by LEE FANG
Americans for Prosperity, the pro-corporate pressure group founded and funded by billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, wants employees to return to work despite desperate pleas from public health officials that people should stay home as much as possible to help contain the spread of the coronavirus.
As states began to order nonessential
businesses to shut down last week, AFP released a statement calling for
all businesses to remain open.
“Rather than blanket shutdowns,
the government should allow businesses to continue to adapt and innovate
to produce the goods and services Americans need, while continuing to
do everything they can to protect the public health,” said Emily Seidel,
chief executive of AFP, in a press release.
Some of the group’s state chapters have taken a similar tone. AFP Pennsylvania’s state director, as well as a regional director with the group, have taken to Twitter to lambast shelter-in-place policies. The Michigan chapter of AFP on Monday slammed Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-at-home order, which closed down
fitness centers, nail salons, amusement parks, casinos, and other
businesses deemed nonessential, calling it the “wrong approach for our
state.”
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