Part II: Fireside Chat with Congressman Tom McClintock

Since being elected to public office in 1982, Tom McClintock has always been involved in the budget – while in state public office, as well as the federal budget in Congress. More recently he has observed Gov. Gavin Newsom try to blame the state’s sputtering economy and high unemployment on the coronavirus. “COVID did not destroy the economy,” he said. “Decisions to lockdown states did.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom made the decision to lock the state down and force millions of Californians out of their businesses and jobs.

Thursday November 19th, Congressman McClintock delivered the following remarks on the House floor “In Defense of Governor Newsom:”

“I rise this morning in defense of Governor Gavin Newsom who recently defied his own idiotic Covid edicts as he partied at one of the few restaurants that he has not yet forced out of business.  I defend him because he was doing what we all once did in a free society: make our own decisions over what risks we are willing to run and what precautions we are willing to take according to our own circumstances to protect our own health.

Yes, Covid is a nasty bug and a quarter of a million Americans have died while having it.  But this isn’t the Bubonic Plague.  The CDC’s best estimate is that if you are under 49, your chance for surviving Covid – it you get it – is 99.92 percent.  Even for those over 70 the survival rate is 94.6 percent.

Forty percent who get it don’t even know they have it.  Yet we have allowed our officials to ruin our quality of life over it – destroying countless businesses, throwing tens of millions into unemployment, robbing our children of their educations and shredding our most cherished rights as Americans.

Governor Newsom’s night of partying should be a wake-up call to every American.”

In our recent interview, McClintock noted that Colorado and Utah, right next door to each other, handled the coronavirus differently. Colorado locked its residents down. Utah did not, and instead asked residents to take precautions, while the state focused its efforts on helping the elderly and vulnerable people. “Utah’s morbidity rate is half of Colorado’s,” he said.

I asked him if there would be another “stimulus” bill passed, and we discussed the ramifications.

“The federal government does not finance the economy – it’s the other way around,” he said, noting that it is taxpayers who fund the government. He was critical of the federal deal providing everyone in America a $1,200 check. “Because we put it together in a panic, everybody got a $1,200 check, whether they were laid off or not,” he said.

“The lockdowns created a severe liquidity process, which turned into a capital crisis, and forced liquidation of assets,” he said. “And the large unemployment payments incentivized people not to work.”

McClintock said a more rational approach that would not have thrust the federal government into even more debt would have been student loan payment deferrals, payroll tax holidays for families impacted, conditioned on a later adjustment in Social Security retirement, and low or no interest loans to businesses during the crisis.

“These policies would not have added to the debt,” he said.

Veterans Day

Rep. McClintock spent Veterans Day in Foresthill, CA at Foresthill Veterans Hall.

His message was poignant given the recent election:

There’s a curious thing about the oath taken by every member of our armed forces.  Those who defend our country never swear to “support and defend” the United States Government.  They never swear to “support and defend” the United States of America.  The only oath they take is to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States.”  The same oath is taken by every member of the government, from school board to President

There’s a reason for that.  The American Founders understood that if we ever lose our Constitution, we will have already lost our country.  It is the Constitution that establishes the processes that make self-government possible and that restrains not only the madness of the crowd but also the natural craving of human beings to lord power over their fellow human beings.”

Part l with Rep. McClintock

Next: Part lll with Rep. McClintock: Why Policy Matters