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Parkinson Talks The Government's Response

Lori Walsh: President Donald Trump, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Governor Kristi Noem, your local city council and mayor, the Centers for Disease Control, the State Department of Health. Next we're talking about government response during emergencies. Chuck Parkinson is host of SDPB's Where Do We Go From Here, and he's joining us now, with insight into and experience into what we can expect from our government now, and how that system works and responds. Chuck Parkinson, welcome. Thanks for being here.

Chuck Parkinson: Thanks, Lori.

Lori Walsh: I want to help people understand a little bit of your experience in this area. If they know you from Where Do We Go From Here, there's a whole lot of background about you and your efforts, your experience with federal government and such. Give us a little bit of a background please.

Chuck Parkinson: Okay, thanks. I started, was lucky enough to join the staff of Congressman Jim Abner in 1975, and worked for him for a couple of years. And then I worked for three years on the professional staff at the House Veterans Affairs Committee. Then I worked for 14 years as the staff director of a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee. I then also was appointed by President Reagan to be Associate Commissioner to the United States Customs Service, and was reappointed to that job by President George H.W. Bush. And then I returned back and spent the last five years of my professional life working for Congress as the counselor to the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. And then I also spent time in the outside world as a consultant and a lobbyist, dealing with members of the administration, and also with members of Congress.

Lori Walsh: As we have seen this pandemic unfold then, based on your experience and what you're watching now, give us an outline. What are some of the important things we should pay attention to, to how government responds in emergency situations like that?

Chuck Parkinson: I think one of the things that, the bottom line is here, is there's an old adage that's existed for a long time, and that's two things that people shouldn't watch, and one is making sausage, and the other is making laws. The republic, our democracy, was not created to be a quick moving organization. It was created to have debate. It was created to have discussion. But to back up a little bit further on this, is that things people should know is that every department and every major agency of the federal government has a planning and preparedness organization.

And four times in the last three years, or yeah, three times in the last four years, during last year of the Obama administration and the first three years of the Trump administration, the Department of Health and Human Services has run three major pandemic tests. And they do this periodically and go through things.

The Department of Defense started doing this back in 1973, where they created a net assessment organization. But the most recent was, when president Trump took office, the HHS had run a long study looking at pandemics. And they presented that to the incoming members of the cabinet, to include the secretaries of defense, the secretary of energy, the secretary of HHS, secretary of treasury. And unfortunately, all of those people were either fired or moved on.

And then twice since the Trump administration has taken office, including just last year, where they ran one that lasted for eight months, from January through August, that involved 12 agencies within the federal government, 12 states, to include New York and Illinois, and several health organizations, such as the American Red Cross, hospitals, like the Mayo Clinic were involved. And they used a flu pandemic as an idea, and ran it all the way through.

What happened to that when it happened, members of the administration in the White House were briefed on that, but it never really went to anything. And then you had a situation where they were calling on the case, that we were not prepared. And I was listening to your earlier conversation, and from a health perspective, we've underfunded health perspective things for years. And as a result, the denial that this thing was really just a flu, or the cold, or that sort of thing, set us back an incredible margin from that standpoint.

And I don't think actually that ... fault lies with a lot of areas. Fault lies with the president, lies with the Congress for not moving, and for underfunding for last year's public health opportunity for a number of years. But quite frankly, we, as a government, react to things. We're not very proactive on things. And as a result, I think we're seeing that now, is the fact is, we're a reactionary situation, and unfortunately, the consequences are coming to pass.

Lori Walsh: Let's talk a little bit, if you will, about, it can be kind of like watching a tennis match, or a car accident, of how quickly things go back and ... You've got President Trump arguing with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, about who's response ... Cuomo was saying, "I need the Army Corps of Engineers to build hospitals." Governor Kristi Noem reportedly said to President Trump, "We don't want to be forgotten out here."

Governor Kristi Noem is stopping short of requiring mayors and communities to close down non-essential businesses. And some of those people in smaller towns are saying, "Boy, it would really be helpful if she just said, "This is what we're going to do," because we're making our own decisions, and people are saying, "If the governor doesn't think that's necessary, why should we be suffering through the loss of business here?" So my broader question, Chuck, is whose responsibility is some of this? And are you seeing what the rest of us are seeing, that feels like a passing of the buck, or an unwillingness to stand up and take a stand, and say, "This is the leadership that's needed right now. Do this."

Chuck Parkinson: Yes, I agree. And I think a lot of it goes back to the fact that the question that was asked of the president 10 days ago, and he said, "I'm not responsible for this. It falls upon the states. Go out and get it." And we're not having that federal oversight, that big picture thing. This is a national crisis. And it needs that leadership that steps up. And it needs the coordination from the president to governors to mayors.

And for governors and mayors to be out here on their own trying, and when the president said, "Well, states go out and compete for these things." We have the National Defense Production Act, which has been talked a lot about, but it gives incredible powers to the President of the United States to engage. And we have not utilized that up to this point.

And the President said, "It's like nationalizing businesses." It is not nationalizing businesses. It's not Venezuela, where the government takes control. The government has the option of working with those companies. They can give them loans. They can do contracts with them. They can purchase stuff with them.

But one of the things that it does, is it gives the federal government, when it's put in place, the ability to say, "These things are going there. These are the priorities where they need to go. You cannot be selling to foreign interests with your products. You may have outstanding contracts, but we're going to protect you from that. We need these things to go here, there and everywhere else." And rather than selling them to a big private organization, like just taking the fact where we have a big stake in this in South Dakota, because 3M has plants in Brookings and Aberdeen that produce these very things that are in the shortage, and they've been running 24/7 for a number of weeks now, trying to produce those sorts of things.

And we need that leadership at the top level to work with the governors. And unfortunately, what is happening, that coordination, it doesn't appear to be there. And when we're seeing arguments between, say Governor Cuomo and the President about these sorts of things, and Governor Noem made a great point, is don't forget us. We may be out here in the middle of nowhere and didn't, as of yesterday we had the fewest number of positives, but it went up, go a third, in one day, and it's going to go up considerably more.

And I think that the one thing that does exist, is the 10th amendment to the Constitution, gives the states the right to do certain things. And if the feds are not acting, the governors can do that. I have great respect for Mayor Steve Allender in Rapid City, who actually this last week, you know we have to have an ordinance for him to do things. But they're expediting that. The city council voted to close pretty basically, and make some of those steps that are going to protect the people at this case.

But for us to be having to work on our own, without that coordinated federal, state and local, is very difficult. The one thing I think we need to remember is, there's been a lot of back and forth going on the bills for funding, for different things. I want everybody to remember, these are our tax dollars. And they should be going to the people that need them. And that's why, I think, you've seen the back and forth to a little degree. And one of the things that we learned from back in 2008 with the bailout, that was $800 billion, there was no oversight. And basically, classic examples, what the airlines did, is they used over the last 10 years, they've spent 96% of their profits on buying back stocks.

And another glaring deficiency was, those companies that received some of that, $180 million of that went to executive bonuses. And I'm concerned where my tax money is going. And I think one of the things that was part of the debate, was the original $500 million quote in bailout money to big business, there were no restrictions, or no conditions of any kind. And finally, the final agreement, which going back and forth came out, there now is going to be an independent inspector general and an oversight committee that's going to look at that.

But one of the original provisions in the Senate bill that that was being promoted by the administration was, that there would be $500 billion available, and they didn't need to report to Congress for at least six months as to where the money went. That's our money. And the one thing, and having spent a lot of time, the whole role, besides enacting laws by the Congress, is to do oversight on how our funds are being spent. No money can be spent according to article one, section nine, without Congress appropriating it. And Congress is part of that, has the ability, and has the responsibility to do oversight on how the executive branch of the government is spending our money.

Quite frankly, I think one of the things we've seen over the last three years, is there's been very little oversight. And part of that reason is the current administration has refused to send people to testify before Congress on a whole myriad of things. And we've gotten to such a political divide on ideology. My whole hope in this thing is maybe this will ... We're all human beings, and we all have a common interest here, and hopefully this will bring back that political divide, back to, get it a little bit closer, so we can work together.

I can tell you from my experience, I never dealt with, when I worked for the Appropriations Committee, with an issue this large, as far as an emergency goes. But some of the discussions that you can have between members can get pretty acrimonious, and because they have strong feelings about issues. But in the end, they always came together to do what I think was the right thing.Were there mistakes? Sure. Mistakes were made. But they move quickly to do things. I know people wanted to be sure that the emergency package would have wished it could have been done 10 days ago. But there were a lot of things that needed to be discussed, and the most important thing is to get it right. And now one of the things I think that people don't

The staff that's been working on this, has been part of the negotiations, now have to write that language, and it takes a little bit of time to do that. I know the Senate hopes to vote this afternoon. I'm not sure where the House is going to be on this, but this always comes a cry, "Well, we're going to vote on something we haven't seen."

Well I hate to break it to people, but Congress has often voted on massive bills that they haven't had a chance to read everything through. But you've got to trust the process, and the people who have been designated to make those negotiations, that they did right by them. Is it going to include everything everybody wants? No. But it is going to be a step in the first direction. And to be honest, I think we're going to see more activities as this moves around, because I don't believe this is going away any time soon.

Lori Walsh: I want to ask you about two things before I let you go. And one is, in President Trump's message yesterday to the nation, which is, "This is not a nation that was designed to be shut down. We need to get open for business as soon as possible." And also what Vice President Pence is really hammering home, about the public private partnership. So my question for you is how quickly, there seems to be consensus that the government moved too slowly with testing. That was a major misstep with huge consequences. There seems to be a consensus that people have been taken off guard, that there were under investments in healthcare and other places. How fast can we pivot to do some of the things? How much power is behind the American business economy and the American government to adapt quickly and save lives?

Chuck Parkinson: Well, there's been cases, but basically these sorts of things, I kind of look at as like a ship at sea. They just don't make a quick turn. It's going to take a little bit of time, but it's got to take, both sides are going to have to give a little bit to this point, both on the business community, and on the government.

But I think the one thing is underlying here, is that we are in an economic downturn. It's a crisis in the minds of lives. And there are a lot of people who are not going to work as a result of this. But we have a severe health crisis. And the health crisis, in my mind, is driving the economic problem at this point. To arbitrarily pick a date, like the day after Easter, just put everybody back to work, when we have no idea which turn these things are going to take, is going to be very difficult.

Do we need to take steps to make sure that critical things are taken care of out there? Certainly. But the most important thing, to me, is human life. And if we're going to take steps to put a lot more people at ... we've got to be very ... you know, listen to the health officials to this degree. This is not a political problem. This is a health issue. You got to pull everybody up. And everybody's got to be involved in the decision making process, has got to be one of those. And any step we could make to keep fewer people from being infected is important. And those are hard decisions to make. And we need to take care of the vulnerable. We need to help those people who are out of work. We need to make whatever financial help we could give any business out there.

And I think there are a lot of things. I haven't seen the final package that's going to be passed. But I know it includes a lot of things to help small businesses, to help individuals. The one thing I think is very important, to get money out, is to the expansion of unemployment benefits. And not only for the people who have traditionally been involved through unemployment, but it's my understanding that it's the gig economy also, the people out there who are not, who haven't been covered by unemployment insurance before. They're now going to be, that's going to be available. And I think that's going to help things.

But the thing is, underlying is the fact, that if people can't get out to spend that money, businesses are going to suffer. But we have to be very cautious to protect human life here in this particular situation. And I am much more confident in the medical community helping make these decisions than I am the political community making these decisions.

Lori Walsh: What gives you the most hope right now, today?

Chuck Parkinson: Most help right now is that we're going to pull together like we always do. Suzanne and I have a daughter who is in her last year of PA school. She's quite concerned about where things are, but she's optimistic that things are going to be there. And we're concerned as parents, because she's going to be on the front lines, just like the heroes in this whole thing are the nurses and the medical people out there that are putting their life, they're leaving their families every day, and also the folks at the grocery stores who are going to work every day, and providing us with the sustenance we need, and the long haul truck drivers.

We're going to pull together on this. And like I said earlier, I'm hopeful that this will help close some of the political divide we see, and we'll move in a direction where it's hopeful that, problem solving, we do pretty well in this country. Sometimes it's messy, but I think we're going to get there in the end.

Lori Walsh: Chuck Parkinson, thank you so much. We'll check in with you again as the stories continue to unfold. We appreciate your time.

Chuck Parkinson: I appreciate it, Lori. Please do. I'm available anytime.