And Nero Fiddled While Rome Burned

November 20th, 2020 by Tom Lynch

Speaking on CBS this morning, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar said the delay in allowing President Elect Biden’s transition team to meet with Trump Administration health officials will cause no harm to anyone, because, “The same career professionals there on January 19th will be there on January 21st.” Hmmmm.

Have you ever had the exquisite experience of being part of a team buying a company? If you answered “yes” you know what that involves. Even if, as buyer, you intend to make no operational changes, which, admittedly, is rare, there is a lot to learn as you approach  the sale. Data rooms are complicated. So are the people you’ll be employing. What senior staff will you keep? Who will go? After you execute a Term Sheet, understanding product development, the logistics of distribution and the financial labyrinth will take time, usually more than a few months.

Suppose the company you’re buying is Amazon, the company owned by Jeff Bezos, the richest person in the world. Amazon’s reported operating expenses for the year ending 30 September 2020 were $328.04 billion. Try to wrap your head around how long such a purchase would take and what it would involve. It would be an awesome undertaking.

Now, think of the U.S. government. According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analyisis, U.S. expenditures for the 2019 fiscal year, ending 30 June 2020, were $7.3 trillion, a tad larger than Amazon’s operating expenses.

The 2021 budget for Health & Human Services, which runs 184 pages, calls for $1.3 trillion in spending; 1.2 trillion for mandatory programs like Medicare and Medicaid and $94 billion in discretionary spending.

We are engaged in two massive efforts: first, to control the spread of the novel coronavirus, and second, to vaccinate 330 million people as quickly as humanly possible – twice. Atul Gawande, a member of Biden’s Coronavirus Transition Team, in an interview following Azar’s, said roadblocks delaying the baton pass will, not could, cost lives, thousands of them. He said Azar’s claim that no one would be hurt by delaying the transition is “absolutely not true.”

Consider that Pfizer announced this morning that it will file for Emergency Use Authorization for its vaccine today. But the Biden team has had zero conversations with HHS. Not CDC, not FDA, not CMS, not NIH. Not a soul in government.

Meanwhile, back at the White House, Donald Trump remains out of sight, concentrating on manufacturing out-of-this-world conspiracy theories rather than on the job the Electoral College hired him to do in 2016. He’s giving the term “grasping at straws” an entirely new meaning. Nothing is too outlandish. Case in point: His fairy-tail spouting “Personal Lawyer’s” cringe-worthy press conference yesterday. Everything that comes out of Rudy Giuliani’s mouth these days is full of what makes the grass grow green and tall, but people are buying it.

This is sticking a very sharp knife into American Democracy.

According to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted from 13 to 17 November, 55% of Republicans surveyed think Donald Trump “rightfully won” the election, only to have it stolen from him by widespread voter fraud. Only 55% of all adults in the United States surveyed by the poll said they believed the Nov. 3 presidential election was “legitimate and accurate,” and 28% said they thought the election was “the result of illegal voting or election rigging,” which is up 12 points from four years ago. It is unfathomable why so many of our neighbors fixate on the rigged election theme with the intensity of devoted biblical scholars. They have become habituated to believing the rants that spew from Mr. Trump and his sycophant toadies. And in this case, old habits don’t so much as die hard, as they refuse to die at all.

One can only hope Joe Biden and his team, whenever they’re able to begin taking the reins of government, will find a way to clean America’s gaping societal wound and start the healing.

How optimistic about that are you?