Tom McClintock doesn’t fault coronavirus for economic destruction. Here’s who he blames
What’s pushing the economy into freefall isn’t the coronavirus outbreak, says Rep. Tom McClintock. It’s government policies.
“COVID-19 did not destroy our nation’s economy. Government policies, however well intentioned they may have been, have done that,” the Elk Grove Republican told Newsmax TV’s “The Chris Salcedo Show” recently and reiterated to McClatchy this week.
Some economists say the economic downturn could be the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s. More than 5.2 million people filed for unemployment for the first time last week, including 660,966 in California. Since the downturn began in mid-March, the state has seen an estimated 2.7 million people file new claims.
The International Monetary Fund Tuesday reported that “as countries implement necessary quarantines and social distancing practices to contain the pandemic, the world has been put in a Great Lockdown. The magnitude and speed of collapse in activity that has followed is unlike anything experienced in our lifetimes.”
In California, the pandemic was cited as sparking the downturn in the mid-March forecast from the UCLA Anderson School of Management forecast.
“After a solid start to 2020, the escalating impacts of the coronavirus pandemic in March have reduced the first-quarter 2020 forecast of GDP growth to 0.4%. GDP growth for the second quarter of the year is now forecast to be at a -6.5% growth rate, and at -1.9% for the third quarter,” it said at the time.
But McClintock said the stay-at-home orders in most states, including California, may well have been unnecessary.
In the Newsmax TV interview, he cited academic studies that suggest the coronavirus was spreading weeks before the first reported deaths.
Dr. John Ioannidis, professor of medicine at Stanford University’s medical school, said in one study that “evidence is lacking for the most aggressive measures. A systematic review on measures to the spread of respiratory viruses found insufficient evidence for entry port screening and social distancing in reducing epidemic spreading.”
Ioannidis, an expert in disease prevention, said that “given the uncertainties, one may opt for abundant caution and implement the most severe containment measures. By this perspective, no opportunity should be missed to gain any benefit, even in absence of evidence or even with mostly negative evidence.
But he added, “This reasoning ignores possible harms. Impulsive actions can indeed cause major harm. One clear example is the panic shopping which depleted supplies of face masks, escalation of prices and a shortage for medical personnel.”
He did not respond to a request for further comment.
That study, as well as one by scholars at Oxford University, suggest “the virus was circulating for many months before it was discovered, that it affected a large portion of the population,” McClintock said.
Oxford reported that “the results we present here suggest the ongoing epidemics in the UK and Italy started at least a month before the first reported death and have already led to the accumulation of significant levels of herd immunity in both countries.”
If that is so, McClintock said, “these home detention orders now affecting more than 200 million Americans are both ineffective and unjustified and maybe doing enormous harm and very little good.”
No one will know whether these studies are accurate, he said, until there’s a randomized serological test of the population to determine how many people have already had the disease.
“If they’re correct, then what we’re doing is exactly wrong and is creating an enormous amount of harm,” he said.
McClintock was one of 40 House members to vote against the big economic relief plan Congress passed March 14, but supported the $2.2 trillion stimulus it approved March 27.
At that time, he said Congress was operating in a “blind panic,” and explained he was concerned the bill would double the already-huge federal deficit.
“It threatens to destabilize the fiscal structure of our federal government, suppress future economic growth and create fiscal pressures that will take decades to unravel,” he warned of the newer stimulus bill.
McClintock added, though, that the sudden economic downturn was a crisis that demanded extraordinary measures.
“This strongest argument for this bill is that it provides liquidity for employers and spending money for families. The strongest against it is that it does so inefficiently, wastefully and at enormous cost,” he said.
The economic aid plan provided $350 billion in forgivable loans to small businesses, which should be enough for them to maintain payroll and pay some rent and utilities for up to eight weeks. Another $500 billion is earmarked for a lending program to bigger businesses, states and cities.
McClintock supports programs that will help people cope during the downturn, but sees many programs lacking proper government scrutiny, and in some cases are not properly targeted to those actually harmed by government-ordered shutdowns.
Unemployed workers can now get benefits longer than the previous 26 weeks, as well as an extra $600 per week through the end of July.
The extra money, he said when the bill passed, “will actually pay many workers more not to work. Unemployment insurance should be a safety net providing a recipient the time to transition to another job as quickly as possible. That is especially important now.”
The state and local aid, he argued, is largely misplaced. “This appropriation may or may not be justified, but no effort has been made to do so. Past experience convinces me that this money will disappear into various government budgets with few tangible benefits,” he said.
Brynne Kennedy, a Democrat and tech entrepreneur vying for McClintock’s seat, told McClatchy this week he was insensitive to constituents’ concerns, saying it was “painfully clear that Tom McClintock is simply not up to the task at hand.”
Todd Stenhouse, a spokesman for Kennedy, said his candidate did not agree with McClintock’s view that government policies were a key reason for the economic turmoil.
“She understands that a fast-spreading disease that’s infected hundreds of District 4 residents and taken tens of thousands of American lives in one month is what is hurting our economy,” he said.
“As the only candidate in this race who has built a successful business from scratch or had to meet a payroll, she understands the need for urgent national action to stop the virus, harden our defenses, and stabilize our economy.”
This story was originally published April 17, 2020 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Tom McClintock doesn’t fault coronavirus for economic destruction. Here’s who he blames."