Why politicians can't just restart the economy

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Trump taunts Cuomo on Twitter amid debate over who has authority reopen states

President Trump says the New York governor's want for 'independence' won't happen; John Roberts reports from the White House.

The media uproar over the power struggle between the president and the governors may well be focused on the wrong question.

Whether President Trump can override the likes of Andrew Cuomo and Gavin Newsom and order their states open for business is a fascinating political and constitutional clash, but essentially beside the point.

In reality, it’s up to the people.

If they decide to stay home by the millions, no legal order can reverse that.

If they don’t feel comfortable going into department stores and pizzerias, those businesses will continue to crater.

If they don’t feel safe from the virus, no amount of political rhetoric can change that.

The stakes could hardly be higher with yesterday’s news that 22 million people have now applied for jobless benefits in just four weeks, numbers that the Washington Post says are reminiscent of the Great Depression. This is scary stuff. And the longer America is on lockdown, the greater the chances that some of those jobs--and businesses--are never coming back.

Trump told governors on a call Thursday that “you’re going to call your own shots”-- reversing his previous rhetoric, which caused an uproar--as the White House issued guidelines for gradually reopening the economy in phases. The idea is to protect the most vulnerable Americans and distinguish the hardest-hit areas, such as New York, from regions that are less affected by the virus. At an unusually sober briefing, Trump urged the governors to move swiftly, perhaps before May 1, and said 29 states could swing into action soon.

But that doesn’t mean, to paraphrase a baseball movie, if you open it they will come.

As a piece in the Dispatch puts it, “Most people just aren’t going to start piling into movie theaters and restaurants again until they’re confident they won’t be bringing a superbug back home with them.”

Here’s a bit of evidence:  “It wasn’t until March 15 that Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Cincinnati and New York City all officially announced that their bars and restaurants would be limited to takeout orders and delivery. But the day before those orders were announced, sales at restaurants in those cities had already dropped more than half from the same date a year earlier...Why? Because people were already choosing to stay home based on what they had learned about the pandemic regardless of what the government mandated.”

In a Gallup poll in early April, 71 percent said that if government lifted restrictions and businesses and schools were reopened, they would “wait and see what happens with the coronavirus before resuming” their daily activities. Another 20 percent said they would resume immediately, while 10 percent said they would continue to limit their contacts with other people indefinitely.

Andrew Cuomo made a nod in this direction yesterday while extending New York’s shutdown to May 15. “The policies I communicate are not worth the paper they are printed on,” the governor said, unless people voluntarily follow them, because there’s no way he can enforce them on 19 million people. Fortunately, he said, “people are choosing to do the right thing,” and that is helping to flatten the curve of the coronavirus.

The missing link here is testing. The delays and missteps in getting reliable testing up and running in the United States are depressing, and the upshot is that we’re flying blind. More than 3 million tests have been conducted, but that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the magnitude of the pandemic. With more than 645,000 confirmed cases and about 30,000 deaths in this country, we still don’t have a handle on how many people are sick and could potentially infect others.

That means reopening America for business prematurely could lead to a second wave of virus deaths over the summer once social distancing fades.

Meanwhile, the $349-billion loan fund created by Congress to bail out small businesses has already been depleted.

“A growing number of economists warn that recovering from the ‘Great Lockdown’ is going to take a long time, and millions of Americans are likely to remain out of a job through the end of the year,” the Post says. “Even after parts of the economy reopen, unless there is widespread testing or a vaccine, people are going to remain fearful of venturing out again to restaurants or offices, many experts say.”

And that is the heart of the crisis. Politicians have to offer their best judgment as to the gradual thawing of an economy that remains in a deep freeze. But having been told early on that the virus would not be a big problem, Americans are understandably wary of reassuring talk and are going to do what they think is best to protect themselves and their families. And that could keep the shutdown going for a painfully long period of time.