Even as his administration continues to push for nationwide Covid-19 policies and restrictions, President Joe Biden said on a phone call with governor that he agrees with Republicans who say that a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work.
Biden’s comments agreeing with Republicans came after GOP Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson cautioned the president against taking actions that would mitigate individual states’ abilities to implement policies that they see as most beneficial to fighting back against Covid-19.
“One word of concern or encouragement for your team is that as you look towards federal solutions that will help alleviate the challenge, make sure that we do not let federal solutions stand in the way of state solutions,” Hutchinson told Biden on the call.
“The production of 500 million rapid tests that will be distributed by the federal government is great, but obviously that dries up the supply chain for the solutions that we might offer as governor,” he said.
Biden appeared to agree with the Arkansas Republican.
“There is no federal solution. This gets solved at the state level,” Biden responded.
“I’m looking at [New Hampshire] Governor Sununu on the board here. He talks about that a lot,” Biden said. “And it ultimately gets down to where the rubber meets the road and that’s where the patient is in need of help or preventing the need for help.”
The president’s comments stand in stark contrast to his actual policies.
Biden has placed the federal government in a central role on pandemic mitigation measures, his Education Department has opened investigations into states for banning mask mandates in school, and the federal government continues to mandate masks in airports and other mass transit venues – including recently increasing fines for those that don’t comply.
The Biden administration is also going to the Supreme Court to defend its nationwide vaccine mandate for all businesses with 100 or more employees.
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6 Responses
Makes ZERO sense for the executive orders or the mandates. How can his statements not be taken seriously during next week’s appeal to the Supreme Court?
End this charade
“….The president’s comments stand in stark contrast to his actual policies….”
What policies? Biden has policies?
He just parroted off the wrong teleprompter.
From the very beginning, political leaders in the U.S. and around the world kept using political slogans and simplistic terms to characterize the seriousness of Covid 19 and government actions needed to “fight” the pandemic. From Trump’s early mindless assertions that Covid “would be gone” within a few months to Biden’s premature declaration of “victory” over the virus based on achieving constantly moving targets for vaccination, none of these forecasts had any basis in science or facts on the ground. Likewise, strategies for elimination infection including masking, vaccines, quarantines, etc were framed as “absolutes” rather than a collective group of actions that on the margin, would reduce rates of infection and hospitalizations but not “eliminate” the virus. Its time to muzzle the politicians and acknowledge that Covid is “here to stay” but there are a lot of things we can do to reduce its transmission and severity. EY seems ready to bite the bullet and say “we will have to learn to live with it”. Hopefully, the same reality will be reflected here in the U.S. sooner rather than later.
You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink. You can only suggest vaccination but you cannot force it.
The solution to the pandemic is medical. Government can help, by promoting the medical solution.
RebE > a horse to water but you can’t make them drink
But you can keep the horse in the stable so that it does not kick others. As Gadol is saying, unfortunately both “leaders” and populace approach this as political challenge rather than a public policy one that we can work on together and it is not working well. There is now leaked info about a group of scientists briefing (again) WH this fall, requesting buying billions of tests per month, as Europe does. They were politely listened to and rebuffed. Partially motivated by the notion that focus on testing will reduce motivation to vaccinate and also FDA obstinance that any tests has to be as good as PCR. This is a repeat of early “no need for masks as it will make people uncareful”. Somehow, science is being used for biological experiments, but politicians think that they know psychology and statistics themselves.