COVID, Has the Fat Lady Sung?

Lamont and company -- Fox News

It seems only yesterday that President Joe Biden assured the nation that the COVID “pandemic” was over. And in fact, well in advance of his presidential proclamation, many alert citizens in Connecticut more or less assumed they soon would rid themselves of their medically deficient masks and begin to view in their rear-view mirrors the extraordinary measures taken by Governor Ned Lamont, who had assumed near plenipotentiary emergency powers for nearly two years.

In Connecticut, Lamont’s emergency declarations led, predictably and inescapably, to closed schools, restaurants closed through meddlesome over regulation, closed businesses, virtual education… on and on and on.

Following Lamont’s emergency declarations, the longest and most intrusive in Connecticut’s history, the state was strewn with wreckage. Particularly hard hit was the hospitality industry, young children who had lost about two years of proper schooling, businesses that had lost sales or closed, and the relatives of those patients committed to long term care facilities who were not permitted for more than a year to interface with their parents and personally monitor their care eyeball to eyeball.

We now learn from a news item in a Hartford paper that Lamont has extended his extraordinary powers a sixth time. Connecticut Gov. Lamont extends health emergency declaration to continue federal funding, the story’s headline screams at us.

But not to worry. There is no danger that Lamont intends to deploy his emergency powers any time soon. Lamont is renewing “a health emergency declaration Tuesday,” the paper advises, “to keep the money flowing” from an apparent bottomless federal well, even though attentive reporters and political writers must know by now that extraordinary borrowing and the reckless printing of funny money is the principal cause of the rampant inflation now depleting the nation’s energy and prosperity.

The classic definition of inflation, generally accepted across all ideological barriers, is “too many dollars chasing too few goods.” The COVID pandemic has been blamed by blameless progressive commentators for having reduced the nation’s production of goods and services. Actually, it was some, not all, individual governors that curtailed the production of goods and services through edicts that might have made extreme authoritarians and anti-democrats prowling the precincts blush with envy.

The same commentators assure us that borrowing huge gobs of cash from banks and printing devalued dollars are necessary measures when the inflationary wolf is at the door.

Ordinary, common sense folk should regard inflation as a hidden tax that reduced the purchasing power of their paychecks. And, like the not so gentle rain, inflation falls equitably on the poor, middle class and rich though, of course, the poor feel the bite of inflation most. The one thing that ought not to be done when an inflation tax reduces the purchasing power of money, common sense folk will realize, is raising taxes, which further diminishes people power.

“The governor first declared public health and civil preparedness emergencies on March 10, 2020 in response to the first cases of the COVID-19 virus” CTNewsJunkie announced in February, 2022. “The legislature extended that authority six times. Now, more than 700,000 cases and 10,000 coronavirus-related deaths later, that executive power was scheduled to lapse.”

Facing the end of COVID, with his money pots swelling, Lamont and the progressive Democrat legislature have decided to extend the governor’s near plenipotentiary emergency powers yet again -- not to quell another spurt of COVID, but to assure themselves that funds arriving from the federal government will continue to flow into the state’s treasury, nearly busting at the seams with surplus taxes that should have been returned to the people by the most effective means – permanent, long term tax cuts. That money will be dispersed to enhance the re-election of improvident politicians, Democrat and Republican, in the upcoming 2024 presidential elections.

The COVID emergency is over, both Biden and Lamont have said numerous times. But, here come a future bill, it is never-the-less necessary to extend the governor’s – what to call it? – non-emergency powers.

Lamont explains why. Although the governor will not issue emergency orders -- because there is no emergency -- “We need this declaration in place,’' Lamont said in a statement. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to access the federal support necessary for emergency food benefits and housing services that other states across the country are continuing to receive as a result of the pandemic. By issuing this declaration, we are ensuring that this added support can continue for at least several more months.”

Translation: Because we have no intention of cutting spending, Connecticut, one of the most prosperous states in the nation, will need infusions of federal funny money to sustain the illusion that all is well. Through decades of misadministration, Connecticut has become a beggar state, just like number one Montana.