George W Bush built stockpile for pandemic, warned of not keeping it stocked.

[toobfreak]

And Trump had 3 years to build it up. What did he do besides blame Obama?

Obama had 8, Coyote.

No excuses.

But this is about Trump. The only responses seem to be deflection.

No, it's just another bullshit loaded faux clever "question" intended to solicit a desired outcome rather than any honest answer because there is only one answer you'll accept as valid.

 

[Coyote]

And Trump had 3 years to build it up. What did he do besides blame Obama?

Obama had 8, Coyote.

No excuses.

But this is about Trump. The only responses seem to be deflection.

Because Obama had ample time to fix this before it got out of hand.

He had two health crises hit during his administration. What did he do? Instead of properly equipping our healthcare professionals and minding the stores (our stockpile) he spent the first 2 years of his term focused solely on passing healthcare reform. None of it included funding for replenishing our strategic reserves in case of a pandemic like this one.

Where is your ire for Obama lacking the foresight to prepare our country for this?

What did he do, Coyote?

First off - that is no excuse.

However, Obama was not solely responsible for the current shortage of masks. In the three years Trump had control - the stockpile was not replenished.

Why did the Trump administration fail to heed warnings that dramatic shortages could occur?

The only thing folks have come up with is "but Obama". Obama's gone. Trump has had three years to fix it.

Trump had 3 years.

 

[Coyote]

And Trump had 3 years to build it up. What did he do besides blame Obama?

Obama had 8, Coyote.

No excuses.

But this is about Trump. The only responses seem to be deflection.

No, it's just another bullshit loaded faux clever "question" intended to solicit a desired outcome rather than any honest answer because there is only one answer you'll accept as valid.

I don't have a pre-set answer.

Just a question you refuse to answer.

Why did Trump not replenish stocks during his 3 years in office?

 

[TemplarKormac]

But this is about Trump.

Of course. It's always about him. He's always to blame for everything. You blame him for everything just like the neo cons blame Obama for everything.

He didn't cause a pandemic. He wasn't responsible for our being unprepared. Given what we heard from Bush in 2005, he knew about it and presumably did nothing. Obama knew about it and did nothing, for all that focus on healthcare, he did nothing in this context.

 

[TemplarKormac]

However, Obama was not solely responsible for the current shortage of masks. In the three years Trump had control - the stockpile was not replenished.

Curious, you're behaving as if Trump is solely responsible for this. Every president for the past 30 years had control and did nothing about the stockpile.

 

[TemplarKormac]

So, if you want to be technical, every president since Clinton shares blame for not having any foresight into a potential crisis like this one.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Why did the Trump administration fail to heed warnings that dramatic shortages could occur?

Why didn't Obama? Why didn't Bush, or Clinton? Why are we so focused on pinning the blame on someone?

 

[Coyote]

But this is about Trump.

Of course. It's always about him. He's always to blame for everything. You blame him for everything just like the neo cons blame Obama for everything.

He didn't cause a pandemic. He wasn't responsible for our being unprepared. Given what we heard from Bush in 2005, he knew about it and presumably did nothing. Obama knew about it and did nothing, for all that focus on healthcare, he did nothing in this context.

Hold on.

I'm not blaming him for the pandemic.

He IS however, responsible for us being unprepared on the national level. That is HIS JOB as President.

Now, replenishing stocks requires funding, which Congress can refuse to give - BUT - for two years Congress was in Republican control so partisan squabbling should not even have been an issue.

The Obama administration walked Trump's aids through a pandemic exercise:
The Obama administration walked incoming Trump administration officials through a hypothetical scenario in which a pandemic worse than the 1918 Spanish flu shut down cities like Seoul and London in early 2017, Politico reported.

During the briefing, Trump administration officials were told such a pandemic would likely lead to circumstances such as shortages of ventilators and that a coordinated national response would be “paramount,” according to documents obtained by the publication.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Moreover, why weren't the states prepared for this? The federal government is a separate entity from the states. The states are sovereign, yet they made no allowances in their budgets to prepare for crises like this one.

In all, it was a failure shared by all. Not just Trump himself.

 

[Hellokitty]

TRUMP was trying to do better than replace the stock that Obama used up, TRUMP was trying to bring back manufacturing of these critical items. It's just to bad democrats, MSM and many republicans fought against TRUMP on issues of trade.

 

[Coyote]

So, if you want to be technical, every president since Clinton shares blame for not having any foresight into a potential crisis like this one.

Not exactly.

If a president is warned about the potential of something, then it is his job to assess the veracity of it, the threat level, and then to create policies/programs/stockpiles to address it should it happen.

Governors in states with hurricanes are aware that though they may not know when a hurricane might hit, eventually it will. They are responsible at the top level for ensuring that things are in place should one hit. Ultimately failures are occur at many different levels, but it all comes down to the Governor at the end - the buck stops here.

 

[TemplarKormac]

He IS however, responsible for us being unprepared on the national level. That is HIS JOB as President.

Explain how we were unprepared. We have 330,000 cases, yet only 10,000 deaths. Would Obama have fared any better?

The Obama administration walked Trump's aids through a pandemic exercise:
The Obama administration walked incoming Trump administration officials through a hypothetical scenario in which a pandemic worse than the 1918 Spanish flu shut down cities like Seoul and London in early 2017, Politico reported.

And yet still, Obama did nothing in the 8 years prior to replenish the stockpile. It was just as much his responsibility as it is Trump's.

 

[Montrovant]

Moreover, why weren't the states prepared for this? The federal government is a separate entity from the states. The states are sovereign, yet they made no allowances in their budgets to prepare for crises like this one.

In all, it was a failure shared by all. Not just Trump himself.

Plenty of blame to go around. Also a lot of 20/20 hindsight being used. I agree that this is a non-partisan issue; neither party did a lot to prepare for this sort of situation. To be fair, I don't know how many people thought something of this magnitude was likely to happen, either.

 

[TemplarKormac]

If a president is warned about the potential of something, then it is his job to assess the veracity of it, the threat level, and then to create policies/programs/stockpiles to address it should it happen.

Fact is, none of them did. But seems to me that Trump is bearing all the blame for this. Even if he could have, he wouldn't have been able to. Being constantly obstructed by political opposition in Congress made sure he could get very little done in those 3 years.

Moreover, the Democrats in neither house had enough foresight to propose legislation addressing this issue. So why is it just Trump?

 

[Coyote]

Moreover, why weren't the states prepared for this? The federal government is a separate entity from the states. The states are sovereign, yet they made no allowances in their budgets to prepare for crises like this one.

In all, it was a failure shared by all. Not just Trump himself.

Only in part.

Each has their responsibilities. States need to do all they can to prepare (and I don't actually know if they did nor did not, there are 50 states, and I won't assume none prepared) - but states do not have the resources of the federal government when it comes to disasters. That's why we have FEMA and such.

If something was known to have been a problem - for example the Trump administration knew from an exercise the Obama administration walked them through, that ventilators, masks etc would be needed in large numbers - what do you do?

First, it would seem that this information is given to the President.

Who then does two things: makes sure that state governors are aware and make sure that the federal stockpiles are in place in case it overruns state resources. Not mention broader emergency planning.

Now I don't know what the governors knew, were aware of, or planned for - that's pretty broad, but some were caught flatfooted. But so was Trump.

And the President - as the Top of the Food Chain, is also the one who must ultimately take responsibility. Not blame everyone else. That is leadership. Heads may roll later, but responsibility ultimately lies at the top.

 

[TemplarKormac]

If something was known to have been a problem - for example the Trump administration knew from an exercise the Obama administration walked them through, that ventilators, masks etc would be needed in large numbers - what do you do?

Once again, if the Obama administration knew about the need to have sufficient stores of ventilators, masks, gowns, gloves, and etc... why didn't it do anything? You can spend many sunny days discussing hypotheticals. Or you can spend them preparing for the coming storm.

 

[Coyote]

If a president is warned about the potential of something, then it is his job to assess the veracity of it, the threat level, and then to create policies/programs/stockpiles to address it should it happen.

Fact is, none of them did. But seems to me that Trump is bearing all the blame for this. Even if he could have, he wouldn't have been able to. Being constantly obstructed by political opposition in Congress made sure he could get very little done in those 3 years.

Moreover, the Democrats in neither house had enough foresight to propose legislation addressing this issue. So why is it just Trump?

I don't buy the "obstruction" excuse. Obama was obstructed for 8 years, the first two of which, he had Congress on his side. Trump had Congress for two of his three years.

I'm not sure legislation is needed that doesn't already exist so much as a national plan. I also don't know exactly what was in place as a plan to deal with this sort of scenario except that they were aware of the possibility of it if not the reality.

As to why "just" Trump? It isn't "just" Trump. But Trump is the one person who will take NO responsibility for failure, and some of it is on him.

 

[Coyote]

If something was known to have been a problem - for example the Trump administration knew from an exercise the Obama administration walked them through, that ventilators, masks etc would be needed in large numbers - what do you do?

Once again, if the Obama administration knew about the need to have sufficient stores of ventilators, masks, gowns, gloves, and etc... why didn't it do anything? You can spend many sunny days discussing hypotheticals. Or you can spend them preparing for the coming storm.

Obama is out of office. This occurred during Trump. Why didn't he spend them preparing for the coming storm?

 

[TemplarKormac]

And the President - as the Top of the Food Chain, is also the one who must ultimately take responsibility. Not blame everyone else. That is leadership. Heads may roll later, but responsibility ultimately lies at the top.

Of course, Trump must always take responsibility, according to you, not because you care about him taking responsibility, but hoping any fault on his part will result in his downfall.

Is this simply because you don't like him? Is this what's driving your concern, Coyote?

Please tell me that's not true.

I don't buy the "obstruction" excuse. Obama was obstructed for 8 years, the first two of which, he had Congress on his side. Trump had Congress for two of his three years.

Obama had filibuster proof majorities in both houses until 2010. Ample time for him to coalesce his party around a solid plan for preparing our country for a potential pandemic. In Trump's case he had two parties opposing him. BOTH of them. They were too concerned about his character to work with him on anything productive. Or to consider what good he could do for our country.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Obama is out of office. This occurred during Trump. Why didn't he spend them preparing for the coming storm?

When you have 8 years, and you waste them on everything else instead of being prepared for the future, who are you going to blame? The future president or the past one?

Obama had H1N1. He did very little to prepare us for the future. Tens of thousands of people died. But he got nothing but praise from people of your ideological persuasion.

Sooner or later, you won't be able to reach high enough for that bar you're setting for him.