May 1, 2020
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
Small business owners call for ending the shutdown before it’s too late
Over the past six weeks, over
30 million people have applied for unemployment in the U.S. As depressing as
these numbers are, it is highly unlikely that the hemorrhaging has stopped. The
federal loan fund known as the Paycheck Protection Program was established to
help small businesses survive the economic shutdown and continue to pay their
employees, but the program quickly ran out of money. Now another $321 billion
has been approved for the program to provide further assistance to these
businesses. Of course, this new funding is also likely to run out quickly.
Before yet another coronavirus relief bill is needed or tens of millions more
workers lose their jobs, policymakers should heed the words of small business
owners and reopen the economy. In the short term, the government’s
extraordinary spending is understandable, but it is unsustainable in the long
term. The country was deeply in debt prior to the pandemic, and now we can
expect our fiscal situation to grow worse as more jobs are lost and tax
revenues plummet. That is why it is imperative that the economy be reopened, as
small business owners, like the Colaws at Colaw Fitness, are requesting.
Video: Maine bridal shop has COVID-19 postponements, applies for loan
Molly Henry-Lincoln is
running a bridal shop in Maine. She says it started out as the best year of the
groups' existence, but COVID-19 changed that. Now she is dealing with
uncertainty like so many other small businesses. Is there any end in sight?
ALG launches WhiteHouse.gov petition to hold China accountable for virus
Americans for Limited
Government President Rick Manning: “President Trump needs to immediately begin
at least a three-pronged approach to hold the Chinese Communist Party
accountable for allowing a deadly virus to infect the entire world resulting
almost a quarter million deaths to date. It is clear that the Chinese Communist
Party engaged in a series of actions which result in this disease to engulf the
world, taking down rival economies, while China attempts to take advantage of
the crisis they created. This is why we have launched a WhiteHouse.gov petition
letting President Trump know that the American people will have his back when
he takes action. The United States welcomed China into an economic partnership
in 2001 when China was given Permanent Normalized Trade Relations by the U.S..
Time after time, China has used that special relationship to abuse our national
interest and their virus-related actions require immediate, strategic
disengagement from the toxic Beijing regime.”
Small business owners call for ending the shutdown before it’s too late
By Richard McCarty
Over the past six weeks, over 30 million people have applied for unemployment in the U.S. As depressing as these numbers are, it is highly unlikely that the hemorrhaging has stopped. The federal loan fund known as the Paycheck Protection Program was established to help small businesses survive the economic shutdown and continue to pay their employees, but the program quickly ran out of money. Now another $321 billion has been approved for the program to provide further assistance to these businesses. Of course, this new funding is also likely to run out quickly. Before yet another coronavirus relief bill is needed or tens of millions more workers lose their jobs, policymakers should heed the words of small business owners and reopen the economy.
Charles and Amber Colaw, who own Colaw Fitness, know something about running a successful small business. They run three fitness centers and are in the process of building two more. Here is some of what they had to say about the shutdown just prior to Congress’ passage of the payroll protection plan and its impact on their business, their employees, and their customers.
Amber: “We’ve had to shut… the doors of all three of our locations... We are lucky. We have not stopped any construction that we’re doing on the other two locations yet. So we’re just really praying that that doesn’t have to happen… With all of our clubs shutdown, we can’t bill for a membership for a location that’s not open… There’s zero revenue coming in for us.
“We’ve have had to pretty much lay off 95 staff members which affect all of their families. We’re losing hundreds of thousands coming in. We’ve got hundreds of thousands in bills that are gonna continue to go out… If we can’t get these other two locations open… we’ll lose 200 or more jobs that those locations would have brought.
“And none of this is to mention the impact that this is having on… our members -- tens of thousands across multiple states who don’t get to work out… We stayed open as long as we could. We’ve had great feedback on our social media -- people very thankful that we stayed open as long as we did. They’ve been very supportive. They want to let us know that they will be back as soon as we reopen. We’ve also had other people say, ‘Go ahead and bill me. I want to be supportive of you’ -- which we would never ethically do. So [the shutdown] has impacted us to a great extent.”
Charles: “We need the government to allow us to return to work. I’ve got probably about a dozen to two dozen good friends that also run small businesses, other business owner friends, and I would say all of them could never last even six months -- maybe a month or two… We feel the effects. We know it’s going to come really quick -- just within a few months for us ‘til we have like a zero balance and we have to file bankruptcy or have some sort of major issue…
“I would say most small businesses with competition -- especially in the market of fitness… it’s hard to have over a 20% profit margin… If you are down even one month, you’re probably not going to have a profitable year at all… So we have to get back to work. We can’t last months without any revenue… Even one month of being closed, I think, is too long for most… businesses.”
Amber: “It’s like Trump said, we cannot let the cure be worse than the virus itself. So it’s time to lift these regulations and let the American people get back to work.”
In the short term, the government’s extraordinary spending is understandable, but it is unsustainable in the long term. The country was deeply in debt prior to the pandemic, and now we can expect our fiscal situation to grow worse as more jobs are lost and tax revenues plummet. That is why it is imperative that the economy be reopened, as small business owners, like the Colaws, are requesting.
Richard McCarty is the Director of Research at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
To view online: http://dailytorch.com/2020/05/small-business-owners-call-for-ending-the-shutdown-before-its-too-late/
Video: Maine bridal shop has COVID-19 postponements, applies for loan
To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8wn9iQo3m8
Americans for Limited Government launches WhiteHouse.gov petition to hold China accountable for virus
April 30, 2020, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement announcing a WhiteHouse.gov petition urging President Donald Trump to take immediate actions to hold China accountable for the COVID-19 pandemic.
“President Trump needs to immediately begin at least a three-pronged approach to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for allowing a deadly virus to infect the entire world resulting almost a quarter million deaths to date, “ Manning said.
“It is clear that the Chinese Communist Party engaged in a series of actions which result in this disease to engulf the world, taking down rival economies, while China attempts to take advantage of the crisis they created. This is why we have launched a WhiteHouse.gov petition letting President Trump know that the American people will have his back when he takes action.”
The petition urges the President to take three immediate actions on three critical areas: eliminate America’s dependence on China for manufacturing important pharmaceutical and medical products; restrict China’s influence on our nation’s universities, and create an investigative team to assess the Chinese Communist Party’s role in covering up the virus and allowing it to become a pandemic.
A group of conservative leaders signed a longer letter that was sent to the President outlining the challenges posed by the Chinese Communist Party and expressing strong support for actions that he might take in the future to meet them.
Manning asserted, “The United States welcomed China into an economic partnership in 2001 when China was given Permanent Normalized Trade Relations by the U.S.. Time after time, China has used that special relationship to abuse our national interest and their virus-related actions require immediate, strategic disengagement from the toxic Beijing regime.”
The WhiteHouse.gov petition is posted on the White House website.
To view online: https://getliberty.org/2020/04/americans-for-limited-government-launches-whitehouse-gov-petition-to-hold-china-accountable-for-virus/
