During the lockdown, we have government officials deciding which businesses are nonessential and should close. After the lockdown, it should be our turn to send a great many nonessential government employees back to the private sector. We can't afford them any more.
There's no way the private workforce can contract by 10 percent or more without a massive trimming of government bloat. It's not reasonable to expect a private sector hammered by the coronavirus to shoulder the same massive burden of government as it struggles back to its feet.
There is no ethical basis for saying the private sector must bear every bit of the coronavirus pain while the government sacrifices nothing. And by definition, there is no way to engineer the post-lockdown recovery boom we need without increasing the size of the private sector.
Regulatory relief will be important, and Trump was already doing well at delivering that, but it's not nearly enough. The cost of government MUST be slashed dramatically, and FAST. We couldn't afford it before. We most certainly cannot afford it now.
The usual bureaucratic defense mechanisms must be disabled for these cuts to take place. Now is the time to make that case to the American people. They'll be very receptive. They won't want to hear that zero gov jobs should be lost after millions of their jobs were wiped out.
This is the time for bold and long-overdue measures like eliminating public employee unions, an atrocity that makes meaningful reform all but impossible. Let the defenders of Big Gov explain why THEY shouldn't have to make any sacrifices or change THEIR way of life at all.
And I would advise bold reformers to remind Americans their bloated Leviathan State dropped the ball at every level on the coronavirus. This wasn't a surprise. Big Government is blind and stupid. Its agencies tend to focus on getting bigger instead of their core missions.
If you want the private sector to grow stronger, government must get smaller. And if you want government to WORK BETTER, it must get smaller. We have to burn away the careerists, middle managers, and seat-warmers if we want agencies to get smarter and more focused.
Slashing government to the bone after the lockdown will also have the very desirable effect of destroying the parasitic lobbying industry. You want less corruption in Washington? Suck away those bottomless pools of money. THAT'S the swamp that needs draining. Now is the time.
We can't climb out of the hole that opened beneath us last month with stimulus and welfare when Big Gov wastes, loses, or steals 90 cents of every dollar it siphons out of the private sector. It's like trying to give yourself a blood transfusion from yourself with a leaky tube.
There will never be a better time to have a frank discussion with the American people about wasteful government than when they emerge from their coronavirus foxholes and behold an economic battlefield in ruins. Socialists see it as an opportunity. Take it away from them. /end
