Jared Kushner: Some Governors 'Better Managers Than Others'

"Some governors ... know to the number how many ventilators they have in their state, because that's the first thing a good manager will do."

"This is a time of crisis, and you're seeing certain people are better managers than others," says Jared Kushner. pic.twitter.com/QuliAKoMBb

— Trump War Room - Text TRUMP to 88022 (@TrumpWarRoom) April 3, 2020

Jared Kushner is absolutely right.

Some governors are falling short at this time of crisis.

On the matter of governors trying to shift blame for their own mismanagement, Jonathan Turley writes:

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo called on the federal government to take control of the medical supply market. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker demanded that President Trump take charge and said “precious months” were wasted waiting for federal action. Some critics are even more direct in demanding a federal takeover, including a national quarantine.

It is the legal version of panic shopping. Many seem to long for federal takeovers, if not martial law. Yet like all panic shopping, they are buying into far more than they need while not doing as much as they could with what they have. For decades, governors tried to retain principal authority over public emergencies, but they did very little with those powers. While many are doing impressive work now, some governors seem as eager to contain the blame as the coronavirus. Call it political distancing.

Even if Trump nationalized the crisis by deploying troops, imposing price controls, and forcing production of ventilators, the Constitution has left most police authority and public health safety to the states in our system of federalism. The Framers believed liberties and powers were safest when held closest to citizens in local and state governments. Elected officials at the local and state levels are more readily held accountable than unknown Washington bureaucrats. Of course, with authority comes responsibility, and the latter notion is not always as welcomed as the former.

Despite all the hyperbole of the last few days, the federal authority of the president to act is much more limited than many appear to believe. Trump cannot, and should not, simply take over the crisis. While he may want to “open for business” by Easter, he has no clear authority to lift state orders for citizens to stay at home. His greatest authority is supplying assistance in the production and delivery of necessary resources such as ventilators. While he can put conditions on some assistance, he cannot commandeer the authority of governors in their responses to the pandemic.

... The Federal Emergency Management Agency was not created until 1979. Its mandate was to coordinate national responses to assist state and local governments in disasters. It was never meant to shift control.

I was a critic of the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act adopted by states in 2002 as the way to respond to public emergencies from terrorist attacks to pandemics.

...My objection was that it seemed premised on the idea that the “best cure for terrorism may be a small dose of tyranny.”

...States remain in the best position to address emergencies, and such laws gave governors ample authority to act. But they did relatively little in the next two decades to prepare for public health emergencies. A New York Health Department task force report in 2015 has resurfaced, warning that the state faces a shortage of 15,000 ventilators in a pandemic. While the report did not call for stockpiling supplies, states clearly have not done enough, individually or collectively, to set aside such resources.

The Democrats/Leftists, like Cuomo, are desperately trying to blame President Trump for their own failures. THEY left their states unprepared.

As Kushner says, it's clear that some governors are better managers than others. President Trump and the federal government has had to pick up the governors' slack, but the states must assume responsibility for their lack of preparedness.

As Turley notes, "Unlike highly centralized European countries, our leaders have the ability to make far more tailored responses on a state by state basis. Each state can tailor its response to its individual threats or needs, and look to the federal government for badly needed resources."

Some Americans have reason to be disturbed with their governors.