The Democrat response to the coronavirus is scarier than the virus By Andrea Widburg
The Democrats claim Trump is mishandling the coronavirus threat and that they’d do better. They’re wrong. Their proposals are redundant, vapid, or dangerous.
During the recent debate, three candidates discussed coronavirus:
Amy Klobuchar urged treatment and quarantine – which is (a) obvious and (b) what Trump is doing. She accused Trump of ignoring the world (he hasn’t) and wants to improve education.
Biden did his inevitable “I already did that response,” referring to Ebola (which, thankfully for America, stayed in Africa).
Bernie Sanders accused Trump of idiocy for predicting the virus would end in April. What Trump said was that influenzas generally go away once winter ends, something that is scientifically correct. Bernie said he would work with WHO (which Trump has done).
In addition to those statements, all three say Trump cannot address coronavirus because he withdrew funds from the CDC and NIH.
On Wednesday, Pelosi issued a formal statement that also says Trump cannot fight the virus because he has shrunk government:
“The American people need a well-coordinated, whole-of-government, fully-funded response to keep them safe from the coronavirus threat. Unfortunately, the Trump Administration has mounted an opaque and chaotic response to this outbreak.
“The Trump Administration has left critical positions in charge of managing pandemics at the National Security Council and the Department of Homeland Security vacant. The Trump Budget called for slashing almost $700 million from the Centers for Disease Control. And even now, the Administration continues to devalue Americans’ health security by ransacking funding from other vital public health needs.
“The House will be advancing a strong, strategic funding package with transparency and accountability that fully addresses the scale and seriousness of this public health crisis.”
She held a short little press conference making the same point:
At a town hall on Wednesday, Elizabeth Warren insisted she’d stop work that is our southern border:
Warren seems to have forgotten that, when Obama allowed illegal immigrants to overrun America’s southern border, America was hit by a rash of contagious diseases that hadn’t been seen in America for decades.
Trump’s Thursday press conference destroyed this silliness. He attacked Pelosi for her unserious political attacks:
I think Speaker Pelosi is incompetent. She lost the Congress once. I think she’s going to lose it again. I think she’s incompetent and I think she’s not thinking about the country. Instead of making a statement like that, where I’ve been beating her routinely, at everything, instead of making a statement like that she should be saying, “We have to work together because we have a big problem, potentially, and maybe it’s going to be a very little problem, I hope that it’s a very little problem, but we have to work together.” Instead she wants to do the same thing as crying Chuck Schumer…it’s so bad for the country.
She’s trying to create a panic and there’s no reason to panic. All they’re trying to do is get a political advantage, This isn’t about political advantage. We’re all trying to do the right thing.
He also explained that his decision to cut deadweight in government health departments during the good times in no way hampered his ability to call on their resources in times of crisis.
Lastly, Trump emphasized how helpful it had been that he’d quickly stopped flights from China. Moreover, the administration has started quarantining those people who were arriving from China. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar emphasized what a gift these actions have been to America:
Finally, we’ve been implementing the prudent policies the president announced last week to reduce the risk of transmission by travelers. We’ve implemented temporary quarantines of U.S. persons who have recently been to Hubei province, and we’ve asked for voluntary self-monitoring quarantines for U.S. persons who have recently been elsewhere in mainland China. We’ve required that all other individuals who have recently been to mainland China wait 14 days, the outer limit of the incubation period of the virus, before coming to the United States. These steps are a targeted approach aimed at slowing the virus’s spread to and within the United States, giving our government and the global community more time to take preparedness measures, understand the virus and develop medical countermeasures.
Trump is right about the Democrats. They offer nothing in the way of solutions and some of their plans — such as weakening the border — are actually counterproductive. They’re just talking in the hopes of diminishing Trump’s election chances, with no regard for the fact that they may be increasing the existential risk of epidemic disease in America.
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