Calling Out the COVID-19 Relief Bill

After critiquing the COVID-19 relief bill and denouncing the latest Biden policies, the Roundtabler's find some reprieve in imagining legalized opioids for all.

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Calling Out the COVID-19 Relief Bill

Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, and Nick Gillespie come together to discuss Biden administration's newest policies on this week's Reason Roundtable. After lamenting the latest examples of bad government behavior, the group contemplates what a opioid-legal world would look like.

Discussed in the show:

00:00: Bad Super Bowl jokes

02:22: Suderman on Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill

22:43: Mangu-Ward on the possibility of student loan forgiveness

28:25: Gillespie on the possibility of high-speed rail

35:00: Why the latest irrational government spending left Mangu-Ward "dead inside"

40:50: Weekly Listener Question: Can societies handle legal opioids, or is it a bridge too far?

46:09: Media recommendations for the week

This week's links:

• "On High-Speed Rail, Look at the Costs and Results Before You Leap," by Robert Poole
• "The Immortality of Student Loan Forgiveness and Free College," by Nick Gillespie
• "Carl Hart: Drug Use for Grown-Ups," by Nick Gillespie (podcast)
• "Sally Satel: The Secret History of the Opioid Epidemic," by Nick Gillespie (podcast)
• "Joe Biden Wants His Stimulus To Help 'People Who are Hurting,' Like Families Making $120,000 a Year," by Peter Suderman
• "3 Reasons Why Obama's High-Speed Rail Will Go Nowhere Fast," by Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie (video)
• "Newly Minted Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg Wants U.S. to Lead World in High-Speed Rail," by Joseph Guzman
• "Big Bird's Brazilian Cousin Garibaldo is a Whole Vibe," by Adam Rosenberg

Send your questions either by email to [e-mail] or by voicemail to 213-973-3017. Be sure to include your social media handle and the correct pronunciation of your name.

Today's sponsors:

• Get an up-close look at the history of the Constitution with the Institute for Justice's new podcast, Bound by Oath. Available wherever you check out podcasts.
• If you feel something interfering with your happiness or holding you back from your goals, BetterHelp is an accessible and affordable source for professional counseling. BetterHelp assesses your needs and matches you with a licensed therapist you can start talking to in under 24 hours, all online.

Audio production by Ian Keyser.
Assistant production by Regan Taylor.
Music: "Angeline," by The Brothers Steve.

What are we consuming this week?

Katherine Mangu-Ward

• Framing Britney Spears

Peter Suderman

• The Weeknd’s SuperBowl halftime show

Nick Gillespie

• Malcom & Marie

Matt Welch

• 1917

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Comments

[Longtobefree]

Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
You should not critique the COVID bill, you aided and abetted.

It all a bunch of malarkey.

[RabbiHarveyWeinstein]

I want to sniff Katherine Mangu Ward's hair and tell her she's a very pretty girl after I put my high visibility dentures in.

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[CE]

If Congress were sitting on 2 trillion dollars in emergency relief funds, maybe we could talk about how to best spend them to recover from the pandemic and the lockdowns.

But Congress doesn't have 2 trillion, or 1.9 trillion, or even the 600 billion the Repubs are okay with spending. Congress has put the nation 28 trillion dollars in debt. Adding another 2 trillion for us to pay back doesn't seem like a sensible way to help.

[H. Farnham]

Sensible? That sounds awfully white-supremacyish.

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[Moonrocks]

But I was assured that deficit spending only happens under Republican administrations.

[Mother's Lament]

Where's Buttplug to tell us how these House spending bills are all Trump's fault?

[memaxi83]

Trump Lawyers Argue,House Democrats are proposing to limit the next round of Covid-19 relief payments to households earning less than $200,000,FSwr after criticism that President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus package would benefit the rich......READ MORE COMMENT

[Dillinger]

something little something late ...

[JesseAz]

Who could have taken 5 minutes and researched Biden and Democrats before the election?!?

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[buckleup]

Too bad.

[Ken Shultz]

The last wave of the opioid epidemic was more or less a proxy for legalizing opioids. The overwhelming majority of new addicts were among those who were eligible for Medicaid, and the overwhelming majority of addicts obtained their drugs either through a legal prescription or through friends and family who had a legal prescription.

Given those facts, expanding the Medicaid rolls through ObamaCare (legal opioids!) was a surefire way to initiate an opioid crisis. If you think the problem with opioids is that they're too expensive and illegal, how do you explain the last opioid crisis happening to people who obtained their opioids through legal prescriptions and free of charge?

And if you think the last wave of the opioid epidemic was bad, wait until we see what happens with Medicare for All. Want to do something libertarian and capitalist to stop the next wave of opioid addiction? Don't try to convince people that opioid use is no big deal. Oppose Medicare for All.

[Ken Shultz]

Here's a link to the facts:

https://reason.com/podcast/2020/12/23/sally-satel-the-secret-history-of-the-opioid-epidemic/#comment-8655273

Fact 1) More than 75% of opioid addicts, during the explosion of the epidemic, obtained their drugs either from a prescription themselves or–for free–from a friend or family member who had a prescription.

Fact 2) People who made less than $20,000 a year were 3.4 times more likely to become addicted to opioids than people who earned $50,000 per year or more.

Conclusion: If you stayed up all night trying to find a great way to start an opioid epidemic, you couldn't come up with anything better than expanding Medicaid (or making everyone eligible for Medicare).

[Lord of Strazele]

Or alternatively according to your badass logic we just need ro give the 20k people 30k more a year in addition to the health insurance. Thanks for pointing this out.

[R Mac]

You have to be trolling. You can’t really be this stupid.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

Why the latest irrational government spending left Mangu-Ward "dead inside"

Much Like Nancy Pelosi, who can only keep going by eating ice cream hand crafted from the souls of the unborn.

[Dillinger]

is it irrational if the entire fucking universe knows it's coming and then it does?

[Cal Cetín]

Off topic:

"Psst...hey, bud, you want some paintings, fresh from the Metropolitan Museum of Art?"

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/05/arts/design/met-museum-considers-selling-art.html

(I'm open to the possibility that this is a "Washington Monument strategy" to get rich NYT readers to fork over more money)

[Cal Cetín]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Monument_Syndrome

[Jerryskids]

My guess would be they're thinking of selling part of their collection due to the fact that it's a bunch of racist, white supremacist shit by dead white males and they need to get their hands on some shit made by some transexual Aborigine midget primitivists, fast.

[Jerryskids]

Well the opioid discussion sounds promising. Wait, we're going to discuss high-speed rail again, too? No, sorry. there aren't enough opioids in the world for that shit. I swear to God, we need to start killing these fuckers when they start talking about high-speed rail. And it's not like anybody could object to the killing, it's not like you'd be killing a higher form of life like a potato or a turnip, you'd just be killing a high-speed rail enthusiast.

[JimMelloan]

Nick: "We're on a coke binge, and we don't know whether we're at 3 AM or 6 AM." We're at 25 or 6 to 4, of course.

[christopher kreb]

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[Health]

Does the Covid vaccine stop you getting Covid?

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[Kumar]

After affected by covid-19, the next crucial part is to be full fledge recovery from covid.

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