Walensky leaves behind a more authoritarian CDC

Rochelle Walensky leaves behind a more powerful and more authoritarian Centers for Disease Control than the one she joined. 

Rochelle Walensky Leaves a CDC That's Far More Powerful Than When She Entered It | Reason - Robby Soave: 

May 5, 2023 - "Rochelle Walensky is resigning from her post as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She has overseen the agency since the beginning of President Joe Biden's term and greatly expanded the CDC's authority.

"Walensky's reign was chiefly characterized by her extreme reluctance to reverse the CDC's support for ongoing pandemic restrictions. When she took the helm in January 2021, the COVID-19 vaccine rollout was just getting underway, and there was good reason to believe that the most vulnerable people would soon enjoy robust protection from severe disease and death. Walensky, however, was not inclined to let the CDC's influence wane. For instance, she repeatedly extended the CDC's eviction moratorium, a policy that made it extremely difficult for landlords to collect rent; the Supreme Court finally struck down the illegal order in August 2021.

"Walensky firmly believed that CDC guidance on COVID-19 policies should reflect the up-to-date scientific consensus — that is, unless the science had arrived at a conclusion that vexed her. Walensky's CDC put incredible faith in junk studies that purported to prove the importance of mask mandates in schools. When the legitimacy of these studies came into question, she declined to reverse course and admit that ritualistically masking schoolchildren was unnecessary.... 

"When challenged on her policies, Walensky would demur and claim that CDC guidance on masks was just that — guidance. She sounded a similar note as COVID-19 adviser Anthony Fauci, who cloaked his enthusiasm for shutting down all of society under the guise of mere suggestion. The fact of the matter is that government policy makers at the local, state, and federal level routinely outsourced their COVID-19 decision making to Walensky and Fauci. They put their thumbs on the scales of lockdowns and mask mandates, and thus the U.S. continued these policies far longer than did our peer countries. The World Health Organization (WHO), in contrast, never recommended masks for children under 6 at all, and many Nordic countries were unwilling to mask kids up to age 11....

"Walensky wasn't necessarily looking to European peer countries.... She was far more inclined to celebrate the alleged success of China's 'really strict lockdowns,' which involved the country's authoritarian government starving some people via mandatory quarantine detention centers and trapping others inside burning buildings. (China eventually succumbed to the inevitable, gave up on its draconian lockdowns, and implicitly admitted that the 'zero-COVID' policy was a fantasy.)

"Walensky's CDC also pursued the questionable strategy of purging so-called misinformation about COVID-19 from social media. Throughout her time in charge, the CDC became the de facto internet speech police. Emails obtained by Reason show that Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, routinely deferred moderation decisions to government health authorities. Meta might have thought it had little choice but to seek the CDC's input, as Biden had publicly declared that the social media platform's failure to suppress allegedly misleading content was 'killing people.' In any case, this is a dangerous precedent.... 

"Walensky's exit from the CDC comes just a few days before the official end of the national COVID-19 pandemic on May 11. Whoever takes over the agency should concentrate on rebalancing its decidedly unhealthy approach to individual liberty."

Read more: https://reason.com/2023/05/05/rochelle-walensky-cdc-guidance-masks-mandates-health/

Inside the CDC’s Changes After Pandemic Missteps |  Bloomberg, January 13, 2023: 

Rental industry a casualty of pandemic policy

The COVID-19 Pandemic Permanently Damaged Property Rights | Reason - Steven Greenhuit:

March 24, 2023 - "Government officials aren't wiser than the rest of us, so when they tried to deal with a serious public health problem, they did so in a forceful, ineloquent, and unreasonable manner.... In [a] column last year summarizing lessons from COVID-19, I concluded that it left us as a 'nation of rulers, not laws.' American governors — and California Gov. Gavin Newsom in particular — quickly and eagerly used their broad emergency powers to begin issuing edicts. Given the extent of the public-health threat, some of the more modest and temporary ones were understandable, but they bypassed the normal legislative process in cynical and expansive ways.

"One Republican lawmaker published a 138-page document detailing the 400 laws that Newsom unilaterally imposed or changed — many of them that only tangentially had anything to do with protecting public health. In particular, officials used the crisis to impose policies they already supported but couldn't get through the normal legislative process.

"The worst example involved anti-eviction orders that have literally destroyed our property rights. Virtually all mom-and-pop landlords depend on the rental income. With one fell swoop, governors (and the federal Centers for Disease Control) declared that tenants no longer had to pay their full rent if they faced a pandemic-related hardship. Sure, landlords could potentially collect rent in the future in civil court, but good luck with that.

"In making it virtually impossible to evict non-paying tenants, policymakers imposed the full cost of their public-health plans on individual property owners, who could no longer count on getting a return on their investment. Often, property owners have mortgages — and they always have tax and insurance bills. When a heating system or roof leaks, they're still required (ethically and legally) to make repairs. But they no longer could count on receiving rent....

"I thought that most people—even renters who have had less-than-stellar rental experiences—might understand that if the government deprives owners of their supposed state constitutional right to a fair return on their investment, fewer people will go into the business and even fewer will upgrade their properties. That helps no one. The result is obvious: fewer available rentals and fewer rentals in tip-top condition. Investing in rental property has always been a prime means for middle-class people to build wealth. My grandfather was an immigrant paperhanger (remember wallpaper?) who invested in Philadelphia row houses decades ago. Now, I talk to many people who won't dare buy a rental house out of the legitimate fear that the government can suspend rent payments at will.

"Tenants often outnumber owners, especially in larger cities such as Los Angeles.... Certainly, many cities (San Francisco, Santa Monica, New York) embraced strict rent control long before the pandemic was a thing. They largely destroyed their housing markets of course, as renters stayed put in under-market units while investors high-tailed it elsewhere. But COVID added a new level of uncertainty. Look at how Los Angeles continually extended its anti-eviction provisions.

"Any time I hear of a bad flu season or other health scare, I fully expect Newsom and others to return to their COVID-19 anti-eviction playbook.... [W]e no longer have property rights when officials can eliminate them by executive order, legislation, or regulatory fiat. That is COVID's lasting legacy — and the lasting result will not be pretty."

Read more: https://reason.com/2023/03/24/the-covid-19-pandemic-permanently-damaged-property-rights/

"How We Lose Our Property Rights in Crisis." Free the People, April 3, 2020:

U.S federal judge strikes down CDC eviction ban

 Federal Judge Strikes Down Moratorium on Evicting Renters | New York Times - Glenn Thrush:

May 5, 2021 - "A federal judge on Wednesday struck down the nationwide moratorium on evictions imposed by the Trump administration last year and extended by President Biden until June 30.... The decision, by Judge Dabney Friedrich of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is the most significant federal ruling on the moratorium yet, and follows three similar federal court decisions.

"The Justice Department immediately filed an appeal, and requested an emergency stay on the order pending a decision by the higher court. Late Wednesday night, Judge Friedrich agreed to put her ruling on hold until May 12 ... while making clear that the move was not a reflection of the 'merits' of the government’s request. It remains unclear how wide an impact the decision will have on renters. It does not necessarily bind state housing court judges, who rule on eviction orders, and two other federal courts have upheld the moratorium, adding to the confusion about its fate....

"The moratorium was enacted under the Public Health Service Act of 1944, which gives the federal government the power to impose quarantines and other measures to deal with health emergencies. In a 20-page decision, Judge Friedrich, who was appointed by President Donald J. Trump, ruled that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had exceeded its authority under that law when it carried out Mr. Trump’s order last summer to impose the moratorium.

"'The question for the court is a narrow one: Does the Public Health Service Act grant the C.D.C. the legal authority to impose a nationwide eviction moratorium?' wrote Judge Friedrich. 'It does not.'

"The case was brought in November by the Alabama Association of Realtors and a group of real estate agents in Georgia who claimed the moratorium shifted the burden for rent payments from the tenants to landlords at a time when many owners have been struggling to meet their own expenses. The moratorium has had a substantial effect. Despite the sharp economic downturn created by the pandemic, eviction filings declined 65 percent in 2020 over the usual annual rate, according to an analysis of court data by the nonprofit group Eviction Lab.

"Housing analysts warned that Wednesday’s ruling could embolden more landlords to begin eviction proceedings against tenants before the federal government can disburse $45 billion in emergency housing assistance appropriated by Congress.... Four months after Congress approved its first tens of billions of dollars in emergency rental aid, only a small portion has reached landlords and tenants, and in many places it is impossible even to file an application....  "Owners of residential apartment buildings have long argued that the moratorium is based on legally shaky ground, and questioned the constitutionality of tethering a major intervention in the nation’s housing market to a federal statute intended to stop the transmission of disease....

"If the moratorium has been polarizing in the courts, it was one of the few pandemic policies that united Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump. The CARES Act, passed in March 2020 with Mr. Trump’s support, included a 120-day moratorium on evictions from rental properties participating in federal assistance programs or underwritten by federal loans. On Aug. 8, 2020, Mr. Trump extended and broadened the moratorium through an executive order, leading to the C.D.C.’s action. Shortly after taking office, Mr. Biden extended the moratorium.... On Wednesday, Jen Psaki, Mr. Biden’s spokeswoman, told reporters the administration would fight to uphold the moratorium....

"Most states have enacted their own eviction freezes beyond the action taken by Washington. On Monday, New York State lawmakers passed legislation that would extend a statewide moratorium on residential and commercial evictions through Aug. 31."

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/05/us/politics/eviction-moratorium-biden.html

Income tax, rent, and coercion

by George J. Dance:

May 30, 2017 - Recently I have been reading the online works of progressive Matt Bruenig, a Washington, D.C., lawyer and sometime internet troll, who has written a great deal about libertarians. Last week I wrote on his "Grab World" scenario, but that leaves many of his articles to be looked at. Today's installment deals with a 2013 article, "Libertarians are Huge Fans of Economic Coercion."

Bruenig's article defines "coercion" by quoting economist and lawyer Robert Lee Hale: "coercion occurs when there are 'background constraints on the universe of socially available choices from which an individual might "freely" choose.'"

Based on that definition, Bruenig argues that income taxes are coercive: "Imagine I am thinking of getting a job. I have the following options in the status quo: 1. Get a job and pay income taxes on the income from that job. 2. Do not get a job." Theoretically people have a third option – get a job and do not pay income taxes – but "the state – through violent, physical coercion – has prevented them from having this option." As Bruenig points out, Libertarians would agree with him on this.

However, Bruenig also argues that rent is equally coercive: "Imagine I am looking to find housing to live in. I am presented, in the status quo, with the following choices: 1. Pay a landlord rent to live in some building; 2. Be homeless." Once again, there is a theoretical option 3 – "to move into a building and sleep in it without paying anyone anything" – however, "landlords may call [the state] on the phone and have it violently remove me from the building if I chose option three. That is, the state has – through violent, physical coercion – restricted the options that are available to me."

Since libertarians do not oppose the collection of rent, Bruenig concludes, they do not oppose, but support, "economic coercion." QED

However, in the rent example, option 3 actually consists of two different options: 3a) move into a building, and unilaterally decide to not pay rent; and 3b) move into a building, and do not pay rent, with the owner's agreement. Bruenig shows that the state forecloses option 3a; but he does not show that it has foreclosed option 3b.

In fact, the state has not foreclosed 3b. Many people live in other people's homes and pay nothing, with the owner's agreement. Some live in their parents', children's, other family members', or friends' homes. Others live in Salvation Army or other hostels. Landlords let their superintendents live rent-free. I have even heard of superintendents allowing the homeless to sleep for free in apartment boiler rooms. In all these cases, the state does not intervene at all, much less "violently" – it intervenes only in the case of 3a, when one of the parties affected does not agree, and complains to it. Which is why libertarians would "describe my choice to pay rent as non-coerced and voluntary": whether or not rent must be paid for accommodation depends solely on the voluntary agreement of the parties involved.

In Bruenig's first example, the state also forecloses option 3a. If I unilaterally decide my employer cannot deduct income tax from my paycheque, and try to take the money he deducted from the till, he could fire me, and call "the state" to remove me if I then refuse to leave. But what about option 3b, where both I and my employer agree that I can work and not pay income tax?

Employers and employees choose 3b every day. Many people work 'under the table', with their employers' agreement, and never even report that income to the state, much less pay income tax on it. In this case, though, the state does not simply let those voluntary arrangements happen; on the contrary, if its agents discovered such an arrangement, it would declare both the employee and employer to be criminals, and use "violent, physical coercion" on both of them.

Which is why libertarians would call taxes coercive, and rents non-coercive. In both cases, I have three options: 1. pay rent or taxes; 2. go without a job or a home; and 3. get a job or a home, and pay no rent or taxes, by voluntary agreement of everyone affected. In the case of rent, the state does not interfere with my choosing that third option. However, in the case of taxes, it would interfere with "violent, physical coercion" if I chose the third option. Both I and my employer are threatened with coercion if we agree to choose it.

Bruenig deals with that difference solely by ignoring it. But his ignoring it does not make it disappear. The choice to pay rent is voluntary in a way that the choice to pay taxes is not; and the choice to pay taxes is coerced in a way that the choice to pay rent is not. Therefore his argument by analogy fails.