By Hanako Cho

 
Key points of the article:

• U.S. citizens will be exhausted by tax increases one after another
• A “lockdown recession” will hit
• The right to visit casinos was favored over freedom of religion

 
U.S. GDP recovered dramatically immediately before the presidential election. The U.S. real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 33.1% in the third quarter of 2020, the highest growth rate since 1947. The recovery demonstrated the resilience of the U.S. real economy.

Mr. Biden declared victory, but he has not been legally inaugurated as president. What will a Biden presidency mean for the U.S.? This article highlights three adversities that will strike the U.S.

Great Tax Increases One After Another Will Exhaust Citizens

The first thing that will hurt U.S. citizens is a big tax increase.

• The Biden administration will eliminate the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 which increased standard household income by approximately $4,000 due to its tax reduction effect. This means that not only will the $4,000 disappear, but taxes will be increased by at least $2,000. Even single person households with an annual income of $41,000 will be hit by a tax increase of $1,300 under the Biden administration.
• The top marginal tax rate will be increased to 43.4%; realized capital gains and dividends will also be taxed at the same rate.
• The payroll tax on income earned over $400,000 will be raised from 7.65% to 12.4%.
• The corporate income tax rate that was reduced to 21% under the 2017 tax cut will be raised to 28%.
• There will be a ceiling on carbon emissions to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. This becomes an invisible tax that will increase the burden on one’s income by approximately 15%. Households will be hit by a combination of obvious tax increases and the invisible tax due to environmental regulations.
• Over the next 10 years, the Biden administration will invest $10 trillion in a wide range of environmental projects — similar to the scale of the New Deal. They will require additional tax increases to make up for this spending in the near future.

 
There’s a possibility that the recession will turn into a depression — the Biden administration must not have learned the lessons from the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations that raised taxes and prolonged past recessions.

A Lockdown Recession Will Strike

Another adversity that will take a toll on the U.S. citizens are lockdowns.

In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo suspended in-person classrooms at public schools as of Nov. 19. California also just announced a nighttime curfew for non-essential errands in 41 counties that covers 94% of the state population. The order is scheduled to last from the night of Nov. 21 until the morning of Dec. 21.

The White House trade adviser said that all states run by Democratic governors have one thing in common: a lockdown economy. On Nov. 20, Mr. Navarro made the following statement on Fox Business:

“What they share in common is kind of a lockdown economy…it is a regressive tax on the poor. The people who are being hurt the most by the lockdown economy are precisely the low-income, often minority communities,” Mr. Navarro said. He added that it is “just cruelty” from Democrats to encourage lockdowns.

“If you look at the bottom of the 50 states, the ones who are the best-performing, 14 of the 15 are led by Republican governors,” Mr. Navarro said. I am concerned into winter we will hear more and more drumbeats for lockdowns.”

The low-income group experienced the highest income growth under Mr. Trump’s economic policies. It is ironic that the Democrats can’t improve the lives of poor people despite “siding” with black voters and the poor.

It is concerning if the lockdown economy taking place in California and New York is expanded to a national level under the Biden administration.

Mr. Biden emphasized that he has no plans to enforce nationwide lockdowns, but almost all of Mr. Biden’s coronavirus advisers are in favor of lockdowns. Among them is Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center of Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

“What America has to understand is that we are about to enter Covid hell,” Dr. Osterholm told CNBC. He suggested that the government should shut everything down until the vaccine is completed. Dr. Osterholm said that a lockdown is possible for four to six weeks if lost wages are compensated for individual workers and small to medium-sized companies.

As the Liberty has been reporting, however, 70% of the U.S. GDP consists of the service sector — characterized by “face-to-face” businesses such as hair salons and restaurants.

A nationwide lockdown is a suicidal policy that takes a toll on 70% of the GDP, considering that face-to-face interactions create added value.

Citizens from all over the U.S. are raising voices that they can’t take on anymore lockdowns. There are also moves to sue the Governor of California who has issued a stay-at-home order in most areas of the state.

The Right to Visit Casinos, Favored Over Religious Freedom in Nevada

Business owners and sole proprietors aren’t the only ones appealing to the court. Churches across the U.S. have also filed cases against their state governors based on freedom of religion which is protected under the First Amendment.

Lockdowns have detrimental side effects such as depression and suicide. People can seek salvation at their local churches, but if these churches are locked down, they will not receive any helping hand.

Under these circumstances, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito held a keynote speech at the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group. In his speech, Justice Alito brought up a case of Nevada, arguing that the state government’s coronavirus restrictions violated the right to personal freedom — especially people’s right to freedom of religion.

Justice Alito made the following statement:

“[Nevada’s court ruled] that we should defer [regulations on church meetings] to the judgment of the governors because they have the responsibility to safeguard the public health.

After initially closing the state’s casinos for a time, the governor opened them up and allowed them to admit 50% of their normal occupancy. Since many casinos are enormous, that is a lot of people. And not only did the governor open up the casinos, he made a point of inviting people from all over the country to visit the state.

But houses of worship are limited to 50 attendees. The size of the building doesn’t matter. Nor does it matter if you wear a mask and keep more than six feet away from everybody else.

The state’s message is this: Forget about worship and head for the slot machines, or maybe a Cirque de Soleil show.

Deciding whether to allow this disparate treatment should not have been a very tough call. Take a look at the Constitution. You will see the free exercise clause of the First Amendment, which protects religious liberty. You will not find a craps clause or a blackjack clause or a slot machine clause.

Nevada was unable to provide any plausible justification for treating casinos more favorably than houses of worship. But the court nevertheless deferred to the governor’s judgment.”

The Nevada judges’ decision in favor of the governor —who ignored the freedom of religion stipulated under the First Amendment as a positive right in exchange for increasing the number of visitors in Las Vegas casinos — is clearly misunderstanding the definition of individual freedom as outlined in the U.S. Constitution. Even if Las Vegas’ economic value is important for the governor, there is no justification for the discriminatory treatment of church gatherings. They are promoting “freedom” in the sense of self-indulgence and losing sight of the fundamental freedom to be protected. Additionally, materialistic states formed by these decisions cause further coronavirus epidemics.

Happy Science CEO Master Ryuho Okawa has been repeatedly teaching that faith has the power to strengthen one’s immunity. In a lecture titled “How to Strengthen Your Immunity,” given in February, he said the following:

Your immunity is extremely weak when you’re in a state of fear or separation from faith, so you can strengthen your immunity by living as though you are an angel of God’s light. ‘Protect myself as long as I have a mission to fulfill,’ is the kind of mindset that will get rid of malicious things within your body.”

In addition, R.A. Goal ,who claims to be space’s messiah spoke of the coronavirus as a “communist virus” in Spiritual Investigation of China-Originated Coronavirus Infection.

“In other words, there exists an ‘immunity through faith.’ If you have ‘faith in God,’ you’ll have immunity. You won’t die,” Goal said.

Mr. Biden’s presidency will signal a world not only consisting of a recession caused by tax increases and lockdowns — but also a world in which an individual’s right to believe in God, a necessary condition of a prosperous nation, will be suppressed. Raising voices against the Democratic totalitarianism related to Covid-19 will prevent the potential —downfall of the U.S.