by Elizabeth Stelle and James M. Hohman
It’s official, COVID-19 is no longer a crisis. According to a recent Axios poll, only nine percent of Americans believe COVID is a serious crisis. Yet the economic destruction caused by lockdowns lingers. Nowhere is that more obvious than in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Gov. Tom Wolf wielded immense emergency powers to shut down large parts of the economy, actions unprecedented in the 246-year history of the United States.
According to federal data, just 11 states have more jobs than they did at the start of the pandemic. Meanwhile, another 20 states are down less than three percent and could easily recover their jobs this year if current trends hold.
It is no coincidence that neither Michigan nor Pennsylvania fall into either of these ranks.
Michigan’s Whitmer and Pennsylvania’s Wolf enacted the strictest lockdowns in the country. They issued orders that forced more than 30 percent of all businesses to close. That’s near twice the closures of the median state. The results: phenomenal job loss, soaring unemployment, and some of the weakest recoveries nationwide.
Two years into the pandemic, state data shows Pennsylvania is down 235,000 jobs, a 3.9 percent decrease, and Michigan is down 152,700 jobs, a 3.4 percent decline.
To make matters worse, Whitmer and Wolf went on to bend and break the very rules they created to shut down the economy for the benefit of their favored interests.
Wolf created a business waiver process criticized by the state Auditor General (also a Democrat) as subjective and unfair. It changed the waiver status of over 500 businesses during the shutdown. Waivers to operate were suddenly approved or rapidly revoked without explanation. Whitmer shut businesses down based solely on her opinions, for instance landscapers could go back to work before roofers. She also violated her own social distancing rules at an East Lansing restaurant.
Both governors assumed they could do what they wanted for as long as they wanted—that they had unchecked authority.
However, pandemics are no excuse to uproot the principles of American government. Eventually, the people and the law got in the way of their capriciousness. The Michigan Supreme Court struck down Whitmer’s orders, finding the legislature delegated too much of its authority. In Pennsylvania, voters amended the state constitution to limit Wolf’s emergency declaration authority and require legislative approval on extensions.
Our states aren’t unique. More than a dozen others passed new laws to prevent this dangerous incursion on daily lives from becoming the new normal in any future emergency.
Yet, our governors still insist on holding Michiganders and Pennsylvanians back. They continue to push policies that further stall our fragile recoveries and drive residents to other states. Last month Whitmer vetoed an income tax rate reduction, calling it unaffordable even with substantial revenue growth and $8 billion in unspent state and federal revenue at her disposal.
Instead of lessening the tax burden in Pennsylvania, Wolf is implementing a carbon tax outside of the legislative process. He is dragging Pennsylvania into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a move that is estimated to send home electric bills soaring 30 percent higher with no meaningful reduction of carbon emissions.
Whitmer and Wolf have been unfriendly to residents, unfriendly to taxpayers, and unfriendly to job creators. It’s no surprise that people are moving out.
Recently released Census data shows major metropolitan areas in both states are shrinking. Pittsburgh leads the nation with the largest natural decline in population of 10,383 between 2020 and 2021. Detroit ranks sixth with a loss of 4,466 people.
Data from the U-HAUL shows the same trends. Michigan and Pennsylvania are in the bottom ten states for net inbound moves in 2021.
As economic recovery comes to states across the country, let’s never forget the deep connections between government overreach in the name of safety and the lingering economic damage that took away so many livelihoods. Whitmer and Wolf fail to recognize that Michigan and Pennsylvania have fallen behind. They need to reconsider their positions that stand in the way of our recovery.
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Elizabeth Stelle is the director of policy analysis at the Commonwealth Foundation, Pennsylvania’s free-market think tank. Follow her @ElizabethBryan. James Hohman is the director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a research and educational institute in Midland, Michigan.
Photo “Gretchen Whitmer” by Gretchen Whitmer. Photo “Tom Wolf” by Tom Wolf. CC BY 2.0.
