Column: The pandemic is over, it’s time to act like it

Last week, Congress finally took action to put the COVID-19 pandemic behind us once and for all. We passed legislation to end the Biden Administration’s vaccine mandate for federal health care workers, to formally end the public health emergency, and to require federal workers to finally show up to work again.

That’s right, despite most Americans being back to work for quite some time, the federal government and formerly Democrat-controlled Congress have lagged far behind. House Republicans promised to restore normalcy in the People’s House and we’re doing just that.

For far too long, the radical adjustments that were made in Washington in response to the pandemic were normalized and closely guarded. It wasn’t until Republicans gained the majority that proxy voting, reserved for special circumstances but widely abused, was eliminated. Democrats fought tooth-and-nail to the bitter end to protect their ability to get away with not showing up for work.

Frankly, despite a return to normal life for just about everyone, it’s not hard to understand why Democrats in Congress and the White House extended the public health emergency over-and-over. It served as the perfect excuse to continue their supercharged pace of spending and as cover for the continuation of their stale pandemic-era policies.

President Biden was correct last September when he said that the pandemic was over. But it’s evident his comments served as nothing more than lip service as the White House walked back his comments and extended the public health emergency another 90 days earlier this month.

The good people of this country have been back to work for a while now. It’s not right for Washington to say one thing but do the opposite. Although it took too long for Congress to step in and move the country forward from the pandemic, I’m proud House Republicans prioritized doing so quickly under our majority.