“The complainers should have been stocked up and ready long before this crisis hit,” tweeted the president, who belittled the coronavirus pandemic for weeks.
www.huffpost.com
At the point, I'm done holding back: I actually hope he gets a severe case of COVID-19 and has to fight for his life - it'd serve him right.
So this came up in the Covid-19 thread. To keep the terrible toxic political talk out of that thread (please read that sentence with all the sarcasm in the world), I will put the political portion of my response here.
The article in question was written in response to comments from Trump. Trump stated that states should have been better prepared for this and that the federal government is meant to act as a back up, not a primary relief, for a crisis like this. He does call some Governors complainers and states that the federal government has been providing a lot of support.
This is yet another case of the issue not being what he said, but how he said it. He is actually correct. This is how our government has always worked. The order of operations is local city, then state, then federal (I am sure there are a few steps in between). The states are suppose to have their own crisis plans prepared. What is the benefit of this? Simple. Every state is different. Smaller governments are more flexible and able to adapt to their own unique situations. This is how it has been for natural disasters in the past, with the federal government stepping in when things get too extreme.
So, who are the complainers? Well, I can only speak for New York which is where i live. Cuomo has been getting on TV everyday asking for support. He asks for federal relief in the form of medical supplies. We got it. He asks for federal help in building make sift hospitals. We got it. We asks for ventilators. We are getting them, though not in the numbers he wants due to over all supply. Cuomo is sitting on a stock pile that was created AFTER the crisis hit, just in case we need it, and is still asking for more.
Now I get it. He wants to make sure the state has enough now that things are really bad, particularly in NYC. But here is the thing... you are suppose to stock pile BEFORE the crisis hits and then use that stock pile WHEN the crisis hits. And what happened prior to the current shut down of the city? Oh, this happened:
March 15th, De Blasio, after imposing a 50% capacity for bars and restaurants without actually enforcing it, told people to go to their local bars and restaurants, encouraging people to gather as opposed to social distancing.
March 13th, De Blasio refused to shut down schools even though attendance has already fallen by 1/3.
March 12th, De Blasio says he wants to avoid shutting down Broadway
On March 2nd De Blasio made movie recommendations and told people to go out. "“Since I’m encouraging New Yorkers to go on with your lives + get out on the town despite Coronavirus, I thought I would offer some suggestions. “Here’s the first: thru Thurs 3/5 go see ‘The Traitor”’@FilmLinc. If “The Wire” was a true story + set in Italy, it would be this film.” This was right after NYC had its first confirmed case and he was telling us to go about our normal lives as if nothing was happening.
So yeah... Trump isn't wrong here. Instead of preparing, we were getting told to do things as normal.
And Cuomo? Well here is what he did:
March 19th, Cuomo backed a plan to cut $400 million from New York hospitals, $186 million for NYC alone. This would have taken away 20,000 hospital beds... ya know, the things he says we need so desperately? He has been cutting Medicaid for YEARS and continues to do so even now. He also was against every step De Blasio FINALLY tried to take saying that he had to approve things before De Blasio could implement them. So what does this mean? It means that it took even longer for schools and businesses to shut down. It took even long for a shelter in place order. It took even longer for the spread to be slowed.
So yeah.... My local and state government failed me, but they are blaming the federal government. Guess what? They ALL failed. neither local nor federal was prepared. Neither local nor federal took this seriously enough to impose early restrictions. Trump was not wrong in what he was saying, just how he said it. Local and State governments are the 1st and 2nd line of defense in cases like this.
What is Trump wrong about? Well, I do think that NOW he needs to clean up the mess a bit better. Now we need to federal government to be the sole buyer of PPE and other supplies so we can stop price gauging that is happening with the bidding wars between states. Had the states actually been prepared, the feds wouldn't have to do this, but now they need to. One of the reasons the federal government response is lacking in New York is because of how lacking New York was in being prepared.
Now that the crisis is here, Cuomo has been doing a far better job at delivering press briefings. He does give off the sense that he is in control. I actually like how he is presenting things to the public. The problem is he is also the guy that put policies in place that helped create the problem he is now trying to fix.