At the State of the Union, Biden acted like his politically motivated rollback of the public health security state was some sort of victory over the pandemic rather than a response to some extremely bad polls. But despite the CDC suddenly deciding that everything is fine, Biden wants to keep his emergency powers.

A bill by Senate Republicans to terminate the national emergency declaration for the Covid-19 pandemic passed 48 to 47 Thursday on a party-line vote.

While the legislation has a slim chance of passing the Democrat-controlled House and President Joe Biden has already threatened to veto the bill, the vote is yet another rebuke of the administration’s pandemic policies at a time it is seeking billions from Congress to keep them going for several more months.

Money is a key point there, but also power.

The White House on Thursday pledged to veto the bill if it reached Biden’s desk, calling the GOP attempt to terminate the pandemic emergency declaration “a reckless and costly mistake.”

An experiment in human sacrifice, perhaps?

It’s 2022. If spending needs to happen and measures need to be taken, we have legislative bodies and an executive capable of working that out without the use of emergency powers. After years of this, there’s no excuse for keeping things going on an emergency basis like a banana republic. And yet state and national leaders keep insisting on retaining emergency powers because once power is surrendered to a political body, it can be nearly impossible to get it back.