Garbage Mayor Ends Garbage Term With Garbage Policy

 Originally published December 8, 2021

https://www.queensjewishlink.com/index.php/opinion/5629-garbage-mayor-ends-garbage-term-with-garbage-policy

Lame duck Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a truly immoral and anti-scientific policy this week, and if the world has any common sense left, it will be ignored until it’s stopped in court. His exit from the Mayor’s Office cannot come fast enough.

This is, of course, his new vaccine mandate, which not only infringes on the bodily autonomy of New Yorkers (something that de Blasio himself considers a constitutional right regarding abortion), but it will cause immense harm to businesses and workers in his city, especially those in the racial minorities that he claims to care deeply about.

The mandate announced by de Blasio orders all private businesses in the city to force their employees to take two doses of the COVID vaccine. Unlike President Biden’s Executive Order, which was stopped by the courts, this is allbusinesses, regardless of number of employees. This affects over 180,000 businesses of every size in the city. Additionally, to enter a restaurant, movie theater, or other entertainment establishment, children as young as five years old must be vaccinated.

Not too long ago, the immorality of this action would be self-evident, but these are not normal times. First, despite what Merriam-Webster’s dictionary says, being anti-mandate does not mean you are anti-vaccine. (Yes, the dictionary changed the definition of “anti-vaxxer” to be “a person who opposes the use of vaccines or regulations mandating vaccination. Orwell’s worst nightmare comes to life.) As the Daily Wire’s Jeremy Boreing said when Joe Biden issued his Executive Order, “I’m very pro-vaccine. In fact, if I were a dictator, I would force everyone in the country to take the vaccine. But I’m not a dictator, and neither is Joe Biden.” Well, neither is Bill de Blasio.

Second, it is immoral to put this burden on business owners, who have already suffered under the tyranny that de Blasio and many others imposed on their cities and states under the guise of “safety.” De Blasio does not have the resources to enforce this edict, so he forcefully deputizes business owners, without compensation, to enforce his mandate for him, under threat of government fines (or worse). This is while there’s a massive labor shortage, a supply chain crisis, and a crime wave all severely affecting any business’ ability to operate effectively.

Additionally, this makes no medical sense. All indications from the Delta variant (and now the Omicron variant) are that vaccinated individuals spread COVID at similar rates as unvaccinated individuals. The vaccines, while incredibly effective at preventing hospitalization and death from COVID, seem to be less effective at stopping the contraction of COVID than originally believed. Even if COVID is contracted, the therapeutics that are available now are incredibly effective as well, lowering the risks posed by COVID even further.

Then there’s the child aspect of this mandate. According to CDC data updated at the end of November, in the entirety of the pandemic, across the entire country, 200 children between the ages of 5 and 14 have died from COVID. In that same time period, 334 died of pneumonia. According to data from Johns Hopkins, the vast majority of those cases there were severe comorbidities. The number of children under 18 who died from COVID without comorbidities is between 10 and 20. In a group of 75 million.

De Blasio is demanding they get a vaccine that there is no existing longitudinal data for a disease that doesn’t affect them. That is the epitome of immoral and anti-scientific thinking.

To top it all off, this all goes into effect four days before he leaves office.

Honestly, why should de Blasio start doing the smart and moral thing at this stage of his career? He’s spent eight years destroying the city that elected him; he might as well burn it on his way out.

Let’s start with the homeless issue in the city. According to the Coalition for the Homeless, “The number of homeless New Yorkers sleeping each night in municipal shelters is now 18 percent higher than it was ten years ago. The number of homeless single adults is 97 percent higher than it was ten years ago.” De Blasio has been mayor for eight of those years. In that time, he has helmed the decriminalization of many crimes that has led to this sharp increase.

De Blasio also blew out the budget of the city. According to City Journal, “New York’s balance sheet will look very different from the one that de Blasio constructed during his mayoralty. From his first day in office through his actual 2020 budget, the mayor boosted spending some $25 billion, a growth rate of 34 percent. (Inflation during those years amounted to 9 percent.)” He expanded government employees by over 11% and is facing a major budget crisis as wealthy people and businesses leave in droves.

De Blasio is used to people leaving in droves, though, as the public school system has seen a large drop of admissions during his tenure. He put forward a process to demolish the Gifted and Talented programs, which will harm both the gifted students in New York City Public Schools and students who require more attention.

De Blasio destroyed the NYPD, metaphorically turning his backs on officers so often that they literally turned their backs on him. Police officers have been attacked, sprayed with water hoses, cursed at, disrespected, and shot. De Blasio answered the Left’s call to Defund the Police, stripping their budget of a billion dollars. Retirement among NYPD officers increased 72% over the previous year.

De Blasio declared war on motorists, installing red light and speed cameras in record numbers around the city. Millions of tickets were issued automatically. This was all done in the name of “safety,” yet traffic deaths have not decreased. Even The New York Times criticized de Blasio on this, with an October column entitled “De Blasio Vowed to Make City Streets Safer. They’ve Turned More Deadly.” Traffic deaths are higher than they’ve been in a decade. All de Blasio does with his cameras is create a new revenue stream for the city.

And while de Blasio painted “Black Lives Matter” on the street with Al Sharpton, he certainly doesn’t show that he cares about Black lives. All of his policies, from COVID to schools to police, always affect the poorest first. In New York, the median household income for a Black family is $42,600, and for a Hispanic family is $37,500, compared with the citywide average $55,200. So the people who vote him in, whose lives he claims to put a premium on more than anyone else’s, are the victims of his policies.

Good riddance, Bill de Blasio. You will be remembered as one of the worst mayors in the history of this great city. If Eric Adams has any common sense at all, he would do the opposite of everything you’ve done. When you announce your run for Governor of New York, make sure you record the reaction. People will pay big money to hear eight million people laughing at you. Goodbye, Bill de Blasio. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.


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