Quote:
Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski
Doesn't "sent to the States" mean the States have the money? Is it their fault and not the Feds? I'm not arguing your point, just not sure I get it.
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The federal government dumped the problem on the states, and the states are not meeting the challenge. I suspect that there are different stories in different states about why that is, but to me the fundamental issue that the Trump administration did not want to and was incapable of leading a national response to the virus.
I worked in the federal government, under Republican and Democratic Presidents. Was my agency the most competent, swiftest organization in the world? No, but it was pretty good, and it was full of committed people who took their jobs seriously, and it was led by political appointees who were serious people who wanted to do a good job. I worked with state counterparts, who were invariably good people at much smaller, much less competent organizations with many fewer resources. I suspect the same is basically true with public health. If you have a big challenge and you need to mobilize resources for the nation to act, you use the federal government. Is there anything that states do better than the federal government?
eta: Fundamentally, temperamentally, Trump did not want to do the hard work of fighting a pandemic. He much preferred to dump the problem on someone else (initially Pence, for whom he was not doing a favor, and then the states), and to dole out resources, which let him favor his friends and disadvantage his enemies. It also let him suppress complaints from the states, who were afraid to say anything about what the federal government was doing lest they have PPE seized and not get respirators, etc. Trump does grievance, not solutions, and his heart was really in complaining about the Faucis of the world who wanted to close businesses and tell people to wear masks. What incentives does that create for everyone who works for him?
