A leading small business advocacy group warned that President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate will worsen conditions for entrepreneurship in the United States.
On Thursday, the White House unveiled its COVID-19 vaccine and testing mandate, which applies to businesses with 100 or more employees. Noncompliant companies may be fined $13,653 per violation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and if businesses accrue “willful or repeated” violations, the agency may enact fines as high as $136,532.
In response, the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) released a statement that blasted the mandate.
“Small business owners continue to face numerous challenges to operate, stay open, and pay their employees, and today’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Emergency Temporary Standard makes that even more difficult and troublesome,” said Karen Harned, who leads the NFIB’s Small Business Legal Center. “NFIB remains opposed to this rule that restricts the freedom of small business owners to decide how best to operate their own businesses and imposes unwarranted burdens on small businesses that further threaten the small business recovery.”
In September — when Biden first announced the vaccine mandate — the NFIB declared that “the Biden administration in essence threatens America’s small and independent businesses owners” unless companies get employees “vaccinated, tested, or fired.”
“If the Administration wants to command 80 million Americans, who do not wish to get vaccinated, to get vaccinated or tested weekly, the President should ask Congress to enact legislation issuing that command,” the group added. “Then the American people could hold the President, Senators, and Representatives accountable at the ballot box for how they voted on such legislation. That is the democratic way.”
Jeremy Boreing, co-founder and co-CEO of The Daily Wire, likewise argued on Thursday: “Forcing Americans to choose between their livelihoods and their freedom is a grotesque abuse of power and we won’t be a party to it.”
The conservative media company filed suit against the Biden administration and will be represented by The Dhillion Law Group, Inc. and Alliance Defending Freedom. As a result, the hashtag “#DoNotComply” trended on Twitter.
Daily Wire host Candace Owens commented: “I am unvaccinated. Ben Shapiro is vaccinated. We disagree on our medical choices but we very much agree on our right TO choose. I am proud that The Daily Wire has filed a lawsuit against the tyrannical Biden administration to protect my individual right to remain unvaxxed.”
“Biden’s tyrannical vaccine mandate goes into effect on January 4th. We’re fighting back at the Daily Wire,” said Matt Walsh, author and Daily Wire podcast host. “We made a difference in Virginia and we can win here too. Lawsuit was filed this morning. You can talk all you want but it means nothing if you still comply. We won’t.”
A survey of more than 1,000 companies found that only 13% currently require all employees to take the shot, while 66% said that their “employees are not required to be vaccinated.”