People protest against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer's stay-at-home order due to the coronavirus outbreak in Lansing, at the State Capitol. Photos / AP
People protest against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer's stay-at-home order due to the coronavirus outbreak in Lansing, at the State Capitol. Photos / AP
Leading Republicans say the coronavirus shutdown cannot go on.
Car-honking activists in the United States swarmed a statehouse today to protest stay-home restrictions. Capitol Hill staff are quietly drafting bills to undo the just-passed rescue aid and push Americans back to work.
Behind President Donald Trump's effort to accelerate re-opening the US economy during the pandemic is a contingent of GOP allies eager to have his back.
"It's very much time to start having that conversation and start figuring that out," said Senator Pat Toomey, R, who has shared his views with Trump.
The push to revive the economy is being influenced and amplified by a potent alliance of big money business interests, religious freedom conservatives and small-government activists, some with a direct dial to Trump.
They are gaining currency as a counter-point to the health professionals who warn of potentially deadly consequences from easing coronavirus stay-home restrictions too soon.
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The mobilisation is reminiscent of the Tea Party rebellion a decade ago, when conservatives roared against federal intervention in recession recovery.
It's drawing a similar band of deficit hawks alarmed by the US$2.2 trillion rescue package, religious congregants who say their right to worship is being violated and conservative lawmakers warning of a slide towards big government "socialism" with expanded safety net programmes.
"How do you rein in some of the tyrannical enforcement?" said Representative Andy Biggs, R, the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, in a radio interview.
Economist Stephen Moore is leading a new coalition to fire up activists nationwide. The conservative Heritage Foundation put forward a five-point re-opening plan. Republicans discuss options almost weekly on the House GOP's private conference calls.
"It's about promoting liberty and freedom," Moore said. "It's about stopping spending that will bankrupt the country and getting the US$20 trillion engine that is the American economy started again as soon as possible — as in tomorrow."
Early on in the crisis, Trump's instinct to re-open was kept in check by two unlikely forces — the health professionals on the White House's coronavirus task force and the Trump campaign, which warned that widespread fatalities would be more damaging to the President's re-election than the economic fallout, according to a Republican granted anonymity to discuss the private assessment.
But as the national stay-home guidelines appear to have limited the virus spread, and the mounting death toll, now beyond 27,000, is less than first envisioned, those political calculations seem to be shifting towards the economic concerns, the person said.
"We have to learn to live with this," said Adam Brandon, president of FreedomWorks, which is holding weekly virtual town halls with members of Congress, igniting an activist base of thousands of supporters across the nation to back up the effort.
Advocates say they are focusing on parts of the economy and regions of the country where virus spread is low or workers can do their jobs while maintaining social distancing.
They point to construction, landscaping and factory floors. They envision new rules — everyone wears face masks — and other safety precautions.
This photo, from an Ohio protest demanding opening the economy, is everything (taken by Joshua A. Bickel for The Columbus Dispatch) pic.twitter.com/WlSHauMvjM
These Republicans warn that the public health emphasis has failed to take into account the broader societal toll of a prolonged shutdown and potential for a Great Depression.
The government cannot keep throwing around money to prop up the economy, they say.
Toomey worries that diseases of despair, including substance abuse, will deepen with unemployment and rising poverty, and supply chain disruptions could lead to civil unrest.
He said there are segments of the economy, particularly in rural Pennsylvania, "that could be open today."
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One early shutdown opponent was the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, which argued businesses should be allowed to "adapt and innovate."
With one in 10 American workers suddenly unemployed and dismal corporate quarterly earning reports expected, key Republicans on Capitol Hill say it's time to shift strategies now.
"We're really trying to get this thing going quicker than a lot of people may expect," said Senator David Perdue, R, in a radio interview. He spoke to the President over the weekend, he said, and Trump was already thinking about the transition.
"What we see right now is the free market, free-enterprise system is under threat," Perdue said. "Don't come in and tell us how to run our lives."
The new protests are reminiscent of the Tea Party rallies in the Obama era.
Democrats warn that jumping ahead of public health guidelines could have disastrous effects if Americans retreat from social distancing and spark new hot spots that overrun hospitals with more patients than available beds.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a stark warning for Americans to "ignore the lies" and "listen to scientists and other respected professionals" to protect themselves and loved ones.
"All of us want to resume the precious and beautiful lives that America's unique freedoms provide," Pelosi wrote in a letter to Democratic colleagues. "But if we are not working from the truth, more lives will be lost, economic hardship and suffering will be extended unnecessarily."
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Some leading Republicans are pushing healthcare solutions. Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander, the chairman of the health committee, wants a "Manhattan Project" for testing, referring to the wartime effort to develop nuclear weapons, to give Americans confidence that children can return to school in the northern autumn.
Across the US, though, end-the-shutdown protests are flaring up.
In Texas, conservative state legislators said in a letter to Governor Greg Abbott it's ultimately the "individual Texan's responsibility" to keep themselves safe. Many are backed by Texas oilman Tim Dunn, who co-authored a similar letter to Trump.
Today drivers staged "Operation Gridlock" at the Michigan state capitol after Governor Gretchen Whitmer's decision to toughen rather than relax what already was one of the nation's strictest stay-home orders.
Among the groups promoting the effort on Facebook was one with ties to the politically connected DeVos family, even though Education Secretary Besty DeVos stopped her political spending when she joined Trump's Cabinet.
Cars are parked in an dealer yard in Green Park, Missouri. US retail sales recorded a record drop in March, with vehicle sales down by 25.6 per cent.
Evidence of the coronavirus' devastating impact on the US economy has been steadily emerging, and the signs have grown ominous.
Sales at stores and restaurants plunged in March by the largest amount on records dating back to 1992. The nation's industrial output fell by the largest amount since the end of World War II. And the outbreak keeps ravaging the global oil market.
"I've never seen anything like this," said Jennifer Lee, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets. "You don't want to look, but you know you have to."
The picture will likely worsen in the coming weeks and months. Retail sales — a primary driver of the US economy — are almost surely suffering further during April because business shutdowns will have been in effect for the entire month, compared with just half of March.
Sales of homes and cars will also keep declining. And economists have forecast that Friday's weekly report on applications for unemployment benefits will show that millions of Americans sought jobless aid last week, on top of the record-high of nearly 17 million who filed in the previous three weeks.
Economists now project a record-shattering 40 per cent annual decline in US economic output for the April-June quarter. While growth is expected to rebound in the second half of the year, economists at JPMorgan Chase have forecast that the US economy will still shrink 7 per cent for 2020 as a whole.
A man walks past mannequins in the windows of the Macy's store in the Downtown Crossing area of Boston.
The International Monetary Fund yesterday predicted that the world economy would shrink 3 per cent this year, the worst outcome since the Great Depression.
The government said US retail sales plummeted 8.7 per cent in March, an unprecedented decline, as the outbreak brought most commerce to a halt.
The deterioration of sales far outpaced the previous record decline of 3.9 per cent that took place during the depths of the recession in November 2008.
Auto sales dropped 25.6 per cent, while clothing store sales collapsed, sliding 50.5 per cent. Restaurants and bars reported a nearly 27 per cent fall in revenue.
Spending may be falling at an even faster pace than the retail sales figures suggest. The report did not include spending on services such as hotel stays, airline tickets or movie theatres.
