Two columns analyzing different aspects of Biden’s proposals to handle the COVID-19 pandemic — first against his biggest proposal, and then an overview of the whole thing. Follow the links embedded in the headlines to read each whole column.
Vaccine mandate is as impractical as it is illegal (Sept. 13): President Joe Biden’s decision to require large private employers to ensure their workers are vaccinated or tested for the coronavirus is problematic not just in terms of the Constitution , statutes , and liberty interests , but it is also highly impractical.
Its impracticality also makes it potentially harmful economically.
The proposed “emergency” rule would require all businesses employing at least 100 workers to ensure that all workers be vaccinated or, if not, then tested weekly to prove they don’t have the virus. Companies could be charged $14,000 per violation.
This is crazy. If the onus is on the businesses, what are businesses to do if employees refuse to comply? Fire them all? How will unions, or labor advocates in general, react to that?
How will regulators react? Or trial lawyers? This rule is a recipe for lawsuits. Will businesses be caught in a bind — penalized for unvaccinated workers but also charged with unfair labor practices if they evade the mandate by reducing payrolls below 100?.…
Yeah, there’s some good here, but not much (Sept. 13): President Joe Biden’s multipoint plan to handle the coronavirus is a mixed bag with a few good elements, but most is bad and sometimes horrible. Allow, please, a thumbnail assessment of each of its major elements. …
Keeping schools safely open. Requiring vaccination for workers at directly federally funded education programs makes as much sense as the requirements for federal workers and for healthcare workers. Likewise, there is nothing wrong with the president asking states to do the same for all school employees….What is absolutely not appropriate is Biden’s call for the Department of Education to investigate states for “civil rights violations” if they oppose school mask mandates. Federal courts and federal bureaucratic power should not supplement local decision-making on how to weigh the competing benefits and risks of requiring masking among children ….. {etc.}
