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Youyang Gu, whose pandemic model had been quoted recently, has walked back his statement described by Unleash Prosperity Hotline Issue #293 as a “widely cited and wrongheaded analysis a few months ago that found Republican states fared worse in controlling the virus.” 

Gu said, “I’ve actually adjusted my position a bit since that Tweet… political lean [the % of the vote that is Democratic in a state] is not really a factor. So it was a bit unfair to selectively slice the data around an arbitrary date like September.”

“As we all know, the level of restrictions is strongly correlated with the political leaning of a state…But political lean (and level of restrictions) is NOT correlated with total Covid deaths…” 

Gu stated, on Twitter, “Is containing COVID-19 a requirement for preserving the economy? My analysis suggests: probably not. In the US, there is no correlation between Covid deaths & changes in unemployment rates. However, blue states are much more likely to have higher increases in unemployment.” 

The Unleash Prosperity Hotline newsletter concludes, “Given the massive costs of lockdown, there would have to be overwhelming evidence of benefit to justify ever doing it again. There is none.” 

Sources:https://committeetounleashprosperity.com/

https://twitter.com/youyanggu/status/1397230156301930497

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“Our organization, working with local taxpayer activists, has been fighting this hideous boondoggle for decades,” said Jim Tobin, economist and president of Taxpayers United of America (TUA). “Like a bad fungus infection, it never has totally gone away.”

 Anthony Rayson, the co-founder of STAND (Shut This Airport Nightmare Down), wrote this 10 years ago:

Two years ago, the Chicago Tribune, perhaps sensing some rumblings, published an editorial entitled, “Gov. J.B. Pritzker shouldn’t squander $205 million on the flight of fancy known as the Peotone airport,” adding, “The idea of an airport in Peotone has been debated for decades…Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s five-year, $23.5 billion plan to rebuild Illinois’ roads and bridges includes $205.5 million for a highway infrastructure project that has no reason to be. Put another way: The costly road project would serve a potential airport that no one needs and on which no one — except Pritzker and local officials — wants to squander even more money than taxpayers already have.”

“This argument is just as valid today,” said Tobin. “To be blunt, Gov. Jay Robert ‘J. B.’ Pritzker and the Springfield Democrats are owned by the state’s labor unions and politically-connected contractors. Pritzker and his Springfield thugs feel no allegiance whatsoever to Illinois taxpayers who are paying their fat salaries. Well, Illinois taxpayers feel no allegiance to Pritzker and the Springfield Democrats. If they keep trying to foist these gigantic boondoggles on taxpayers, there will be hell to pay in future elections.”

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“Government employees, whose salaries are paid with taxpayer dollars, generally make more money and have fatter pensions than those in the private sector,” said Jim Tobin, president of Taxpayers United of America (TUA). “Then, there are some government employees who multiply their incomes by using a legal but slimy technique known as double-dipping.”

Tobin pointed to a recent article by David Giuliani of patch.com concerning Darrell Langlois, former finance director of Hinsdale, IL. As Giuliani’s article make clear:

With his pension and salary, Darrell Langlois, Hinsdale’s former finance director, is making nearly $200,000 a year, according to public records.

Hinsdale’s finance director retired in February, but he already had a new public job lined up. He became the assistant controller at Joliet Junior College. He started collecting a public pension, and he is listed as paying into a new government pension system at the college. This is all allowed under state law. But many critics of the state’s pension rules call such a practice “double-dipping.”

According to public records, Langlois’ final salary in Hinsdale was $185,800. He is being paid $110,000 a year at Joliet Junior College.

His $87,700 annual pension is from the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund. He paid into the system as the finance director of Oak Brook and then Hinsdale, for a total of 28 years. He contributed a total of $154,000 during that time. With the pension and salary, Langlois is now making $197,700 a year.

Under pension rules, Langlois, like all retired public employee, gets an automatic 3 percent increase every year. Under the state constitution, this percentage cannot be reduced. In 10 years, Langlois is slated to get a pension of nearly $114,000.

The 3 percent yearly pay raise often exceeds the inflation rate. With the rate of inflation, a person retiring in 2011 with Langlois’ pension of $87,700 would have seen that amount rise to $104,000 a decade later. That’s $10,000 less than what Langlois is set to get.

Ted Dabrowski, president of Wirepoints, a nonprofit research group, states, “It’s just wrong that in a state troubled by a pension crisis, with the state not making ends meet, that our legislators continue to allow this kind of double-dipping. It should have been stopped a long time ago.”

“You should blame the legislators. The employees are doing what they are incentivized to do. The lawmakers need to unwind this.”

Source: https://patch.com/illinois/hinsdale/ex-hinsdale-official-collects-pension-gets-new-public-job