It’s unfair, Chris Talgo of the Heartland Institute says.
His complaint? “Biden’s federal vaccine mandate does not apply to Americans on welfare, illegal immigrants, members of Congress, U.S. Postal Service employees and several other groups.”
After noting that “Americans who work at a company that employs more than 100 people have no choice but to get vaccinated” and this also “applies to the health care workers who have heroically put their lives on the line treating COVID-19 patients,” he asserts that “for reasons unexplained, Biden refuses to mandate vaccines for the 59 million Americans who receive welfare benefits.”
Read his diatribe here, if you’re up for it.
Explanation? For starters, using his own source, 24 million of those 59 welfare recipients are children, and there’s no approved vaccine for kids under 12. But that’s not the only reason. Welfare eligibility requirements are set by Congress. It’s illegal for a president to layer on additional requirements. Welfare rules also have to go through a rule-making process. Same with Medicaid benefits, another bone he picks.
Talgo also overlooks the fact there’s large overlap between the 59 million “Americans who receive welfare benefits” and “the 80 to 100 million American citizens who get up and go to work,” partly thanks to people like him who oppose raising the $7.25 federal minimum wage, which nobody can live on. The bulk of SNAP (“food stamp”) assistance, by far the largest category of welfare benefits, goes to the working poor. So in fact a large chunk of the other 35 million welfare recipients are subject to Biden’s vaccine mandate.
He appears to be complaining that health care workers have to get vaccinated. This doesn’t need to explanation, but it’s worth noting that many health care employers would make that a condition of employment even without a government mandate.
He also rants, “Biden’s vaccine mandate does not apply to Congress, even though there are 535 members, which puts Congress well over the 100-employee threshold.” Apparently he’s never heard of separation of powers. Biden has no authority over the working conditions of members of Congress or congressional staffers. His vaccine mandate directed to private employers is based on the federal government’s regulatory authority over workplace safety, which by law doesn’t apply to Congress.
As for postal workers, his information is wrong; they’re subject to the mandate.
He claims “Biden’s vaccine mandate is not about getting the vulnerable vaccinated. It is about the Biden administration unfairly and unnecessarily forcing hard-working Americans to choose between their bodily autonomy and their livelihood.” Really? Biden’s just picking on working people? (P.S., Talgo looks to me like he’s picking on welfare recipients.)
Talgo, a former school teacher who’s now paid to rant against “socialism,” whatever he thinks that is, opposes vaccinations for school children. He works for an organization that took money from the tobacco industry “to discredit the health risks of secondhand smoke and lobby against smoking bans” and is “a leading promoter of climate change denial” and “a leader in the ‘scientific misinformation campaign’ against climate change.” His employer put up sleazy billboards depicting the Unabomber asking, “I still believe in global warming, do you?”
Anyway, vaccine mandates don’t have to be fair; their purpose is getting more people vaccinated, and if rigid notions of fairness get in the way of achieving that goal, they must give way to the larger good the mandate serves.
Chris Talgo isn’t an expert on vaccine efficacy, nor is he a deep thinker on public policy. I’m curious why a reputable news organization like The Hill publishes an easily-shredded opinion piece from a fringe propaganda shop. To be fair and balanced? I’ve always thought an editor’s job is to sort the wheat from the chaff, and exercise informed editorial judgment about what gets into print. That’s how it was in the old days, before the internet.
Maybe they read Talgo’s opinion as discussion-provoking. If he’s arguing that Biden shouldn’t require anybody to get vaccinated because he can’t require everybody to get vaccinated, and it appears he is, I think it’s a stupid argument that doesn’t belong in the mainstream media.
Ahh, but I still sympathize with the guy. It’s a hard life, writing opinions. Even when you’re getting paid for it by a trashy “institute”.
Related article (read it here): Another opinion writer (for a considerably more intelligent rightwing think tank) points out that Biden’s vaccine mandate applies to only half the nation’s schoolteachers. At least he understands why: “Because Biden’s only politically feasible path forward for this mandate was through OSHA, even if bizarre technicalities of the agency’s authority across states drastically limits coverage for schools.” Better some than none, and you work with what you have, not what you wish you had. But then he says, “If the ends justify the means of using whatever administrative tools are at hand in this case, where does that justification end? A mask mandate could easily follow from the OSHA vaccine mandate logic.” One can only hope so, if masks save lives, and that’s what it takes to get people to use them.
Not really so silly. If you are making or plan to make America’s employers with more than 100 employees government agents and they carry out whatever rules OSHA comes up with (and since OSHA also falls under requirements set by Congress it is probably illegal for a President to layer on additional requirements, and there is a rule making process for OSHA as well, even if an emergency allows a temporary rule for the rule to become permanent (or it goes away after 6 months))is probably not kosher.
The government is treating different groups of people differently. Under good government policy everyone is treated the same.
There is the issue that Biden had already mandated federal workers take the vaccine or be tested. Those rules have not shown up yet it has been three months. Part of the reason for this may be the number of workers who will retire and quit over the mandate.
The post office is likely to slow walk any rules on this because 20 percent of their employees may well just retire than comply and others quit. Trucking companies may be hit hard if 20 percent or more of their drivers just quit.
Just the fact that Biden’s rule does not apply to Congress shows Biden does not have the power to do what he has announced. Congress has the power.
The Federal government does not have police powers except over Federal property. The states retained police power to themselves and only the states can do what Biden is ordering. Individual states and local governments can do mandates. Obviously there may be a large difference in what individual states do, as there has been throughout Covid. [This comment has been edited.]
Imposing OSHA rules on employers doesn’t make them government agents. Their role is to comply with those rules, not enforce them. Prohibiting employers from employing unvaccinated workers keeps other workers safe. That’s what OSHA’s job is.
Numerous government policies treat people differently. Need an example? Men are drafted, women are not, to fight our wars.
Biden’s OSHA strategy has been carefully vetted by lawyers, who expect it to hold up in court.
The term “federal police power” doesn’t mean cops, it refers to the federal government’s power to regulate, which is very broad and includes a nationwide epidemic.
“Welfare eligibility requirements are set by Congress. It’s illegal for a president to layer on additional requirements.”
Pfft! When did the law ever matter?
The president has no authority at all to make businesses do anything. This entire thing is entirely unconstitutional.
Not that our government cares about the Constitution, or the law one bit. It’s illegal for mayors to have sanctuary cities. It’s illegal for employers to hire illegal immigrants. It’s illegal for the CIA to traffic crack and heroin to inner cities. It’s illegal for presidents to accept bribes through their crackhead son. It’s illegal to do insider trading even if you’re a congressman or woman.
F the law! Our government doesn’t care about the law.
We have a two tiered justice system, and our government is nothing but a criminal syndicate. The mafia is our “government”.
Courts are constantly striking down government actions, so it’s obvious the law matters. Believe it or not, checks and balances sometimes work.