Horowitz: A COVID ‘stimulus’ bill that Republicans should push?

What if I told you we could essentially cure the virus with dirt-cheap drugs, end all the destructive tyranny that doesn't work, and build up small businesses and personal health rather than lock people down? That is the stimulus Republicans should be pushing, but almost none of them are even promoting such a message. They continue agreeing to the false premise that the way to treat COVID is with masks, contact tracing, massive dependency-inducing handouts, and shutdowns. They just don't like some extraneous provisions in the bill.

Let's not forget that Republicans already passed two massive "stimulus" bills that flushed trillions of dollars into a lockdown by enabling governors and mayors to destroy people's lives without having to pay for it. Which is why, if you listen carefully to their objections to this third bill, they are extremely tangential and are only aimed at some of the extraneous earmarks for construction projects in some states.

Well, as a conservative, I will tell you, I'd take 100 Cuomo tunnel earmarks any day over spending trillions subsidizing the education cartel and blue states and the tracing and spying on Americans. Yet Republicans have spent all their time fighting against transit and bridge funding, but agreeing to the fundamental premise that we need trillions of dollars to treat COVID and that the way to do so is with these ritualistic and tyrannical mandates.

For example, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy railed against the "non-COVID waste in this bill." But that waste, as insidious as it is, only represents a fraction of the price tag. It's the "COVID" funding and the policies undergirding it that are the problem. Democrats are already agreeing to remove those minor expenditures anyway. Unfortunately, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell praised the fact that Congress "passed five COVID-19 rescue packages" as "the largest peacetime fiscal expansion in American history ... because both parties had shaped the bills together and they met Americans' urgent needs." He only cared about the fact that this bill is more partisan.

How about we end the shutdown and fund the cheap, efficacious protocols for prophylaxis and early treatment — and actually solve the problem? To that end, a GOP that actually believes in freedom, health, science, prosperity, and the Constitution would create the following opposing legislative package:

• End all COVID mandates: Using Section 5 of the 14th Amendment, Congress should declare that all COVID restrictions violate the privileges and immunities of citizens and are hereby suspended. They have not worked and have only brought pain to the country. That is the ultimate stimulus. Anything short of that would ensure that yet another $2 trillion goes towards stimulating shutdown and misery rather than freedom and growth.
• Make ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine available over the counter: It's time to dispel the lie that there is no cure to this virus, absent expensive vaccines and ineffective drugs like Remdesivir. There are several proven protocols for both early stage use and prophylaxis, where a regimen of hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin mixed with other cheap supplementals completely cures the virus without hospitalization. India is doing this for $2.65 a person, rather than $1,500 checks being spent on nothingness. A World Health Organization meta-analysis found that ivermectin reduced fatalities by 75%. All 42 studies conducted on ivermectin use in COVID patients, half of which have been peer-reviewed, have found positive effects, including an 89% reduction in disease severity as a prophylaxis and even a 51% improvement in late stage treatment. The average of 214 studies on hydroxychloroquine show 65% improvement in early stage use. Despite the ironclad evidence behind their efficacy, people cannot get these medicines without a prescription, and many doctors will not prescribe them early on, nor will hospitals use them as part of an intermediate stage protocol. Anyone who opposes right to try is condemning many people to needless death by having the virus trigger super infections and cytokine storm, in which the options for treatment are very limited.
• Mail out packets of supplementals to every family: Rather than spending trillions of dollars locking down people (and then subsidizing the fallout) who will get the virus anyway and then offer no treatment, why not build people up to take control over their own health and freedom? This virus has brought forth a wealth of research showing that vitamin D, vitamin C, quercetin, and zinc work great against this and other viruses as prophylactics. A pair of randomized controlled trials in Spain found a reduction in ICU admission among patients receiving high doses of vitamin D by 96% and 80% respectively. A Spanish study of zinc in COVID patients also found a 130% higher death rate among those COVID patients hospitalized with low zinc levels. In addition, there is evidence behind the efficacy of melatonin and aspirin and several other cheap drugs being used at early stages. If everyone were given such a kit, we'd see a reduction in all sorts of viruses, again, for a fraction of the cost.
• Cancel all taxation and major regulations on small businesses for five years: Government owes it to small businesses to rebuild them after the destruction they have wrought upon them. As many as 44% of all small businesses might close this year as a result of the fallout. Rather than throwing money at so many people who never lost a penny, why not target the relief to those businesses that the government forcibly shut down? The best way to do that is to zero out all taxation and major regulations for five years. But I'd only tailor it to small businesses, because big businesses benefited from the unconstitutional shutdowns at the expense of mom-and-pop shops.

Such a plan would build up the citizenry rather than lock them down. It would empower them to remain healthy and defeat this virus rather than make them victim to helplessness and a death trap of expensive and ineffective treatments out of their hands. It would save lives from lockdown and COVID. However, that would short-circuit both the tyrannical politicians and their crony allies in big business. With power to seize and money to make, who in Washington is interested in saving lives?