Weeks into coronavirus pandemic, Trump still lacks plans for health, economy
U.S. restaurants began closing dine-in service in March. President Donald Trump still has not offered his detailed plan for reopening the economy. Credit: James Carbone
The latest clue that the Trump administration still has no clear pandemic plan surfaced on Thursday, with the disclosure that the White House shelved a key Centers for Disease Control and Prevention document.
This CDC's 17-page framework for "Opening Up American Again" was supposed to have been issued last week. It was meant to help educators, clergy, business owners and state and local governments safetly resume normal activity, The Associated Press reported. The CDC is regarded as the authoritative source of advice on public health.
On Wednesday, White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany called pandemic policy "a state-led effort on … which the federal government will consult. And we do so each and every day.” That implies agencies commanded by the White House are taking a back seat.
The president does not embrace responsibility for actions taken by the states it "consults." Two weeks ago, Trump second-guessed Georgia's Republican Gov. Brian Kemp for a state reopening that included hair salons, spas, tattoo parlors and bowling alleys. Trump called it "too soon" for all that, even if he seemed earlier to have endorsed Kemp's plan. Coronavirus numbers since have increased in parts of Georgia.
On Twitter, Trump has cryptically called for states to be "liberated." If he tried to lead the government in a health crisis, on the other hand, he might run the risk of making unpopular or inconvenient decisions.
Planning is hard. The government has only a limited ability to plan because knowledge of the virus is incomplete. Information about herd immunity, antibodies, vaccines and treatments all are evolving. Task forces of White House insiders have been assigned, but results are still elusive.
Pressure will increase for an economic recovery plan that takes the U.S. into next year. Will there be more stimulus spending, more deregulation, new programs and more corporate tax breaks — and if so, how much, when and for who? Nobody can say.
The White House issue with the CDC guidelines hints of difficult decisions being put off. The document suggested such measures as using disposable dishes at restaurants, spacing out seating in buses and trains, restricting transit between hot spots and unaffected areas and keeping school kids in separate groups. Trump aides saw some of these as too restrictive and as hindrances to the economy.
In fact, many of the states moving to "reopen" don't even meet the much looser measures recommended weeks ago by Trump's administration. Even when a broad plan is made, accountability is unclear.
Little seems to have changed since mid-April when Jack Chow, a U.S. ambassador on global HIV/AIDS during the George W. Bush administration, told The Washington Post that the Trump administration had yet to decide what the national recovery should look like.
“The whole response has been lagging the curve of the epidemic, and what ought to be happening is the designation of key strategic goals, key accomplishments that can happen within a specified timeline,” Chow said. “It sounds like they’re groping for that. There isn’t any clear direction as to what the strategic goals are in each different line of effort, and what the prospective timeline could be given the assets they have to deploy.”
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
