Representative Mo Brooks (R-AL) wants policymakers to look beyond solely focusing on coronavirus in making decisions that will lead to a decline in economic activity, which could hurt society in the long run.
During an interview with Huntsville, AL radio’s WVNN, Brooks said if it were up to him, he would give cautionary advice on the COVID-19 outbreak but have an “inclination” to trust people to act in their best interest. However, he said he was reluctant to call into question decisions made by governors and mayors restricting liberties given the severity and the unknowns related to the pandemic.
“If I were the governor of a state, governor of New York or California or any state, or mayor — I’d give people as much cautionary advice as I could give,” Brooks said. “Wash your hands, work at home if your work will allow you to do so. But it is your choice, your freedom, your liberty. You make this decision because it involves you and your life. That would be my inclination is to trust the people to do what is in their best interest, which collectively is in society’s best interest.”
“However, I really don’t feel comfortable saying that those governors and those mayors around the country who have been much more aggressive in restricting the ability of people to work, by way of example, that they are wrong because this is new,” he continued. “We haven’t had something like this since 1918 and 1920 with the Spanish flu. And although it is kind of like this, it is not the same as the coronavirus because we are so much more medically advanced now. Society has changed so much over the last hundred years. While we’ve seen something like this in the past, it’s not the same. It is new. So a lot of elected officials have to make some very very tough decisions.”
Brooks mentioned some of the drawbacks to starving economic activity, particularly as it could impact some government services that are financed from tax revenue generated from that economic activity.
“I would just caution them, and particularly I would caution the medical profession — look, guys, we know where you’re coming from,” he said. “We know the restraints you want to impose. But also understand that we have two bad choices. And it may be that what you’re asking us to do is going to cost more people’s lives than the coronavirus. That’s where we need more people that understand the dynamics of economics and the cascading effect of economic decisions and how our economy also impacts how many people live, how many people die, what kind of comforts we have while we’re alive, how long we’re going to live.”
“The economy generates the wealth that allows us to have the health care system that is better than any other on the planet,” Brooks continued. “That allows us to have law enforcement, penitentiaries where we can put deadly criminals who we don’t want on the street threatening the lives of others. It allows us to have safer roads that we have fewer people die in automotive wrecks. It is our economy that allows us to have better food, better shelter, better clothing — all of which results in longer life and fewer deaths. I don’t think that we have enough mayors and governors, and I don’t think we have enough people in the medical profession who understand economic dynamics well enough to properly balance the two. They’re all focused on coronavirus almost to the exclusion of the adverse effects on the economy will have on lives in America.”
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