...to get the economy back to its most profitable (for them) mode.

Listen, it is obvious that to optimize both the long-term health of the economy AND the people, some sort of compromise is going to have to be arrived at to reconcile these two opposing considerations. It is clear we may have to accept some risk in order to get some workers in some industries back to work and we will have to spend some money to take care of those we can't. The question is, who decides what are "essential" enterprises, and how "essential" do they need to be. And who determines what an acceptable risk is. This is not a free market decision, nor a decision for free marketeers, it is a decision for a free government, not one dominated by commercial interests and the profit motive. There is bound to be debate here, and honest controversy is to be expected. That is why we have a democracy.

The point is, do we want the Laura Ingrahams and Donald Trumps of this nation to make that decision? Only the people who work in those industries, the front line and shop floor grunts and their elected representatives, should be empowered to make that choice, and they should be provided all the information they need to make it.

Those who tend to profit the most, and take the least risk, have no business making those decisions. They have the most incentive to make the wrong one, and there is no doubt in anyone's mind that they will. Their office is not on the shop floor or the restaurant kitchen, and they don't fly coach.

We learned a long time ago we don't let tobacco company executives decide whether cigarettes cause lung cancer or not.