[76lsjumb]

Also, given that so much of the pandemic response has been executed by federal agencies, it seems that Congress does not at all shoulder the responsibility to direct federal agencies into action to combat the pandemic.  Congress does not have executive oversight over the CDC or HHS, so the focus on Congress as an actor is inappropriate and inaccurate.

Wow... 47 years after I took PoliSci 10, I find out Professor Horn was WRONG!  Here I always thought, to quote Wikipedia: "The Constitution also grants Congress exclusively the power to appropriate funds. This power of the purse is one of Congress' primary checks on the executive branch."

Of course, everyone knows that you can't believe everything you read on Wikipedia.  But, still, I always thought -- 'cause I learned it at Stanford -- that anything the federal government did that needed money -- particularly vast amounts of money at levels, and for purposes, never before appropriated -- required at least some action by Congress.  Apparently not, though, since Congress shoulders no responsibility.

---

It's not too hard to imagine a different president going to congress on January 21st, when the first case of coronavirus was detected in the US or January 30, when the first person-to-person spread in the US was confirmed or January 31st, when HHS issued it's public health emergency.  I have no idea if it would have made a difference, but having more money for testing and medical supplies on February 11th rather than March 6 would not have hurt.



BC

Actually BC, I find it hard to imagine any president doing that for several reasons. The main one is that we have not experienced this kind of epidemic in a very long time, like 100 years. The President would have had to believe things were going to get real bad real fast. At that point, virtually nobody believed that. Maybe they should have, but they didn't. Trying to convince congress in February to appropriate a bunch of money would have been difficult no matter who the President was. With this President and his poison relationship with the House, no chance. The main reason it would have been difficult is that any President would have had to answer the question "To do what?". At that point, we didn't know. Ventilators? PPE? Nasal Swabs? At that point, these thing weren't even on the radar. Everybody was FDH. Congress didn't have any idea what was coming. The president would have to have a fairly detailed program to lay out, which wasn't easily available. For these reasons, I think that no President was going to move that early, and if he did, it wouldn't pass.

The data available on January 31st was enough for HHS to declare a public health emergency and for the president to issue travel restrictions to Asia, but not, in your telling to ask for a supplemental appropriation to fight the threat that had already made it onshore.  This makes no sense.  He easily could have asked for money to fund the development of testing and research, and to fill up the strategic reserve of ventilators and PPE.  In the best case scenario, where COVID-19 winds up being a "nothingburger", that money is still useful; it seems pretty clear that humans are susceptible to coronaviridae (SARS, MERS, and now COVID-19), so that money would not have been wasted.

Maybe if Trump had asked and congress failed to appropriate the money, we would be sitting here complaining about congressional inaction instead of presidential responsibility.  But Trump never asked so we won't get to see the counterfactual.  He issued the travel restrictions and proclaimed we had won.  Now, maybe that's a call that 9 out of the last 10 presidents would have made as well, but leadership is making the call that most others will fail to make.  And Trump failed to make it.

BC

Talk about "bizarre counterfactuals" [as someone previously mentioned]!  He was being impeached on January 31.  All that anyone was talking about, morning, noon, and night, was impeachment.  The notion of people -- particularly Nancy Pelosi and her gang -- paying attention to Trump asking for something like this in that time frame is simply not credible.  Maybe he should have done it. fine. I'll grant you that he screwed up bigly in not doing so.  But you will never convince me that, had he done so, Congress would have jumped into action and done any of that stuff.  To claim that would have happened, is, at least in my opinion, the most bizarre counterfactual of all.

---

https://www.newsday.com/news/health/coro...1.44354247

WASHINGTON — White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Sunday said the Trump Administration was taking a “pause” on pushing Congress for additional coronavirus relief packages as President Donald Trump’s senior advisers await the economic impact of nearly $3 trillion in stimulus dollars that have been approved by Congress so far.

"...as President Donald Trump’s senior advisers await the economic impact on poll numbers of nearly $3 trillion in stimulus dollars that have been approved by Congress so far."

Fixed it.

Paging Mr. PeteFloresJr to call someone on the carpet for speculating as to what someone else is thinking...  :-)

[76lsjumb]

Also, given that so much of the pandemic response has been executed by federal agencies, it seems that Congress does not at all shoulder the responsibility to direct federal agencies into action to combat the pandemic.  Congress does not have executive oversight over the CDC or HHS, so the focus on Congress as an actor is inappropriate and inaccurate.

Wow... 47 years after I took PoliSci 10, I find out Professor Horn was WRONG!  Here I always thought, to quote Wikipedia: "The Constitution also grants Congress exclusively the power to appropriate funds. This power of the purse is one of Congress' primary checks on the executive branch."

Of course, everyone knows that you can't believe everything you read on Wikipedia.  But, still, I always thought -- 'cause I learned it at Stanford -- that anything the federal government did that needed money -- particularly vast amounts of money at levels, and for purposes, never before appropriated -- required at least some action by Congress.  Apparently not, though, since Congress shoulders no responsibility.

---

It's not too hard to imagine a different president going to congress on January 21st, when the first case of coronavirus was detected in the US or January 30, when the first person-to-person spread in the US was confirmed or January 31st, when HHS issued it's public health emergency.  I have no idea if it would have made a difference, but having more money for testing and medical supplies on February 11th rather than March 6 would not have hurt.



BC

Actually BC, I find it hard to imagine any president doing that for several reasons. The main one is that we have not experienced this kind of epidemic in a very long time, like 100 years. The President would have had to believe things were going to get real bad real fast. At that point, virtually nobody believed that. Maybe they should have, but they didn't. Trying to convince congress in February to appropriate a bunch of money would have been difficult no matter who the President was. With this President and his poison relationship with the House, no chance. The main reason it would have been difficult is that any President would have had to answer the question "To do what?". At that point, we didn't know. Ventilators? PPE? Nasal Swabs? At that point, these thing weren't even on the radar. Everybody was FDH. Congress didn't have any idea what was coming. The president would have to have a fairly detailed program to lay out, which wasn't easily available. For these reasons, I think that no President was going to move that early, and if he did, it wouldn't pass.

The data available on January 31st was enough for HHS to declare a public health emergency and for the president to issue travel restrictions to Asia, but not, in your telling to ask for a supplemental appropriation to fight the threat that had already made it onshore.  This makes no sense.  He easily could have asked for money to fund the development of testing and research, and to fill up the strategic reserve of ventilators and PPE.  In the best case scenario, where COVID-19 winds up being a "nothingburger", that money is still useful; it seems pretty clear that humans are susceptible to coronaviridae (SARS, MERS, and now COVID-19), so that money would not have been wasted.

Maybe if Trump had asked and congress failed to appropriate the money, we would be sitting here complaining about congressional inaction instead of presidential responsibility.  But Trump never asked so we won't get to see the counterfactual.  He issued the travel restrictions and proclaimed we had won.  Now, maybe that's a call that 9 out of the last 10 presidents would have made as well, but leadership is making the call that most others will fail to make.  And Trump failed to make it.

BC

Talk about "bizarre counterfactuals" [as someone previously mentioned]!  He was being impeached on January 31.  All that anyone was talking about, morning, noon, and night, was impeachment.  The notion of people -- particularly Nancy Pelosi and her gang -- paying attention to Trump asking for something like this in that time frame is simply not credible.  Maybe he should have done it. fine. I'll grant you that he screwed up bigly in not doing so.  But you will never convince me that, had he done so, Congress would have jumped into action and done any of that stuff.  To claim that would have happened, is, at least in my opinion, the most bizarre counterfactual of all.

---

https://www.newsday.com/news/health/coro...1.44354247

WASHINGTON — White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Sunday said the Trump Administration was taking a “pause” on pushing Congress for additional coronavirus relief packages as President Donald Trump’s senior advisers await the economic impact of nearly $3 trillion in stimulus dollars that have been approved by Congress so far.

"...as President Donald Trump’s senior advisers await the economic impact on poll numbers of nearly $3 trillion in stimulus dollars that have been approved by Congress so far."

Fixed it.

Paging Mr. PeteFloresJr to call someone on the carpet for speculating as to what someone else is thinking...  :-)