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Comment by Noumenon72 | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand how you have identified this as the problem. Sure, states haven't coordinated on lockdowns, testing, or mask purchasing. But it's not because they're struggling against the federal government, it's because there's no official policy to coordinate with.

Seems to me like our main difficulty deviating from normal is the fact that a 20% decrease in demand kills off 10% of businesses within weeks and causes 20% of people to instantly get behind on their rent. There's no slack in the system.

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> it's not because they're struggling against the federal government

Actually, it is:

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/495519-maryland-gov...

“The National Guard and the State Police are both guarding these tests at an undisclosed location [because] the federal government seems to be interrupting supplies that are being sent elsewhere in the nation, and so I wanted to make sure that we received what we ordered,” [Illinois Gov. J.B.] Pritzker told reporters at an April 15 press conference.

I mean... your example is /true/, but I’m hard pressed to think of a second one. One example isn’t a trend.

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

"... the federal government is quietly seizing orders, leaving medical providers across the country in the dark about where the material is going and how they can get what they need to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. Hospital and clinic officials in seven states described the seizures in interviews over the past week." [Emphasis added]

Is that enough of a trend for you?

Sorry, I was unclear.

I meant that aside from the conflict over PPE - which has happened more than once - I am not aware of instances of the state and federal government working against one another.

https://twitter.com/warmh20penguin/status/124575849252841062...

Actually, there are two interstate pacts doing just that, coordinating their covid-19 response because they think the federal government is useless.

There's the Western States Pact (CA, OR, WA, NV, CO), and NY just announced an eastern states consortium (NY, NJ, MA, CT, PA, RI, DE).

Add to the fact that several states have had to take drastic measures like calling in their national guard to protect their own PPE shipments from being seized by federal agents, and it's hard not to argue that several states are in fact struggling against the federal government in a completely unprecedented way.

This is how things are supposed to work. The federal government is give very specific enumerated powers per the constitution. The founder are would be appalled by the size and scope of the federal government. One thing they did not account for was lack of loyalty people have towards their own state.

States are supposed to be using national guards to protect things they buy from seizure by the federal government?

Can you explain why you believe that?

The state militias are for stopping possible encroachments by the federal government. No the feds should not be seizing stuff. The state are supposed to check the fed, and the people check the state.

I have a hard time seeing what these pacts accomplish.

What's gained by coordinating Covid response in Spokane and Fresno?

Having any intelligently coordinated response at all?

So, concretely, what would Spokane and Fresno officials need to coordinate?

The federal government has been actively confiscating PPE shipments and doing who-knows-what with them. There were multiple stories about this, though they didn't grab many headlines. It's not even just competition, it's more like federal spite, with focus on blue states.

It’s more nuanced than that. As Gov Pritzker made public, states are having to bid against one another for PPE and driving up prices significantly because it’s every man (or woman) for themselves. He publicly castigated the federal government for not centralizing the acquisition of resources (which isn’t the same as footing the bill as they can allocate the materials (acquired at whatever better cost they can negotiate as a single buyer then) to states based off of population or need, ands charge them for them if they like.

If the feds did centralize acquisition and distribution all hell would break loose. Every allocation would be disputed and every allocation would be blamed on partisan allegiances.

The solution would be the states deciding among themselves who should get what, with the richer states being OK with getting less than they would otherwise get.

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