candidate to so) comes across as pandering. Typical of politicians? Of course. An eye-rolling start to a speech that just pandered harder as it progressed? Also yes. 

More concerning, obviously, is why Biden came to recruit Kamala Harris, of all women, to be his second in command. Harris has been open about the fact that she believes women who have accused Biden of touching them inappropriately. Yet, she evidently had no hesitation about working directly for him and singing his praises once in position. Harris has a troubling history of harsh criminal justice practices that incarcerated non-violent single parents, 80% of whom were women, thereby breaking up families. And her supposed change of heart on some of those issues hardly seems adequate to hold her up as a champion for women now. 

For these and numerous other reasons, many people understandably suspect that Biden chose Harris not for her qualifications, but as yet another in an annoyingly long list of virtue signals aimed at women. It’s an insufferable practice that is fast becoming his trademark.

“Two million women have dropped out of the work force during this pandemic… We’ve already sent more than 160 million [COVID relief] checks out the door.”

Biden has made much ado about how he is certain he could have handled the pandemic better than his predecessor, with all 200,000 initial deaths apparently directly due to Trump. And now he is seemingly creating money out of whole cloth—or paper—to cure the economic crisis caused by the draconian lockdown measures he enthusiastically supported. Model after model after model has been proven incorrect, and numerous experts have made clear that destroying the economy through shutdowns had at best a negligible effect on the spread of the disease. What it did spread was avoidable poverty, much of it hitting women. And the one person who spread it now wants to take credit for stopping it.

One fan praised his policies, “He talked about the American Recovery Plan which would extend unemployment, which would help me and women like me.” Her use of the term “extend unemployment” is an accurate one, although it is clearly not what she intended to imply. He is indeed extending the actual state of unemployment, as it is more lucrative for some people to remain unemployed—or at least turn down higher-paying jobs—to keep collecting “stimulus” money taken by force from fellow Americans (including women, naturally).

It would be difficult to conceive of a more effective way to keep women unsuccessful than by paying them to be so. They can either work hard and starve, or they can do nothing and receive enough stolen money to survive. One can hardly blame them for choosing the latter, but one can certainly blame progressives for forcing people to choose between two terrible options.

“Let’s raise the minimum wage to $15. No one working 40 hours a week should live below the poverty line. We need to ensure greater equity and opportunity for women.”

Again, the leap to “for women” seems a tad misguided, as it has long been illegal to pay women less simply on the basis of their sex. Maybe we could finally let that dead economic theory horse rest in peace. 

Worse, in his supposed desire to improve the situation of women at large, he is taking from them, by force and at risk of government sanction or violence, the opportunity to build their own careers on the terms they find best for them. A woman with little experience in her hoped-for profession would be happy with a low wage as she builds her skills by starting at the bottom rung of the ladder, instead of paying thousands of dollars to a college that probably would not leave her with a fraction of the job skills her internship or initially low-paying job would garner her. But President Biden believes that women are not capable of forging their own path, and they desperately need him to ride in on his white horse to save them.

“We’re keeping people from being evicted from their homes.”

Joe Biden is going to finance their rent from his own deep pockets? That IS generous, and I’m certain that both renters and landlords will be pleased with this arrangement. Everybody wins!

Sadly, I’m given to believe that as passionately as Biden cares about tenants’ rights, he is not going to use his own money to pay the monthly rent check. Rather, he will simply prevent the landlady from evicting non-paying tenants who are squatting on her property. So, the landlady, who was likely barely making ends meet before, is now destitute and has no income—although she does have a slew of friendly strangers living awkwardly next door. In her house. However, she can be sure that Biden has a very woman-friendly proposal up his sleeve that will save her business when he determines the time is right to share it. As a woman, she should probably just stop asking for answers to questions concerning her life, because Biden obviously knows what’s best for her.

“My American Families Plan guarantees four additional years of public education for every person in America, starting as early as we can.”

Moms, the terrible public school system through which you suffered has rendered you useless to teach your own children. Logically then, Biden feels that the best solution to this is to put them in those same public schools from even younger ages, so the state has four more formative years to teach them in even more ineffective and devious ways than they once taught you. 

Your daughters, like Kamala Harris, can wade through the public school propaganda for which you are forced to pay whether you approve it or not. And they can then grow up to be told by self-righteous progressives that they are incapable of succeeding on their own.

Some people might protest that the left has no particular hatred of women, and that calling this particular strategy a war on women is both inaccurate and hyperbolic. And it is indeed likely true that the current attack is not based on hatred so much as it is on a desire for political power. But should the reason matter when the attack is real? And is an attempt to destroy the independence of a whole demographic of people not a war? Unless they are willing to call the situation what it is, women are going to become the next casualty of the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Aubrey Wursten is a political satirist who occasionally dabbles in real news writing. She holds a degree in University Studies (which is every bit as useful as it sounds), and she is currently studying to become a nutrition coach. Her work can be found on many websites, including her proprietary satire page, fakenewsyourway.com.

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Witnesses state John Huynh was walking to his car when another resident walking past him flipped him off. A verbal confrontation ensued when witnesses reported the man lunged at the victim with a knife and stabbed Huynh in the heart. 

According to Q13 News in Seattle, the suspect lived with his mother, and the mother gave police a key to the apartment to arrest her son.

From Q13:

“While officers were outside the building investigating, the suspect’s mother approached police and said her son was involved. She gave them a key to her apartment, where officers found the suspect in a bedroom. 

The suspect’s mom later told police her son came into the apartment yelling that he’d just been attacked by an anti-masker. He told her he wasn’t hurt but that he thought he hurt the other man involved. 

When questioned by police, he declined to provide a statement.”

While the indication appears to be that the altercation was over the victim not wearing a mask, witnesses report that the suspect was the one who initiated the violent attack over the incident after being questioned about his obscene gesture.

According to Kiro 7 News, the incident was captured on surveillance, and there were a large number of witnesses.

 Kiro 7 News reported:

 “Bothell police said Williams — who has no criminal record — is seen on video surveillance suddenly lunging and stabbing 29-year-old John Huynh 45 seconds after Williams allegedly made an obscene gesture at Huynh, who had never met Williams before, according to witnesses.

 Witnesses told police that Huynh then asked Williams if he “flipped him off or waved at him.” A witness told police seconds later, he saw “Williams pull out a knife and stab the victim in the heart.”

 Police said a lot of witnesses at the apartment building and at restaurants across the street with outdoor seating saw everything that happened.”

At the time of this writing, a GoFundMe Campaign has raised over $60,000 for Huynh.

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Mary Rose Corkery on March 16, 2021

Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber said Tuesday that spring breakers coming to Florida “want to let loose in ways that are unacceptable” during the coronavirus pandemic.

“The problem it’s not just Miami. The problem is we have too many people coming. We have too many people coming who want to just let loose in ways that are unacceptable. And we have a pandemic including I think really sort of ground central for the variant,” Gelber said on “CNN Newsroom.”

“There’s a lot of things to be concerned about. Our medical advisors say exactly what the national medical advisors say, that this is all very perilous and that in fact, you know, it could easily be something that spreads elsewhere,” Gelber said.

Gelber said he doesn’t want the city to become an epicenter “of a problem that affects other communities locally or elsewhere.”

WATCH:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky implored spring breakers on Monday to heed the coronavirus guidelines. Police arrested almost 150 people over the weekend in Miami when spring breakers came to the city.

Miami Beach Police Department officers had to use pepper balls to scatter a chaotic crowd and two officers were brought to the hospital after being injured, the police department tweeted.

Gelber said he believes Miami Beach was the first U.S. city to mandate masks “when the CDC said to have masks.” The Miami Beach mayor said the city has issued more than 1,000 fines, but Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said they cannot issue the fines.

“Recently he said you can’t do anything to promote that kind of compliance. We’re doing the best we can. We have good will ambassadors on Saturday alone that gave 7,000 masks out to people,” Gelber said.

Gelber said Florida residents are receiving “mixed messages, including from” DeSantis, which has been difficult to get past.

“The problem isn’t just the ability to do stuff, the problem is that the message people are getting from the governor and others is that they shouldn’t have to worry about this,” Gelber said.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged the world for the last year, and continues to be a threat even now as vaccines are being distributed worldwide. Lockdowns in most countries have resulted in millions of jobs lost, economies tanking, as well as countless businesses going bankrupt. The US government’s attempts to mitigate the economic hardship predictably included bailing out big business more than ordinary Americans. 

With the passage of two waves of stimulus checks, the government has been desperately trying to keep the airline industry afloat as part of the many bailouts, setting negative precedents and creating a chain of dependency for the companies. With the length of the pandemic remaining unclear, there is no doubt that the American government will redistribute the income of taxpayers to big business, which results in not only a moral quandary, but also an economic one as well. 

The airline industry has a long history of being bailed out by the American government. The first time this occurred was after the September 11th attacks when Congress passed the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act, which provided $5 billion in an instant cash injection, and $10 billion in federal loans. Some criticized the necessity of the government handing out money in the first place, as flights were grounded for only four days after the tragedy occurred. In addition, the industry itself was already coming apart at the seams after years of mismanagement. So, does that mean that 9/11 was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back? Possibly, but is it still excusable for companies to operate so poorly that one event will turn an entire industry upside down?  Airlines have come to rely on the government to save them from the consequences of their own mistakes, and the government has enabled this expectation at the expense of Americans.

In April, as part of the CARES Act, the airline industry received $25 billion dollars. President Trump claimed that this would prevent thousands of employees being laid off, as well as maintain the importance of the airlines as part of the U.S. economy, while protecting tax payers. In exchange, Congress would receive up to 10% in equity and part of the money will be given in the form of 10-year loans. In December 2020, as part of the second $900 billion stimulus package, airlines were given another $15 billion to help cover more expenses.

Although this time the reason for the bailouts was not primarily due to corporate mismanagement, they are still partly to blame. Why do these companies not have emergency funds? It is understandable, that with losses totaling millions of dollars each day in cancelled flights and unsold tickets, they would be hemorrhaging money, but they seem to have no savings whatsoever to fall back on. Even if emergency funds were insuffiicent,  having some could decrease the amount begged and borrowed from the government. And have they exhausted all private options, first?

To what extent will airline companies be able to pay back what they owe the federal government? The grant monies will never be seen again, and the chances of the loans being repaid are questionable. During the 2008-2014 automotive bailouts, General Motors was sold off at a loss of $11.3 billion. GMAC (Ally Bank) was the only profitable one, which was sold for a $2.4 billion profit, while with Chrysler there was a $1.3 billion dollar loss. In total, taxpayers lost $10.2 billion dollars. Maybe GM and Chrysler would not have laid off their employees? Well, they did so anyway down the line, and the presence of Honda and Toyota building more American plants would boost the workforce either way. The free market would have run its course and if the American brands would have had to disappear, so be it.

Will the airline industry be able to pay back what they owe? Historically, it seems unlikely. What would happen to the employees? They would probably be absorbed by surviving companies, much like what happened to Pan Am, when it was dissolved. The free market is excellent at running its course and weeding out inferior brands. 

How do we know when it will be the “last time” to bail out the airline industry? They have been bailed out twice just over the course of one year. With the COVID-19 pandemic stretching for months on end, it is unclear when passenger travel will be profitable again—and at the end of the day, some companies may be grounded permanently.

Finally, when do we break this cycle of bailouts? Not just the airline industry, but all companies the government deems “too big to fail”? The principle of free markets is having as little government intervention as possible. From an economic perspective, keeping unnecessary workers on the payroll is hurting the company itself, resulting in more government handouts. Even as large companies go down, there is likely to be an increase in newer, smaller airlines, as they are able to adapt to the decreased demand, and do not have as much overhead cost.As Mercatus posits, smaller airline companies should be able to thrive, and this reveals the necessity of breaking the cycle of dependency on the American government.

Knowing Joe Biden and the Democratic Party’s agenda, they will continue sinking more and more taxpayer dollars into affected industries instead of reopening the economy. This will add to the national debt with no good short or long term results. Instead, the increasing government involvement in the economy and disruption of free trade will ultimately hurt the very people they claim to be helping.

Mikhail Timonin is a student at the University of Maryland studying Government and Politics. He believes that people are able to make their own decisions,without government intervention, and as a result, each and every one of us are able to shape our own destiny.

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