East Michigan News

Republican political consultant Harlan Hill is no fan of government bailouts, but he believes Congress should pass another COVID-19 relief package.

“We had a government-imposed shutdown of the entire global economy,” Hill said on "The Paul W. Smith Show." “The only thing that kept us from, I think, total economic collapse, in light of all that, were the government aid packages to small businesses and individuals, and now all of that is running out."

Normally, Hill does not believe that bailouts are an appropriate use of government funds.

President Donald Trump | stock photo

“But when government has imposed it on small business, when government has imposed it on individuals, when we have basically committed economic suicide, I think it’s incumbent on government to clean up its own mess,” he told Smith. “At this stage, I want Washington to stand up and pass another package.”

Another relief package would ensure stability going into the November election and provide a backstop to the stock market, he said.

“The government did this to us,” Hill said on the radio program. “They’ve got to fix it.”

The rules imposed on businesses during the COVID-19 shutdown defy logic, Hill believes.

“I can fly on a plane, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with people, but I can’t sit in a restaurant 6, 10 feet away from the other table,” said Hill. “This is dumb. It doesn’t make any sense.”

He believes it is a “self- inflicted wound” by the Democrats to slow down the economy before the November elections.

Hill has no problem with President Donald Trump conducting interviews with journalists who may be critical of him, such as Bob Woodward. In a new book, Woodward quoted Trump as saying he  intentionally downplayed the seriousness of COVID-19 to avoid a national panic.

“It actually says a lot about the president that he is fearless,” Hill told Smith. “He is willing to go and sit down to do an interview with basically anyone... He is not afraid to go into the lion’s den. I actually view that as a virtue.”

However, he wishes Trump would be go into the interviews with more skepticism.

“He’s of the view that he can convince them to see the light,” Hill said on the radio program. “But in reality, five years into this experiment of President Trump, we should realize that we’re not dealing with good actors. We’re dealing with an adversary on the Democratic side of the aisle, and that includes the media that is hell-bent on destroying the president at all costs.”