Trump Showing Favoritism?
- fionacsweet
- Aug 6, 2020
- 2 min read
President Donald Trump has agreed to continue paying the full amount for National Guard troops that have been deployed to help with COVID-19 in only two states - Texas and Florida - after their Republican governors directly appealed to him.
Unfortunately, this means that other states will have to pay a quarter of the cost of these deployments in their states, even though their governors had also requested the federal government pay the full cost. A White House official said Trump made an exception for Texas and Florida because he enjoys close relationships with the two governors and they made "special, direct cases to the President." In addition, Trump "is open to speaking with any governor from any state."
This new decision means that states with high numbers of cases (such as California and Arizona) will only see 3/4 of these costs covered by the federal government. The cost share means millions more in spending. Democrats pushed back on this, stating that the President was showing favoritism. Noam Lee, executive director of the Democratic Governors Association said, "With American lives at risk, the President is continuing to manipulate our nation's pandemic response to benefit his own political fortunes. The National Guard deployments are the latest development in the partisan games the President has played with states seeking critical supplies and aid."
Mr. Lee has a point as the White House official did not point to any specific situations in those two states that influenced Trump's decision, but instead pointed only to their appeals to the President. However, the National Governors Association said governors nationwide asked for the extension in calls with the White House, including with Trump and Pence. Pence has recently stated that he knows Trump "is carefully reviewing requests" and that he would say "to any governor that has not formalized a request to send something to your regional representative before the end of the business day."
Trump appears to want to make a public show of others thanking him for coronavirus assistance, and it fits in with his agenda if he helps back the people that support him. I am curious to see if he accepts any other state's requests for full funding of the national guard, and which states those will be. If we begin to see a large party divide in the states he chooses versus the ones left out, then I think we have even greater reason to be concerned. We have a President who cares infinitely more about himself and what happens to him than to his people. Him cutting off funding to 48 states when their budgets are already increasingly strained will affect his people who need medical help. Instead of being worried about increased number of people dying, he is only worried about his reelection chances. And that, my friends, is the tea.
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