April 15, 2020
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
Pelosi, Schumer take small businesses hostage—again. The trouble is they’ll kill the hostage.
Small business relief that was
included in the $2.2 trillion legislation passed by Congress and signed into
law by President Donald Trump to shore up payrolls of millions of American
workers during the Chinese coronavirus pandemic has been so popular that it is
in danger of running out. As of Tuesday, the $350 billion program had already
exhausted $257 billion as President Trump’s top economic advisor told Fox
Business, “At the present run-rate, we’re going to be out of money.” 30 million
small businesses employ up to 60 million Americans, the backbone of the U.S.
economy, and for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck
Schumer, the shortfalls are just fine. Those are hostages. The trouble is
everyone knows they’ll kill the hostages, figuratively speaking, of course.
That is, they’ll let those funds run out, even if it means tens of millions
more Americans will lose their jobs for good while they wait to exact another
toll from taxpayers on behalf of their own special interests, including state
and local governments they want to bail out again. It’s a free for all.
Video: 50 states taking lead on closures & when to reopen is the constitutional way, not one-size-fits-all
The COVID-19 pandemic
closures, and how the economy will be reopened, are a case study in federalism.
Open Letter to Larry Fink, CEO, BlackRock
As the nation stands at the
edge of an economic precipice and stares into it bleakly, you and your firm,
the largest asset management company in the world, play an important role in
calming fears, easing worries, and promising a return to normalcy. This role is exaggerated, in scope and
magnitude, by the faith that the Federal Reserve has placed in you to help
guide and manage its efforts to alleviate the current stress on the financial
system. In light of all of this, we ask that you reconsider your controversial
annual letter from January 14th to the world’s largest investors that BlackRock
will operate under a “stakeholder” model rather than the well-established
“shareholder” primacy model. While we had concerns when this was first
announced, the current pandemic has created a health crisis that is in turn
creating an unexpected economic crisis. This economic crisis makes it more
important than ever that companies like BlackRock focus on helping our nation’s
economy recover. BlackRock and others must not add additional hurdles to recovery
by supporting unnecessary and harmful environmental, social, and governance
(ESG) shareholder proposals.
Pelosi and Schumer should not get a fourth bite at the apple, keep the bill clean
Americans for Limited
Government President Rick Manning: “Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer should not
be given a fourth bite of the Coronavirus Christmas tree apple. Any bill that
passes needs to be clean, meaning it must not have any sidebar goodies like the
federal takeover of elections, one-size fits all medical rate setting language
or other non-germane bailouts of the U.S. Postal Service or private union
pension plans. America is tired of having Pelosi hold small business’ survival
hostage while she extorts money and favors for her friends.”
Pelosi, Schumer take small businesses hostage—again. The trouble is they’ll kill the hostage.
By Robert Romano
Small business relief that was included in the $2.2 trillion legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump to shore up payrolls of millions of American workers during the Chinese coronavirus pandemic has been so popular that it is in danger of running out.
As of Tuesday, the $350 billion program had already exhausted $257 billion as President Trump’s top economic advisor told Fox Business, “At the present run-rate, we’re going to be out of money.”
30 million small businesses employ up to 60 million Americans, the backbone of the U.S. economy, and for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the shortfalls are just fine. Those are hostages.
The trouble is everyone knows they’ll kill the hostages, figuratively speaking, of course.
That is, they’ll let those funds run out, even if it means tens of millions more Americans will lose their jobs for good while they wait to exact another toll from taxpayers on behalf of their own special interests, including state and local governments they want to bail out again.
It’s a free for all.
Perhaps Pelosi and Schumer have figured that with the pandemic destroying small businesses and anywhere from 17 to 20 million who have already lost their jobs, that soon there won’t be any more taxpayers to pay city and state taxes should the closures go on much longer. As an aside, hopefully they’ll learn a lesson when they consider their job-killing Green New Deal and universal income schemes in the future, but I tend to doubt it.
Thing is, the closures destroying the private sector are being ordered by state and local governments. It’s a taking under the Constitution, with livelihoods being taken away, owing of just compensation. They broke it, they bought it.
And governments will never run out of money, even state and locals. Not really. Governments can borrow on the bond markets at some of the lowest interest rates ever and they’ll continue to do so no matter what. As a last resort, the Federal Reserve will intervene if it gets really bad. We all know it. Government employees by and large will not lose their jobs in this pandemic.
But many of those small businesses will go away forever.
As it is, with almost 20 million Americans who have already lost their jobs, the damage being wrought will likely take years or a decade to recover from. That is why the longer the closures go on, the more assistance these entities will need.
And, apparently, the more demands House and Senate Democrats will make to ensure that they’re not giving up any hostages for free.
It’s a very dangerous game. As cash reserves are depleted these businesses will fail forever and millions more will be thrown out of work. Without revenues, every aspect of the economy will seize up and become a vast financial crisis as households become unable to pay their debts. The unemployment benefits passed by Congress won’t cover them. Then, banks. People will break quarantine before then out of desperation, potentially endangering lives.
This leaves President Trump with just a few options. Keep going to Congress periodically to get this money for small businesses and keep paying the Democrats’ toll. Have Congress remove the limit on emergency small business lending. Or perhaps have Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin go to the Federal Reserve to expand the program in accordance with the legislation Congress already passed or to build out a new program suited to the task.
As it is, with economic recessions and then recoveries lasting on average 27 months since 1948 — 11 months to lose all the jobs, and 16 months to get them all back — these small businesses will probably need support beyond the extent of the current pandemic. And if the closures are going to go on much longer, the limits on the current emergency program will have to be lifted. Whatever option the President goes with, he must not allow Pelosi and Schumer to kill the hostage.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.
Video: 50 states taking lead on closures & when to reopen is the constitutional way, not one-size-fits-all
To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG3wycS7gDE
Open Letter to Larry Fink, CEO, BlackRock
April 15, 2020
Mr. Lawrence
Fink, Chief Executive Officer
BlackRock, Inc.
Park Avenue Plaza
55 East 52nd Street
New York, NY 10055-0003
Dear Mr. Fink,
As the nation stands at the edge of an economic precipice and stares into it bleakly, you and your firm, the largest asset management company in the world, play an important role in calming fears, easing worries, and promising a return to normalcy. This role is exaggerated, in scope and magnitude, by the faith that the Federal Reserve has placed in you to help guide and manage its efforts to alleviate the current stress on the financial system.
In light of all of this, we ask that you reconsider your controversial annual letter from January 14th to the world’s largest investors that BlackRock will operate under a “stakeholder” model rather than the well-established “shareholder” primacy model. While we had concerns when this was first announced, the current pandemic has created a health crisis that is in turn creating an unexpected economic crisis.
This economic crisis makes it more important than ever that companies like BlackRock focus on helping our nation’s economy recover. BlackRock and others must not add additional hurdles to recovery by supporting unnecessary and harmful environmental, social, and governance (ESG) shareholder proposals.
As an asset manager and a publicly traded company, your job is to act as a steward of investors’ capital. By opting to enter into a public market, BlackRock received the benefit of outside investment funds with which to operate and grow. However, the bargain of that benefit is that you must act in good faith and with a fiduciary responsibility to maximize returns for those investors.
Because of your experience and position, your actions influence not only the financial future of millions of Americans but also actions taken by other companies. In light of your influence, we are especially concerned that your support for some ESG shareholder proposals and investor initiatives brings political interests into decisions that should be guided by shareholder interests. Shareholders and society at large benefit when companies are guided by values such as producing quality products and services, having integrity in dealing with customers and vendors, and developing the talents and skills of employees. But when a company’s values become politicized, the interests of the diverse group of shareholders and customers are overshadowed by the narrow interests of activist groups pushing a political agenda.
Most ESG shareholder proposals are sponsored by activist groups that abuse the proxy process to achieve social and cultural changes that are entirely unmoored from the interests of corporate shareholders. Environmental nonprofits, labor unions, left-leaning pension funds, ESG-focused asset managers, and left-wing activists are unconcerned with corporate performance. Their goals are societal and political.
Furthermore, these ESG proposals will add an extra-regulatory cost on these companies requiring them to spend their shareholder capital. This may harm everyday Americans who are invested in these companies through pension funds and retirement plans. While this won’t affect folks in your income bracket, this may be the difference between affording medication, being able to retire, or supporting a family member’s education for many Americans.
There is a financial risk to this tack as well. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that “[p]erformance of BlackRock’s own iShares range of ESG funds shows that ESG is no guarantee of gold-plated returns. Its two oldest in the U.S., set up in 2005 and 2006 and now tracking the MSCI USA ESG Select index and the MSCI KLD 400 Social index, have both lagged behind iShares’ S&P 500 fund.”
And while publicly traded companies operate under a legal fiduciary duty to their investors, this is also a moral imperative. Free market capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any economic system in world history. That’s because, at its simplest level, capitalism operates under the basic rule that all exchanges are voluntary. Therefore, to achieve wealth and create growth in a capitalist system, one must appeal to the self-interest of others.
At this moment especially, all of us — including BlackRock — must be focused on the nation’s economic recovery. Investors, many of whom are terrified that their retirement funds have been lost or are at risk, need to be assured that managers of their assets are focused on those facets of business performance that are likely to produce a sustained return on investment and a return to financial normalcy. Extraneous political considerations serve only to sow confusion and exacerbate instability, when instability can least be tolerated. In unsettled environments such as this, true “sustainability” is demonstrated by robustness and resilience, not by highly politicized trends and fads.
It is a major concern that your statements run counter to this basic and well-established model. During the best of times, the purpose of any business is to return a profit for shareholders by providing goods and services that consumers want and need. But especially during times of grave threat to the economic health of the nation, that purpose — and not a political agenda — should be top of mind for businesses and for investors.
Justin Danhof, General Counsel, National Center for Public Policy Research
Bill Meierling, Executive Director, Shareholder Equity Alliance
Stephen R. Soukup, Publisher/Vice President, The Political Forum
Steve Moore, Founder, Committee to Unleash Prosperity
Edwin Meese III, Former Attorney General of the United States
David Brat, Dean, School of Business, Liberty University
Ken Eldred, Investor, Living Stones Foundation
Foster Friess, Founder, Foster's Outriders
Kevin D. Freeman, CFA, Founder, NSIC Institute
Patrick Moore, PhD, President, Ecosense Environmental Inc.
Keith E. Sirois, President and Chief Executive Officer, Capital Management HPP, Inc.
Rebecca Hagelin, CEO, United in Purpose
David A. Ridenour, President, National Center for Public Policy Research
Charlie Kirk, Founder and Executive Director, Turning Point USA
David L. Black, Ph.D., Founder and CEO, 2ndVote
Morton Blackwell, President, The Leadership Institute
Jenny Beth Martin, Honorary Chairman, Tea Party Patriots Action
David McIntosh, President, Club for Growth
Seth Dillon, CEO, The Babylon Bee
Brian Glicklich, CEO, Digital Strategies
LTC Allen B. West (USA Ret.), Fmr. Member, U.S. House of Representatives
Kent Lassman, President & CEO, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Charlie Copeland, President, Intercollegiate Studies Institute
Peter Schweizer, President, Government Accountability Institute
Father Robert A. Sirico, President and Co-Founder, The Acton Institute
Adam Brandon, President, FreedomWorks
Penny Young Nance, CEO and President, Concerned Women for America
Bob McEwen, Fmr. Member, Ohio, U.S. House of Representatives
Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman, ConservativeHQ.com
Bishop E.W. Jackson, President, STAND Foundation, Inc.
Ed Corrigan, President, Conservative Partnership Institute
Scott Walter, President, Capital Research Center
Rabbi Aryeh Spero, President, Caucus for America
Mark Lewis Melcher, President, The Political Forum
Bill Walton, President, Council for National Policy
J. Christian Adams, President, Public Interest Legal Foundation
Colin A. Hanna, President, Let Freedom Ring
Eunie Smith, President, Eagle Forum
Richard Manning, President, Americans for Limited Government
Everett Piper, President Emeritus, Oklahoma Wesleyan University
Lynda McLaughlin, CEO, M3 Media Management
Tim Huelskamp, Ph.D., Fmr. Member, U.S. House of Representatives
Ginni Thomas, President, Liberty Consulting
John McLaughlin, CEO, McLaughlin & Associates
Lt. General William G. Boykin (Ret.), Executive Vice President, Family Research Council
Jake Hoffman, President & CEO, Rally Forge
Dr. Tim Daughtry, Author, Daughtry & Company
Rod D. Martin, Founder & CEO, The Martin Organization, Inc.
Hon. J. Kenneth Blackwell, former Treasurer, State of Ohio
Daniel Greenfield, Shillman Journalism Fellow, David Horowitz Freedom Center
Trevor Loudon, President, Liberty Trail Corporation
David Bozell, President, For America
Horace Cooper, Co-Chairman, Project 21
John Graves, President, Vision America Action
Kevin D. Roberts, Ph.D., Executive Director, Texas Public Policy Foundation
Haley E. Martin, President, The Martin Foundation
David Kupelian, Vice President and Managing Editor, World Net Daily
Jim Ross Lightfoot, Fmr. Member, U.S. House of Representatives, Lightfoot Strategies
Daniel Grant, President & CEO, 2nd Vote Value Investments, Inc.
David A. Clarke Jr., Retired Sheriff Milwaukee Co. Wisconsin, President America's Sheriff LLC
Eileen J. O’Connor, Founder, Law Office of Hon. Eileen J. O’Connor PLLC
Scott Shepard, Coordinator, Free Enterprise Project, National Center for Public Policy Research
Sherri R. Martin, Executive Vice President, The Martin Organization, Inc.
Sheryl Kaufman, Corporate Chief Economist, Retired, Phillips Petroleum Company
George K. Rasley Jr., Managing Editor, ConservativeHQ.com
Jim Simpson, Author, Journalist, Candidate, U.S. Congress
Becky Gerritson, Executive Director, Eagle Forum of Alabama
Stella Morabito, Author
Iain Murray, Vice President, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Doreen Denny, Vice President of Government Relations, Concerned Women for America
Guillermo J. Aragon, Chief Financial Officer, Martin Imaging, Inc.
Christina Murphy Lusk, J.D., Deputy General Counsel, Campaign for the American Future
Sandy Rios, Director of Governmental Affairs, American Family Association
Kelly Monroe Kullberg, Advisor, American Association of Evangelicals (AAE)
Nicholas W. Carper CFA, Principal (Retired), Mitchell, Sinkler & Starr
Richard Morrison, Research Fellow, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Scott Thomas Parkinson, Vice President of Government Affairs, Club for Growth
David W. Almasi, Vice President, National Center for Public Policy Research
Billie Tucker, CEO, CEO Service Bureau
CC: The
Honorable Jerome Powell, Chairman
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
20th Street & Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20551
Pelosi and Schumer should not get a fourth bite at the apple, keep the bill clean
April 14, 2020, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging that if Congress does anything else to help small businesses, it be a clean bill:
“Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer should not be given a fourth bite of the Coronavirus Christmas tree apple. Any bill that passes needs to be clean, meaning it must not have any sidebar goodies like the federal takeover of elections, one-size fits all medical rate setting language or other non-germane bailouts of the U.S. Postal Service or private union pension plans. America is tired of having Pelosi hold small business’ survival hostage while she extorts money and favors for her friends.”
To view online: https://getliberty.org/2020/04/pelosi-and-schumer-should-not-get-a-fourth-bite-at-the-apple-keep-the-bill-clean/
