FIRST DEFEAT THE VIRUS THEN RECOVER THE ECONOMY

                                          

Apr 13, 2020 Good morning. To those who celebrated Passover and Easter in the last few days, I hope your celebrations were blessed and peaceful. So many people are eager to get back to work. At Heritage, we launched the National Coronavirus Recovery Commission, which released a five-phase plan for reopening America. You can read more about the plan below. Americans across the country are wondering if the measures we are taking to fight coronavirus are not worth the economic costs. Heritage President Kay C. James explains that this isn’t the right way to look at the matter: saving lives and livelihoods must be a two-fold goal. Read her latest op-ed. Meanwhile, the Left is attempting to use this opportunity to change the voting process to their advantage. Heritage legal expert Hans von Spakovsky explains why we must be vigilant to protect election integrity. Here in D.C., Heritage headquarters is still closed, but social distancing isn’t stopping us from hosting great events that you can “attend” online! Check out our list of upcoming webinars to find an event that interests you. Lastly, don’t forget that you can find a full collection of Heritage’s research on the coronavirus here: heritage.org/coronavirus National Coronavirus Recovery Commission Announces Plan to Reopen America The National Coronavirus Recovery Commission held its first meeting Thursday, bringing together 17 experts whose mission is “save lives and livelihoods.” At the conclusion of Thursday’s meeting, the commission announced a five-phase plan for when and how to begin to get Americans’ lives “back to normal” again. Commission Chairwoman Kay C. James, president of The Heritage Foundation, said we must prioritize getting people back to work, but only as soon as it is safe enough to do so. “Americans want to ensure their families are kept safe and healthy,” James said. “The commission agrees that it is critically important to build the American people’s confidence that we can safely return to some semblance of normal soon. The way to build that confidence is to adopt a phased approach that mitigates the spread of the coronavirus, vastly improves testing, expands our capabilities to quickly find treatments and possibly a cure, and ensures we are better prepared to confront future pandemics.” Read more to find out the details of the commission’s five-phase plan and stay up to date by visiting CoronavirusCommission.com. Is the Cure to the Pandemic Worse Than the Disease? Our nation faces a once-in-a-generation challenge. Yet our efforts to stem the coronavirus pandemic have left some wondering if the cure is worse than the disease. By practicing extended social distancing and shutting down major parts of the economy, are we being asked to make a choice between saving hundreds of thousands of lives or saving our jobs and our economy? According to Heritage President Kay C. James, the dilemma we face is actually different. “A nation decimated by disease cannot have a functioning economy, and a catastrophic loss of jobs wreaks horrific damage on both mental and physical health. Thus, the disease and the economic damage ravaging America are twin foes, and we must defeat them both,” James writes in her new op-ed for USA Today. Read more about how we can defeat those foes. Election Integrity Could Be at Risk Amid This Pandemic The recent coronavirus relief package will provide $400 million to states for the 2020 elections. Beware: If this pile of money isn’t spent wisely, the integrity of the elections will be at risk, according to Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow in Heritage’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. “Residents of some states may not be able to vote in person and may be forced to vote using absentee or mail-in ballots as long as the current emergency continues, with social distancing being the norm and schools, businesses, offices and government facilities closed. But no one should forget that absentee-ballot voting is vulnerable to intimidation, fraud and chaos as all-mail elections move behind closed doors beyond the oversight of election officials,” von Spakovsky writes along with J. Christian Adams and Cleta Mitchell of the Public Interest Legal Foundation. Read more to find out how government officials could protect election integrity during the COVID-19 crisis.