Does the government need to give more guidance on efforts to recover the economy?
The 'Outnumbered' panel reacts to the staggering March jobs report amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Capitalism is a risk of a "radical transformation" in America the longer the economy remains shut down due to the coronavirus, Ben Shapiro warned Monday.
Discussing the latest developments on "The Ben Shapiro Show," the outspoken conservative called for the collection of more data to determine the proper time to re-open business in the U.S., and warned of dire consequences if the economy were to remain shut down indefinitely.
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"The priority has to be reopening the economy as soon as we have the data to suggest how exactly we make that happen," Shapiro said. "Anyone who pretends it doesn't matter is really making me suspicious at this point."
As the country begins what the Trump administration has said will likely be "the toughest week yet," some of the president's critics have taken issue with his focus on the economic impact of the pandemic -- but Shapiro said the country is at risk of a "radical transformation" if the shutdown continues.
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"Trump is not saying when we reopen our economy ... he is saying that he has to have that first and foremost in his mind," Shapiro said. "One of the reasons why he is saying this is because, on the back of every crisis, there is an attempt to radically transform America. This happened in the aftermath of the Great Depression ... a radical transformation in the lives of Americans between the relationship of government -- federal, state, local and human beings," he explained.
""If you don't want to see a vast underclass of Americans who are supported purely by the government, you need this economy up and running fast."
"This happened in the aftermath of 9/11 with regard to our security ... in the aftermath of every crisis there is an attempt to radically grow government on a permanent level, and that is just a normal human response because you want to prevent the bad thing from happening again."
Shapiro continued, "Well, in this case, where you have the largest government reaction in the history of the United States, the prospect of that being made into a permanent feature of the American landscape is pretty scary and it's one of the reasons why we should be looking to get out of this as fast as humanly possible," he warned.
Shapiro reiterated his call to get the U.S. economy "up and running fast."
"If you don't want to see a vast underclass of Americans who are supported purely by the government, you need this economy up and running fast ... and not only that, you need people to rely on capitalism ... to get back to the model of 'Yeah, capitalism is great -- it's what allows me to work,'" he explained.
"The prospect of that being made into a permanent feature of the American landscape is pretty scary and it's...why we should be looking to get out of this as fast as humanly possible."
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"What you don't want is government coming in, forcibly shutting down the entire economy, putting 30 million people out of work, and then those people have no choice but to vote for bigger government ... they have no choice but to vote for a government that's going to fill the gap created by the government in the first place," Shapiro continued.
"That is the danger here," he concluded. "People are going to radically rethink capitalism, even though it wasn't capitalism that failed here. What failed here was a global health shock followed by heavy government action."
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