Baker’s war on small businesses
Gov. Charlie Baker declared war on Massachusetts small businesses for cynical political purposes.
Baker last week reversed 10 months of punitive executive orders that destroyed the lives and livelihoods of tens of thousands of Bay State business owners and the employees and families who depend upon them.
His 9:30 p.m. curfew for restaurants ended Monday. We can now stay open until normally licensed hours. And in two weeks, nearly a year of capacity restrictions come to a sudden end.
The few business owners who survived Baker’s war are thrilled.
But the timing of his announcement should anger all Bay State residents. Baker chose to ease restrictions just 24 hours after Joe Biden became president.
Politics is politics. But party politics don’t matter when you’re trying to feed your family. I care more about the health and welfare of my family and my community. And the reality is that Baker savaged the health and welfare of our families and our communities for political purposes.
The governor determined by executive fiat that one group of Massachusetts residents should suffer human devastation — financial ruin, broken marriages, suicidal depression — for the perceived safety of others.
But there’s no evidence that Baker’s war on small businesses saved a single life. There is plenty of evidence that these shutdowns were a total failure, raining destruction upon our communities. Just look at the line of empty storefronts downtown, like bombed out London in World War II, or the financial and mental devastation on the home front.
Yet Massachusetts still ranks third in highest COVID mortality rate in America. Georgia and Florida have zero shutdowns and no mask mandates. Those states have roughly half the COVID mortality rates of Massachusetts.
Baker lied. People died.
Remember, small-business owners are your friends and neighbors. We sponsor the local Little League team, feed the hungry, and donate to every school fundraiser.
We face all the challenges caused by COVID as you do. We worry about the safety of our elderly parents and our children displaced from school; we suffer autoimmune deficiencies and crippling anxiety. Just like you!
But we faced all these challenges with Baker’s hands wrapped firmly around our necks, strangling the life out of us.
Now imagine the anger we feel driving past our empty little storefronts while big box stores down the street are packed. It’s like we’re victims of psychological warfare.
The commonwealth’s own data proved small businesses were very minor, nearly nonexistent sources of COVID transmission. But General Baker ignored his own intelligence for political purposes.
Restaurants were in the safety business long before Baker declared war on us. We are regulated at the local, state and federal level. We are devoted to cleanliness and sanitization.
We were well equipped to stay open and stay safe. Instead, Baker chose to destroy our lives and livelihoods.
“We’re all in this together,” Baker often says. But General Baker was not in this together. He never missed a single paycheck.
The small-business owners of Massachusetts deserve better. Our families deserve better. Our communities deserve better. Your friends, neighbors and family members deserved better than Baker’s War.