The Race to Plan to Re-Open America is Suddenly On

DB Daily Update ^ | David Blackmon

[EyesOfTX]

The Evening Campaign Update Now the race is on And here comes pride in the backstretch Heartaches goin’ to the inside My tears are holdin’ back, they’re tryin’ not to fall

My hearts out of the runnin’ True love’s scratched for another’s sake The race is on and it looks like heartaches And the winner loses all

– By the great George Jones

Don’t look now, but we suddenly have a competition between the governors of major U.S. states to see who can come up with plans to re-open their economies and schools the fastest. Note that I did not way it is a race actually re-open those things: Just a race to create plans and thus assume control of the process.

And it isn’t just the governors competing among themselves: The President also got involved on Monday in staking out his own turf.

Here is where the race has gone thus far:

– I wrote on Friday evening about Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s plan to issue an executive order this week laying out his vision for a process to re-open the businesses and schools in the Lone Star State;

– On Monday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was joined by the governors of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Rhode Island and Connecticut in announcing a regional effort to coordinate the re-openings of their economies and schools;

– Also on Monday, California Governor Gavin Newsom said that he is coordinating a similar regional re-opening strategy with the Democrat governors of Oregon and Washington.

Suddenly, the race is on, and you can rest assured that President Donald J. Trump is not going to be left behind. The President also took action on Monday, formally naming the members of his Re-Opening America Task Force. As reported by Fox News, those members are:

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Purdue, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette, Labor Secretary Gene Scalia, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, and acting director of the Office of Management and Budget Russ Vought.

The task force is also expected to include acting chair of the Council of Economic Advisors Tom Philipson and White House advisers Larry Kudlow, Peter Navarro, Chris Liddell, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.

The President also let the various Governors know that he believes he and his advisors will be the ultimate authorities over the process of re-opening the country, sending out the following tweets:

Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump For the purpose of creating conflict and confusion, some in the Fake News Media are saying that it is the Governors decision to open up the states, not that of the President of the United States & the Federal Government. Let it be fully understood that this is incorrect....

111K 9:53 AM - Apr 13, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy 61.9K people are talking about this

Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump · 7h For the purpose of creating conflict and confusion, some in the Fake News Media are saying that it is the Governors decision to open up the states, not that of the President of the United States & the Federal Government. Let it be fully understood that this is incorrect....

Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump ....It is the decision of the President, and for many good reasons. With that being said, the Administration and I are working closely with the Governors, and this will continue. A decision by me, in conjunction with the Governors and input from others, will be made shortly!

86.7K 9:53 AM - Apr 13, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy 45.1K people are talking about this Naturally, in response to those two tweets by the President, all the same liberals and corrupt reporters who have spent the last 2 months attempting to hold Mr. Trump responsible for every failure by every state governor suddenly have become fans of federalism! Funny how that works, huh?

Of course, the most salient point in the President’s tweets is the final sentence: “A decision by me, in conjunction with the Governors and input from others, will be made shortly!”

What this means is that the Governors can and should be doing all the appropriate planning they want to do with their states, but the decision about whether and when to modify and/or lift the federal planning guidelines that all 50 states are current functioning under – given that every one of them is, for the first time in U.S. history, benefiting from a federal disaster declaration – will be made by the President of the United States as required by law.

Thus, the race between the governors to see who can come up with a plan the fastest is on, but the guy with the starter’s pistol to be used to actually begin the re-opening of America lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Because America.

That is all.

[Lizavetta]

I predict Governor Hair Gel Newsom and his sidekick L.A. Mayor Yogapants Garcetti will be DEAD LAST. I couldn’t loathe these people more.

[wally_bert]

I think the squish RINO here in SC will just barely pass them.

[CondoleezzaProtege]

The shutdown is hurting minorities and immigrant workers. Constituents that Garcetti and Newsom rely on politically but rarely deliver for in any meaningful way.

[Fledermaus]

Same here in TN.

[wally_bert]

I check the twitter feed of the goovenair and don’t see anything except acknowledgin g Easter.

[exnavy]

In Michigan, Gubner Crotchen Wit-less is planning on more shut down.....

[buckalfa]

We will see how fast the various states reopen for business when the governors tally the drastic decline in tax revenues.

[Macoozie]

You’re going to see a MASSIVE exodus from these shut down states to those that stayed open. It will be more of the continuing abandonement of the D states.

Get out while you still can,
BUT dont bring your leftist voting with you.

Paradise awaits you, but dont you dare attempt to wreck it.

[Fireone]

The governor of Minnesota just extended his “lockdown” for another 30 days. What a rebel that boy is.
Almost seems like sabotage.

[Deaf Smith]

A Plan?

We are not switching to a new electric utility that wants to give us monthly billing restrictions.

Just tell retailers and the barber shops they can open.

[Safetgiver]

The last thing we need is the Government getting involved in ANY damned thing except war!!

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I, Pencil is an article written in 1958 by Leonard E. Read. The burden of the article is how diffuse are the inputs to make a simple item like a pencil. Of course a particular company - Eberhard Faber, in the example instance - made the pencil. But Mr. Faber did not simply speak the pencil into existence; the company has to have buildings housing machinery, and workers to operate the machines. But beyond that, the Eberhard Faber workers have to have food, shelter, and normal amenities - including those required by their families.

And the same is true of the vendors who supply Eberhard Faber with the machinery they require, and all the obvious materials - wood, graphite, rubber, and the ferrule material and the enamel. All those vendors have their own equipment, workers, and supply chain. And in all cases the workers need food, shelter, and normal amenities. So although the pencil certainly does not exist without Eberhard Faber, society works together to make pencils - and everything else.

So, “You didn't build that? Somebody else made that happen?” Yes - but that “somebody else” was not government. The “somebody” was more like everybody - mostly very indirectly. It is not the government but society - as Thomas Paine points out in Common Sense, a very different thing - which makes the pencil.

And if such be the case of the lowly pencil, what of our “essential” supplies! Calling parts of the economy “nonessential” is arrogant, and demeans good people the loss of whose contributions to society is not instantly reflected in hunger or lack of critical medicine.

Government planning is merely interference in society’s subtle workings by people who have nowhere near the competence needed to make such large decisions and be responsible for them. It is nothing more than the irresponsible separation of responsibility from authority, in violation of the first principle of good management. Improvement in efficiency via government “planning” is a paper tiger.

It is weird that President Trump, his own good instincts notwithstanding, finds himself “planning” the whole economy.