You Will Sacrifice and It Will Hurt
Many people have likened the battle against coronavirus to a war and invoked imagery of the US fighting World War II. President Trump has even deemed himself a “wartime president.”
The president told reporters at a White House briefing that fighting the virus would require a sacrificial national effort just like it took to defeat the Axis in the Second World War.
Every generation of Americans has been called to make shared sacrifices for the good of the nation. To this day, nobody has ever seen like it, what they were able to do during World War II. Now it’s our time. We must sacrifice together, because we are all in this together, and we will come through together. It’s the invisible enemy. That’s always the toughest enemy, the invisible enemy.”
But listening to all the rhetoric coming from politicians and pundits, one has to ask, where exactly is the sacrifice?
The government is promising bailouts for everybody. We’re just weeks into the crisis and there is already an expectation that the government will be sending everybody checks. Peter Schiff called it “bailout nation.”
Apparently, the government wants “sacrifice” with no pain.
Unfortunately, that’s not a thing.
Americans didn’t get checks from the government in World War II. They got higher taxes. Schiff summed it up in a tweet.
During WWII middle-class Americas sacrificed to support the US government’s war effort. They paid much higher taxes, substantially reduced their consumption, and loaned their savings to the government. The people support the government. The government can’t support the people.”
Therein lies the ugly truth. There is no sacrifice without pain. The government can bail out the airlines. It can bail out the hotels. It can helicopter money in and drop it on your head. You’re still going to pay, either through higher taxes in the future or through inflation.
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