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Strassel: Here's Why the Democrats Keep Moving the Shutdown Goal Posts
[Red State] In mid-March, President Trump announced his 15-day plan to shut down the economy. His administration’s hope was that we could "flatten the curve" and "slow the spread" of COVID-19. Toward the end of that period, the situation was reassessed and the decision was made to extend the shutdown until the end of April. By now, most cities and regions of the US, including New York State, the epicenter of the pandemic, have managed to achieve this milestone and Americans, currently ending our fifth week of the quarantine, are growing restless.The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel writes, "The goal of the shutdown was never to eradicate the disease—an impossibility absent a vaccine. The lockdown was designed to buy the health sector time, to make sure all the cases didn’t hit at once in a crush that would overwhelm hospitals, à la Italy." Politico reports that, according to comments House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made during a two hour conference call with her caucus this week, her conditions for ending the shutdown have changed. She said that "Trump was putting Americans in grave danger if he rushes to reopen the economy at the end of this month." The Politico story said, "Until a robust testing and contact tracing system is in place, [Pelosi believes] it would be impossible for the president to guarantee Americans a safe reentry into their normal life." Knowing that the longer the lockdown remains in effect, the deeper and more prolonged the recession will be, Democrats would like to see it continue for as long as possible. They are acutely aware that a slow economy will hurt the President’s chances of reelection. Strassel writes: By these standards, no lockdown may end until the Trump administration can "guarantee" a "safe" world in which people return to "normal." The feds must stand up a testing system capable of hunting down and snuffing out each new infection. There can be no more outbreaks, and reopening cannot "significantly add" to existing counts (and the press reserves the authority to define "significantly.") The unsaid corollary is that Mr. Trump will be held politically responsible for reopening in any way that fails to meet these baselines—on the hook for each subsequent death. Politico reports that House Democrats are working on their "own plan to reopen the nation" which will "require adequate testing and contact tracing to prevent a second outbreak." They will ask "each state to submit a plan. Posted by: Besoeker 2020-04-18 |
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