 I hate to say this, but I think COVID-19 has officially become a partisan issue. And you know, that's really disappointing, because at the beginning of this pandemic, there was widespread agreement about what was necessary. You know, social distancing, self-quarantine, these were necessary measures that all Americans needed to take to flatten the curve. But you know, as time goes on, as people become a little bit more antsy, as you know, more and more of these anti-quarantine protests pop up across the country, we're starting to see, you know, the partisanization of this issue. Republicans are kind of signing on to this idea that maybe the anti-quarantine protesters are onto something and we should reopen the country. But the left is saying, first of all, that may not be smart, because if we reopen too early, then we're going to see a resurgence of COVID-19 when we may be able to get it under control. It's not like this is over. It just it feels like we've been doing this for a long time, but more than 80,000 Americans have died more than that, because that's the conservative estimate. If you believe Dr. Fauci, but regardless, this is serious. And the left's their solution. My solution isn't to just let everyone go back to work too early. I mean, I get their frustration because people need to make money. They have to be able to pay the bills, but they shouldn't be telling the government to reopen. They should be asking for universal basic income, paycheck replacement, right? And that's what conservative political commentators should be doing. But they've been really irresponsible. They've been downplaying COVID-19 and its severity. And on top of that, they've been kind of, you know, lending credence to the claim that we must reopen as soon as possible. When conservatives, I mean, their guy is in power currently. They should be pushing Donald Trump to actually provide people with health care and a universal basic income, but they're not doing that. So while Republicans are basically saying, you know what? Let's just send everyone back to work, even if they may get infected. That's what we have to do because people need to make money. But the left is saying, actually, let's actually provide them with health care and a universal basic income. And I've never heard a Republican respond to our policy prescriptions because they usually don't have any solutions. Let's always do what the free market would want us to do if we think of it as some sort of, you know, sentient being, except one Republican, to his credit, did finally respond to the left's call for a policy fix to this rather than just reopening the country. A writer from the conservative Heartland Institute responded to this line of thinking with an op-ed for the hill where he tackles UBI head on. And in what I think is a headline that may be a little bit hyperbolic, he argues universal basic income and the end of the Republic. So they say reopen, we say no shelter in place, but here's some policies so that way you can still pay rent and feed yourself and his response. End of the Republic. This is why we just can't have policy discussions with right wingers because they're not serious people. They stand for nothing and their response to policy is to take hyperbole to an extreme. But look, I'm a fair guy, so let's hear him out. He writes the US economy is sinking and some on the far left have a preposterous plan to prevent Americans from drowning in more unpaid bills and debt. Stay home and don't worry about anything. The government will send you a check for $2,000 every month. If only it were that easy. It is actually. Since the onslaught of shutdowns to flatten the curve and prevent the nation's health care system from being overwhelmed, more than 30 million Americans have lost their jobs. The unemployment rate has skyrocketed to 14.7 percent. Families throughout the United States are struggling to buy food and pay their bills because the government will not let them return to work. Perhaps we should pause and reassess the necessity of the draconian shutdown strategy. After all, we have flattened the curve. And at this point, it does not seem that health care facilities are in danger of being overrun. Wouldn't it make a lot of sense to focus on how to safely reopen the economy so Americans can return to work and retain their self-reliance? Yet, according to prominent Democrats in Congress, instead of smartly reopening the economy, we should double down on Kenzie and economics and just print more money than ever. In other words, Americans ought to stay home and get paid by the government. Senator Kamala Harris recently tweeted, bills come in every single month during the pandemic and so should help from our government. Harris has endorsed a plan called Monthly Economic Crisis Support Act, which would send $2,000 per month to Americans who make less than $120,000 per year. Married couples would receive $4,000 per month, as well as $2,000 for each child. Oh, and the checks would be sent for up to three months after the coronavirus crisis ends. This raises an interesting point. When and how will we know the crisis has ended and the payments will be stopped? This alone should raise one's eyebrows. American history is full of examples of government programs that were intended to be temporary, yet continue to this day. In fact, several provisional measures and programs enacted during the Great Depression are still in place today. Oh, that's a horrible thing, isn't it? A cynic might say that some Democrats are using the coronavirus crisis as an opportunity to push their progressive agenda. For years, many on the far left have advocated for monthly government programs in the form of a universal basic income. Andrew Yang, a contender for the Democratic Party's 2020 presidential nomination, made the UBI a pivotal part of his campaign and received lots of attention and acclaim for doing so. Remember the Yang gang? Keep in mind all of this fervor over the UBI and far left circles predated the COVID-19 pandemic by a few years at least. So given the historical context, is it such a logical leap to assume that some on the left are using the coronavirus crisis as an opportunity to introduce another quote unquote temporary welfare program that is almost assuredly going to be popular among Americans who receive it? Benjamin Franklin reportedly said when the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the Republic. Could a UBI in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic inadvertently lead to this nightmare scenario? So in case you didn't notice, he didn't make an argument. He just patronizingly dismissed this policy as, you know, something that the far left wants and he just said, we can't do it. It's not that easy, except why not? Somehow other countries who don't print their own currency found a way to deliver a universal basic income, albeit temporarily. But nonetheless, a UBI during this pandemic, are we just too stupid? We can't figure it out. Why can't we do it? If you're going to say we can't do it, you have to come forward with an argument and tell us why we can't do it, why it's not possible. We just spent trillions of dollars bailing out large, multi-billion dollar corporations. But yet you're telling me we can't afford to bail out the American people. Why? Make an argument. Just a tip to right-wingers, make an argument. You can't just laugh off something and dismiss it because you disagree with it. You have to make the case with statistics and data. If other countries can do it, we can do it too. We're just choosing not to do it. And the biggest reason why we shouldn't do it, according to him, is because these so-called temporary measures might be permanent. Oh, no. God forbid a temporary UBI turns into a permanent UBI. How horrible that Americans have more purchasing power. And he laughs at the prospect of this lasting three months after the pandemic, not taking into account the fact that a lot of people are losing their jobs and they're going to need extra time to find employment once this pandemic is over. Because guess what? A lot of these jobs that people are losing, they're not coming back. So do you or do you not want to help Americans? See, here's the thing that irritates me about these right-wingers. They absolutely scoff at the idea of helping out normal Americans and they don't want government policies, these social safety net programs to foster a sense of dependency on the federal government. But you call it dependency. I call it making better use of our tax dollars because like it or not, we're paying taxes. So I want my money to actually benefit me, not large, multi-billion dollar companies, not the defense industry, not the fossil fuel industry, which we subsidize. Why is it so absurd to say maybe, you know, rather than spending trillions of dollars on wars that we're never going to win? Why can't we use that money for a UBI or health care? You see, he has no problem bailing out large corporations, some of which don't even have addresses in the United States. If corporations are people, these are not citizens. These are illegals, but he has no problem bailing out the cruise industry. But when it comes to us, we should have saved money. If, you know, we fell victim to a crisis or unexpected emergency. It's our fault for not putting away money for a rainy day. And, you know, if, you know, we're experiencing hardship, we just got to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. But corporations, they don't ever have to save money for a rainy day. They don't ever have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. It's always working class Americans who are the ones who have to be responsible. Large corporations, they can get socialism, but for Americans, it's rugged individualism. So do you understand why this type of argument makes no sense? Because we already have a social safety net, albeit for corporations, for special interests, but just asking for that to be applied to the American people, that's not absurd. And you know, it's not absurd because you can't make an argument against it. He just laughs at it. We can't do that. Again, why can't we do it? Specifically, why can't we do it? Because other countries can do it. And the same argument is used against Medicare for all. We can't do it. Why? If every other developed country is able to do it, why can't we? Maybe we're just too stupid. Maybe he believes that. Who knows? I mean, we don't have it, so maybe you aren't too stupid. But if other countries can do it, it's not a matter of us not being able to do it. Again, it's a matter of us not wanting to do it, not having the spines to fight for it. So I mean, this person, he literally is questioning whether or not a UBI would be the end of the Republic. No, if anything, it's going to save the Republic. Because guess what? People are getting increasingly irritated about the fact that the American government isn't fighting for them and it's doing everything in its power to save the industry, bailing out the industry, socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor. And the peasants are only going to take that for so long until they rise up with their pitchforks, right? So long as we have these distractions in front of us, we'll be OK. But when Americans start losing everything, it's more and more lose their jobs, as they lose their houses and their livelihoods and their material wealth, what little they had, they're not just going to take this line down. They're going to demand that the government actually take action that the government can take that is within the powers of the federal government to take. So this person is a clown and this is just a snapshot into the mind of a conservative. They have no argument. The best that they can do is laugh at something you're proposing and call it extreme. Meanwhile, to this individual, bailouts for large multinational corporations, that's not extreme. Spending trillions of dollars, billions every single year on the military, that's not extreme. It's only extreme if it benefits you. Keep that in mind. This is their logic. This is their mindset. It's only extreme if we have welfare for normal Americans, never extreme, never questioned at all if we apply that welfare to, you know, tax cuts for the rich. Corporate welfare, that's fine. Welfare for you is bad. These are lazy, sloppy thinkers and political hacks who have no argument. Hence why they can do nothing more than dismiss it condescendingly by, you know, laughing at the idea of UBI. This is crazy. We can't do this. I can't tell you why we can't do this, but just trust me, we can't do this. Now, the argument that I'm making is nonexistent, but nonetheless, just take my word when I tell you we can't do this. No, they can. They can do this.