New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s call for a nationalized response to coronavirus medical needs has so far been rejected by Donald Trump (unbelievably). Will voices in Trump states like Arkansas eventually break through?
Gov. Asa Hutchinson refused to criticize Trump at a news conference yesterday while describing the dilemma the state faces in meeting the supply and equipment needs of hard-pressed hospitals. But he did say the state had been left to “its own devices.” And he lamented the state’s inability to compete worldwide or find a way to produce the goods on its own through a shift in work for state industries.
Hours later, the governor’s nephew, Senate President Pro Tem Jim Hendren shucked the corn. He blistered the failure of the federal government for delegating this critical task to the states. It’s like telling the states to buy their own battleships and jets for defense, he said.
This morning, I noticed another blue-ribbon Republican voice in that camp. The tweet above by Cuomo carries a seeming endorsement from Surgeon General Gregory Bledsoe, a Hutchinson appointee and son of a Republican state senator and a Republican doctor with a Hutchinson-administration health department job.
Of course the federal government is the place to fund and allocate response to a national emergency.
What would James Lee Witt do, I wonder?