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s9w

> Trump officials have talked a lot about

> President Trump consistently ignores

> Trump administration downplays

top notch "journalism"

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Can you refute what they are saying?

The tone of the article is clearly biased. There was a time when journalism was about facts and not feelings.

This is "orange man bad" level

Honestly, your comment does a better job of describing your original and follow up posts more then the article.

Your original post pulled the following: "Still, President Trump consistently ignores that reality." This statement in the article is then followed up with facts on the current situation. It's pretty fine journalism.

Really? That is absolutely not fine. The follow up is the trump quote "We've opened up factories". That has no direct connection to people unable finding masks. So the "ignores that reality" is completely unfounded. That formulation in itself is highly unprofessional, no matter what it is about. Contrasting his "ignoring" with "reality" is framing his actions as self-evidently wrong. And the word consistent implies that he is always wrong. That's at least three reasons why this sentence alone is nothing but propaganda.

They're not wrong.

I mean it is an NPR article.

Im also wondering... There's been a lot of criticism of federal folks and their reaction to covid. But what's about the states? They still have pretty wide powers and should have intervened.

Isn't it within the power of individual states to stimulate manufacturing of masks.

Stimulate, yes. Mandate, no. The Feds have special powers that are tailor-made for this sort of disaster, that aren't being used effectively.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Production_Act_of_1950

Most of the options for states would involve subsidies, which they can't really do as they can't run deficits, and are seeing tanking tax revenue.

I guess it really depends on what you mean by "stimulating" manufacturing. They're only recourse, really, is to make purchases of the equipment (does increased demand count as stimulating?). The federal government, and only the federal government, has the power to compel industries to manufacture under the Defense Production Act.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Production_Act_of_1950

This was a major point of contention at the beginning of the outbreak in the US. Governor's were lobbying the feds to invoke the act, although the administration declined to do so. The end result was that states were competing with each other for heavily inflated PPE costs. In some cases, the feds themselves were outbidding states.

https://news.wbfo.org/post/cuomo-asks-federal-defense-produc...

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-04-07/hospitals-...

But somehow China manages to stimulate its' manufacturing without involving wartime laws. I don't know how they do it, but may be the US needs a bit of the same too.

What powers would those be? AFAIK there’s no state level Defense Production Act, for example.

If you mean just putting out guaranteed orders, not every state has the capacity to manufacture PPE, even fewer have money to pay for it.

One might suggest that multiple states get together and induce manufacturing in the states where they have capacity. We did that. It’s called the federal government, and it’s choosing not to utilize those powers.

Offer them tax abatements and regulatory easement? At the very least, it means more local jobs, which should incentivize states & municipalities to compete for such plants.

There is one fundamental difference. States don't control the currency. The federal government can print money to solve this issue. States can't, they can only raise taxes.

Such unfair moderation. The author of this article has a whole string of anti-Trump pieces up at the npr.org site. He left out a lot of pertinent information, like the new Pennsylvania plant that's just started up. Furthermore, he's no medical expert. I'm disappointed in NPR for publishing such a puff piece.

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