In two previous columns, Here’s Something has listed a number of pet peeves regarding the pandemic times in which we find ourselves. This week’s edition concludes the series:
One of my biggest pandemic pet peeves pertains to the federal government’s unwise decision to give $600 a week in surplus unemployment compensation, a program which thankfully ceased several weeks ago.
John Balentine, a former managing editor for the Lakes Region Weekly, lives in Windham.
I heard President Trump’s economic adviser Larry Kudlow announce the initiative live on TV, and he, perhaps deliberately so for extra effect, flubbed it up.
Kudlow said, and I remember it almost verbatim because I was so shocked, that workers would be getting $600 per month extra, “and if I said $600 a month, I meant $600 a week.” My jaw dropped then for the inanity of such an extravagant expenditure, and it remains in the slackened position.
I’ve always liked Kudlow, but I can’t believe the administration I otherwise support would be so stupid to go into so much debt while at the same time providing a disincentive for returning to work.
In Maine, the average unemployment check is about $351, meaning the average laid-off employee was earning almost $1,000 a week to stay home. That’s craziness. No wonder employers, the ones that are actually still standing, no thanks to this awful program, found it hard to get people to come back to work.
In other stimulus-related matters, I’m peeved that employed workers received $1,200 stimulus checks. We didn’t need it. Yes, we happily took the money, but we’re going to spend the rest of our lives and several other generations of Americans’ lives paying off the debt and dealing with inflation.
I can’t end this series of columns on pandemic pet peeves without mentioning my biggest aggravation of all: Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
First off, I’m peeved that many still trust him after he admitted he deliberately misinformed the public regarding the effectiveness of face masks.
Early on Fauci told us masks would do little to contain the virus, but then he changed his mind and became a fierce advocate of masks. He tried to defend his earlier statement saying he was just trying to prevent a run on masks by the general public, which would have decreased access for healthcare workers.
“(W)e were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply,” he clumsily told the Wall Street Journal.
“And we wanted to make sure that the people, namely, the healthcare workers, who were brave enough to put themselves in a harm way, to take care of people who you know were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected,” he added.
Don’t trust Fauci is the only message I took from this.
Secondly, even after declaring masks a pandemic wardrobe must-have, Fauci was photographed sitting in the stands between two people, sans mask, after throwing out the first pitch at the Washington Nationals opening baseball game. The “rules for thee, not for me” principle surely applies here.
Thirdly, Fauci is clearly enjoying his newfound fame, which makes me suspicious. Seeing him donned in sunglasses sitting beside his pool on the cover of InStyle magazine was the last straw for me.
He’s not looking, or acting, the part of trusted scientist anymore. It’s amazing Trump allows him to continue serving on the coronavirus task force.
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