May 26, 2020
Dear Governor Baker,
You’ve no doubt noticed how prominent Massachusetts Democrats have been quick to criticize any and all efforts to allow the reopening of the Commonwealth’s businesses.
U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley recently took to social media to claim that “policy decisions that offer a false choice between public health (and) economic recovery will hurt our communities,” while still other Democrats on Beacon Hill have criticized your administration directly, accusing you of “deciding how to balance death and the economy.”
By now, it should be clear: the shutdown of private businesses, large and small, has given the Democratic Party -- the party of government overreach -- a political boost. This disastrous pandemic has led to unconstitutional decrees being set in stone almost overnight, creating what is unquestionably a dream scenario for the Democrats -- stifle independence, entrepreneurship, and personal responsibility, and you create a world dependent upon the state.
We write to you today to urge you to push back, publicly, on the Democrats’ demands to keep Massachusetts shuttered.
We write to you today to remind you that the most regulated businesses in the Commonwealth, our nursing homes, also happen to account for more than 61 percent of all COVID-19-related deaths.
We write to you today to convey the frustrations of small business owners, who have had to padlock their doors while their big-box competitors across the street are allowed to remain open.
We write to you today to remind you that the Massachusetts business community lives and breathes on the ambitions, creativity, and dreams of its residents, but will die a painful death if it succumbs to the whims of an unelected bureaucracy. These business owners realize the importance of maintaining a hygienic environment -- if the public does not trust them and their products, no amount of government intervention will keep them afloat.
While many Republicans may disagree on the speed of reopening, one area of common ground we can all agree on is the need to reopen Massachusetts. Moreover, Senate President Karen Spilka has acknowledged in conversations with local officials that the Commonwealth faces an $8 billion budget deficit if our economy remains locked down.
This precipitous drop in revenue can only be halted by the reopening of our businesses. Meanwhile, out-of-work business owners must still somehow find a way to pay rent, the Commonwealth’s workforce must eventually have to pay an income and property tax, as well as take care of their families. Democrats like to talk about fatalities associated with this virus, but still unknown yet just as tragic are the deaths that will occur due to alcoholism, drug use, and suicide, all of which will be on the increase as long as residents are forced to lock themselves away.
To rebuild our economy, the solution is not more regulations but less bureaucratic interference. Americans, especially here in Massachusetts, continue to battle this deadly pandemic and are more than capable of continuing to open the economy safely.
We support your efforts to continue to aggressively fight the virus and to continue to reopen Massachusetts.
Sincerely,
