Joe Biden, who spent most of his waking hours during the past hundred days chiding Americans who refused to wear masks as unpatriotic, is now learning a valuable lesson about supply and demand. That is, the COVID vaccine, which he bragged about while devoting almost no time to promoting, is now in oversupply. He finds himself with more on his hands than he knows what to do with.
So he’s not only making it easier to get the shot but bribing citizens to get vaccinated. He’s also incentivizing employers to urge their employees to get the shots by offering tax credits. He didn’t mention that the funds for those tax credits, like all of the government’s “money,” come out of the pockets of taxpayers.
Yesterday at the White House he said this:
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Now we are going to have to bring the vaccine to people who are less eager. So we also know that there are millions of Americans who just need a little bit of encouragement to get the shot.
I recently called on employers to do their part by offering paid time off for employees to get vaccinated and opening up a tax credit program that reimburses the businesses for the cost of giving the employee the time off to get vaccinated. And I want to thank the 1,000 businesses that have stepped up so far.
We’re also going to roll out new partnerships with the business community. We’re working with major businesses, like grocery stores, to provide special deals like discounts to shoppers who come to their stores to get vaccinated. The — and it works both ways. Bring them in to get vaccinated, but when they’re in, they will get discounts to purchase goods in that store.
Further, we’re working with major sports leagues to launch special promotions for their fans — things like ticket giveaways, in-stadium vaccination programs, discounts on merchandise, and other creative ways to make it easier and more fun to get vaccinated.
This is all well and good unless you were one of those millions of poor zhlubs who spent hours online and the phone trying to find a vaccination center, then traveling sometimes hundreds of miles to get it and back. You may be wondering where your free swag is. The answer is it’s in the same place as the student loan reimbursement from the “government” that you will not be receiving because you were responsible and paid your loan back. (RELATED: Voter to Warren on her student loan forgiveness plan: ‘Those of us who did the right thing get screwed?’)
