If there was ever a time for Democrats and Republicans in the New Jersey Senate and Assembly to come together on an issue, rejecting Governor Phil Murphy’s request to extend his pandemic powers is it. Things aren’t looking good right now in terms of the spread of the omicron virus outbreak, but it’s only temporary. It’s not a 90-day problem and it’s probably not even going to be a 30 or 60-day problem, but giving Phil Murphy total control to bring back mandates, lockdowns, business closures, and gathering limits will have a long term devastating impact on the state of New Jersey, it’s economic wealth and mental health.
New Jersey is nearing the peak of the omicron outbreak and within a few weeks, even Dr. Anthony Fauci expects it to start slowing down as the omicron variant wipes out the past more dangerous variants of the virus and increases the state’s natural herd immunity numbers, in addition to the state’s large vaccination numbers.
There’s nothing Phil Murphy can do to change the course of the virus at this point. No amount of social justice warrior mentality, equity, or virtue signaling is going to make a dent in the current outbreak. He does not possess any special power or knowledge our elected officials possess and the decisions to guide New Jersey through to the end of this pandemic should be in their collective hands, not Phil Murphy’s. His time as being the emperor of the state needs to come to an end and our legislature needs to put their big-boy pants back on and run the state as it was intended to be run, by a body of elected officials representing population-based districts statewide. New Jersey’s state constitution was never intended to be usurped by a Goldman Sachs executive from Massachusetts who is on a hellbent crusade to impress progressive America by virtue-signaling New Jersey to a slow and imminent death.
Vaccine Passports
Phil Murphy has made it clear, even after his own fully vaccinated and boosted wife tested positive for COVID-19, the governor is convinced the unvaccinated and vaccinated must be segregated. This was evidenced in his New Year’s healthcare guidance for public schools that bans unvaccinated children from participating in extracurricular activities such as school sports, band and social clubs. Those are three key resources available to children in New Jersey to maintain their mental health and social skills during this pandemic that has kept these children in isolation for far too long.
The governor has said he doesn’t support vaccine passports, but he also turns a blind eye to towns and cities across the state who are going rogue and enforcing their own vaccination requirements. These vaccine passports do nothing but lock out the disadvantaged and poor. A mother in Newark or Paterson would not be able to take their young unvaccinated children out for an affordable meal. Vaccine passports have not stopped the spread of the COVID-19 virus in New York City or other Democrat run cities that have enacted them. The omicron virus doesn’t care about your vaccination status and will not check your vaccine passport before infecting you.
Indoor Capacity Limits
Indoor capacity limits have nearly bankrupted New Jersey’s entertainment industry. That indoor capacity limits enacted by Murphy didn’t work to stop the spread of previous variants and will not stop the spread of omicron. Indoor capacity limits hurt small businesses and benefit large businesses such as Target, Walmart, and big national box stores while putting the small business owner out of business. Big box stores can run on tight profit margins, but small mom-and-pop businesses can’t afford to have their customer base restricted again by Phil Murphy.
Business Closures
Phil Murphy has proven that he has no heart when it comes to forcing businesses to close. His 2020-21 lockdown did not stop the spread of COVID-19 and only led to thousands of businesses going under, people losing their homes and their jobs. New Jersey cannot afford another round of Phil Murphy business lockdowns. He persecuted small business owners who were only trying to put food on their table while government employees were being paid to stay home. After his business lockdown, Murphy slapped the cost of his errors on those very same small businesses by forcing those businesses to pay more for unemployment insurance to cover the governor’s unemployment crisis. New Jersey cannot afford another wave of skyrocketing unemployment, business closures and more.
Mortgage, eviction and foreclosure crisis
A mass eviction and foreclosure crisis is looming in New Jersey and while Governor Murphy has put more time on the clock before this happens, the state cannot endure another lockdown that puts even more New Jersey residents into the eviction and foreclosure bucket. Once the governor’s eviction moratorium and the winter freeze on evictions ends in the spring, New Jersey could be faced with a severe homeless and affordable housing crisis. The governor can only delay the inevitable for so long.
Murphy’s COVID-19 Response is Based on Political Virtue Signaling, not Science
Phil Murphy most likely truly believes that his self-righteous and arrogant know-it-all response to the COVID-19 pandemic is the right thing to do, and based on science, but he has proven countless times, it is not. He has knee-jerked, overextended and rushed to judgment many times during the pandemic with bad decisions that hurt many people. Phil Murphy has to realize he cannot save every single person at the expense of the general population. If he truly believes the pandemic is among the unvaccinated, and those people don’t want to get vaccinated, he needs to stop penalizing the rest of the state as he continues to try to save everyone.
Murphy insists on a one-solution end to the pandemic favored by the left, vaccinate, boost and mask. Murphy has denied the science behind natural immunity, antiviral treatments, antibody treatments, and the ineffectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines to stop the virus from spreading. While the vaccines offer protection against serious illness, they are failing to stop the spread of the virus as the number of breakthrough cases skyrocket. Murphy, instead of realizing this, was dumbfounded and shocked when his fully vaccinated wife Tammy tested positive, yet he’s still pushing the vaccinate and mask routine, completely ignoring other solutions to ending the pandemic. This is dangerous and narrow-minded thinking on his part.
If Democrats agree to extend Murphy’s emergency powers, they are not simply just passing responsibility to the governor so they can wipe their hands of the problems, they must be held accountable for the negative consequences New Jersey faces in the wake of another Phil Murphy pandemic policy tornado. They must be held accountable for the eviction crisis, the nursing home deaths, the unemployment crisis, and the mental health crisis that will follow another round of Phil Murphy pandemic policies being forced upon the residents of New Jersey.