Day 1,160: White House: everyone back to work in two weeks; also White House: we need $6 trillion
Having little to no real plan to combat the coronavirus has been the Trump administration’s m.o. since January.
Only recently, have they stepped up their efforts, but they, too, have fallen woefully short.
Yesterday, Donald Trump floated the idea of reopening the economy and sending everyone back to work, even if it meant many deaths and allowed the coronavirus to fester for far longer than it ordinarily would.
Tuesday, Trump took that a step farther and announced the goal to open everything up by Easter, against the advice of the administration’s own health experts.
Speaking during a Fox News town hall on Tuesday, Trump reiterated he was eager to see the nation return to normal soon, even as doctors warn the nation will see a massive spike in cases if Americans return to crowded workplaces or events.
“I give it two weeks,” Trump said earlier in the town hall, suggesting he was ready to phase out his 15-day self-isolating guidelines when they expire. “I guess by Monday or Tuesday, it’s about two weeks. We will assess at that time and give it more time if we need a little more time. We have to open this country up.”
Trump told reporters during the daily press briefing it was his idea -- and not that of his medical experts -- to suggest Easter, which falls on April 12, as a potential date by which the US would again be "raring to go."
At the same time, the White House is claiming they need trillions of dollars — six trillion, actually — to pump into the economy.
These two talking points could not be more incongruous. The White is claiming that the total amount of business interruption will be less than a month, and simultaneously holding their hand out for the largest bailout in American history.
The Republicans that surged into Congress as part of the Tea Party and decried government spending, even during the Great Recession, haven’t uttered a peep of resistance. It seems those principles of fiscal responsibility only matter when a Democrat is in the Oval Office.
Rather than listening to experts on the coronavirus response and letting markets run their course with some targeted intervention to directly help affected Americans, the White House is taking the most extreme positions on each. They’re trying to goose the response to both and hoping — against scientists’ and doctors’ analyses— that things will magically work out.
Their plan has the potential to kill hundreds of thousands of Americans and stretch economic volatility out indefinitely.
1,160 days in, 302 to go
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