Joe Biden declared the pandemic over as he strolled through a car show in Detroit with a 60 Minutes reporter. The interview aired last Sunday and since then the White House has been dancing around trying to walk back the president’s proclamation.
What those around Biden realize, whether he does or not, is that once the pandemic is officially over, there is no need to keep an emergency declaration in effect. There goes all that leeway given to the executive branch in times of emergencies. Democrats aren’t ready to have all that power taken away just yet.
Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) introduced a privileged resolution that calls for a vote to end the emergency declaration on Thursday. It’s time for the White House to stop using the National Emergencies Act which allows special executive powers. The emergency declaration was first declared in March 2020 by Trump. The National Emergencies Act made possible the quick development, manufacture, and distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine, for example. Red tape can be cut and things can move more quickly under an emergency declaration.
Mr. Biden said in interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday that “the pandemic is over,” though he acknowledged that “we still have a problem with Covid.” The comments came as his administration has asked Congress for billions of dollars for more funding for testing programs, clinical trials and research and continues to keep the country under a national emergency declaration.
“It was jaw-dropping,” said Mr. Marshall, who also led the fight in March to end the emergency declaration. “Here’s Joe Biden talking out of both sides of his mouth saying that the Covid pandemic is over with and yet he wants to continue these emergencies.”
Biden has embraced his inner authoritarian from the beginning of his term as president. He has signed 100 executive orders in the nineteen months that he has been in office. Every time he wants to do something that he knows will not get congressional support, he whips out his pen and signs it into effect. His latest abuse of the emergency created by the pandemic is his massive voter bribe – the student loan forgiveness giveaway to be paid for by American taxpayers. Most of Biden’s excessive coronavirus mandates have been stopped or are in process of winding down, like vaccine and face mask mandates for students.
So far, the White House and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have not commented on Senator Marshall’s resolution calling for a vote to end the emergency declaration.
The question is one of timing. Will Marshall’s resolution get a vote in the Senate before or after the November midterm elections? Senator Marshall tried this in March and the resolution passed in the Senate on a party line vote but went nowhere in the House. That is what will likely happen this time, too.
The National Emergencies Act allows senators to force a vote to terminate a national declaration as a check on the administration. The vote in the Senate can come within weeks after the resolution has been sent to the Finance Committee.
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Should the Senate meet in October as scheduled, lawmakers could vote then, or it could be pushed until November. The timing of the vote would determine whether it falls before Election Day on Nov. 8. The bill wouldn’t likely see a vote in the Democratic-controlled House.
Republicans tried in March to end the declaration. The measure passed the Senate 48-47 along party lines, but it went nowhere in the House. The White House promised a veto by Mr. Biden at the time, saying the measure would “abruptly curtail the ability of the administration to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic.”
A supermajority vote in each chamber would be required to override any veto.
There is also a public-health emergency in effect, a separate emergency declaration. It has expanded health coverage to millions of low-income people. Congress has approved extra funding to states to address the pandemic.
Senator Marshall, a physician, says Americans are ready for scaled back government.
“Since President Biden used his appearance on 60 Minutes to declare COVID is over, he must immediately terminate the COVID-19 national emergency declaration and wind down other emergency authorities that his Administration continues to force us to live under,” Marshall said in a statement obtained by the Washington Examiner.
“The American people are fatigued and yearning to operate outside of the confines of supersized government; they long for their God-given freedoms, and for leaders to take their side,” Marshall added. “It’s high time for Joe Biden and his Administration to stop using COVID to implement their partisan political agenda and focus on the surge in crime and the fentanyl epidemic.”
Marshall has the right idea and kudos to him for bringing forth a second resolution to end the exaggerated executive powers that Biden clings to. However, with the Senate equally divided and the House still under Democrat control, don’t hold your breath for any changes any time soon.
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