First Corona virus death in U.S. February 29, 2020

Cases of a new virus from Wuhan, China, were being reported all over the world, and the few in the U.S. involved foreign travel. These were cases, not fatalities. 

On January 29, 2020 the President's Coronavirus Task Force it was established.

On January 30 the President closed tourism coming from China.

 On February 26, 2020, U.S. vice president Mike Pence was named to chair the task force, and Deborah Birx was named the response coordinator.

Then a man died in a Washington state on February 29.  President Trump had already closed travel from China at the end of January.  Ohio by March 3 had yet not had ANY confirmed cases, let alone deaths, when Governor DeWine began cancelling events. At this time, DeBlasio, Pelosi and Cuoma were still inviting tourists to come to their states/cities. 

On March 4, when many states had yet not had one case, the HHS announced the intent to purchase approximately 500 million N95 respirators and Secretary Azar announced that HHS was transferring $35 million to the CDC to help state and local jurisdictions that have been impacted most by the coronavirus.

 On March 6 the President signed an $8.3 billion bill providing $7.76 billion to federal, state, and local agencies for combating the coronavirus, and authorizing an additional $500 million in waivers for Medicare telehealth restrictions.

On March 11, the WHO announced it was a global pandemic, and the President in a speech to the nation said,  “We are cutting massive amounts of red tape to make antiviral therapies available in record time.  These treatments will significantly reduce the impact and reach of the virus. . . and he also said:

“The vast majority of Americans: The risk is very, very low.  Young and healthy people can expect to recover fully and quickly if they should get the virus.  The highest risk is for elderly population with underlying health conditions.  The elderly population must be very, very careful.”  Today, December 21, that is still the case.  Even with thousands of deaths, the fatality rate from this virus is about .3% with the elderly at higher risk, and young people suffering higher than usual deaths from non-Covid reasons. 

On March 13, the president also declared an emergency for COVID-19 under Section 201 and 301 of the National Emergencies Act. The National Emergencies Act (NEA) generally authorizes the president nearly unlimited discretion to declare a national emergency. President Trump Declares State of Emergency for COVID-19 (ncsl.org)

On April 29, Operation Warp Speed announced—a public private partnership initiated by the U.S. government to facilitate and accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics.

My question for Democrats; if the President had extended the national lockdown to mandatory after the two weeks at Governors’ discretion, how would you or the national media have accepted the order from the president you’d been trying to impeach, whom you called a Nazi, whom you called illegitimate because he won the Electoral College and not the popular vote?  Also which has been more effective in your opinion, Operation Warp Speed or the lockdowns?

50 + Years of Upward Bound—Is it working?

Today I received an article about Upward Bound summer institute at Ohio State University, https://odi.osu.edu/upward-bound/ . Launched in 1965, Upward Bound (UB) is one of the flagship federal college access programs targeted to low-income or potential first-generation college students.  So it’s now 50+ years old. The article included several photographs, and I noticed there were no white students, even though whites outnumber blacks and Hispanics in the low-income and disadvantaged statistics, which the program is supposed to address.
Then I began the tedious search for outcomes—the program is part of the War On Poverty and is 50+ years old.  I found a lot of on-line help in applying for a grant if I were an educational institution (that’s where the money goes,over 4,450 per student).  I found an annual report for 2015-16 published in 2018, but that was all about the tutoring programs, counseling, help with applications—numbers of students—all looked like things I thought schools were already doing.
The FY 2017 budget from the federal government was $312,052,710, with 70,000 participants, at $4,458 per participant. https://www2.ed.gov/programs/trioupbound/funding.html 
Finally I found an assessment for the 2004-05 school year “POLICY AND PROGRAM STUDIES SERVICE, REPORT HIGHLIGHTS, The Impacts of Regular Upward Bound on Postsecondary Outcomes, 7-9 years after scheduled High School Graduation, final report. (2009)
Scanning that, I came to these depressing conclusions.
“For students offered the opportunity to participate in the Upward Bound program, the study found that:

• Upward Bound had no detectable effect on the rate of overall postsecondary enrollment, or the type or selectivity of postsecondary institution attended. About four-fifths of both treatment and control group members attended some type of postsecondary institution.
• Upward Bound had no detectable effect on the likelihood of apply for financial aid or receiving a Pell grant.
• Upward Bound increased the likelihood of earning a postsecondary certificate or license from a vocational school but had no detectable effect on the likelihood of earning a bachelor’s or associate’s degree. Estimated impacts on receiving any postsecondary credential and receiving a bachelor’s degree are 2 and 0 percentage points, respectively, and are not statistically significant.

Upward Bound increased postsecondary enrollment or completion rates for some subgroups of students. For the subgroup of students with lower educational expectations at baseline—that is, the students who did not expect to complete a bachelor’s degree—Upward Bound increased the rate of postsecondary enrollment by 6 percentage points and postsecondary completion by 12 percentage points. Because targeting on the basis of lower educational expectations could create an incentive for applicants to understate their expectations, further analyses were conducted to examine the effects of Upward

• Bound on subgroups that could be more readily targeted. These exploratory analyses suggest that UB increased enrollment for students who were in tenth grade or above at the time of application, students who took a mathematics course below algebra in ninth grade, and students with a ninth grade GPA above 2.5.
• Longer participation in Upward Bound was associated with higher rates of postsecondary enrollment and completion.”

It would be political suicide to ever cut this program even though there is no detectable effect on the billions spent.

106 sactuary cities take federal dollars

Why are 106 cities protecting criminals who have raped or assaulted women, stolen someone's ID, or been in gang activity? Sure, you'll see the sweet mama with crying kids on TV, who was "only" kiting checks or voting multiple times. Most violent crimes are intraracial--crimes of opportunity and blending in. Read the Department of Justice stats. Black on black. White on white. Gay on gay. So other immigrants are being victimized but  fear reporting to the police because they are illegal. Would those mayors do that for American citizens? They thumb their noses at the law. Obama was called "deporter in chief" by the alien protection crowd--but his leftist supporters generally kept quiet about it. Now they blame Trump?

$27 Billion in federal grants go to 106 sanctuary cities which defy the law to hold criminals for ICE to deport. Just 12 of the 106 receive $16 Billion. The two cities with the most to lose if Trump is successful: 

Washington, D.C. municipal government received the highest amount of federal funding on a per capita basis: $3,228 per person; $12,912 per family of four; or $2.09 billion total.
The City of Chicago, IL received the second highest amount of federal funding on a per capita basis: $1,942 per person; $7,768 per family of four; or $5.3 billion total.

https://www.openthebooks.com/assets/1/7/Oversight_FederalFundingofAmericasSanctuaryCities.pdf 


  
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/08/31/u-s-immigrant-deportations-declined-in-2014-but-remain-near-record-high/

Housing for the poor

The nation’s leading housing agency, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), reported in April 2015 that more than 7.7 million very low - income families have “worst case housing needs ”because they do not receive government housing assistance and paid more than half of their monthly income for rent, lived in severely substandard housing, or both. But how can that be? There are at least 160 federal programs at 20 different federal agencies providing assistance and affordable housing for the poor! $270 billion in 2012. There are block grants to states, special deals for mortgages, vouchers for rent assistance, thousands of regulations on special housing projects—you name it—and there are eager government employees making a good living helping the poor. If you’ve wondered why government won’t do much to lower the costs of health care by taking over insurance, just look at how government takes care of the poor who need housing.

 

160 entities involved in housing 

Chart book

Federal rental assistance

There are 79 means tested programs for the poor and low income

Lumped together they loosely comprise “welfare” in the jargon of the people, but that means jobs for government workers.

There are 79 means tested programs to help the poor and low income and about 49% of that is medical and most goes to children, disabled and elderly. Only 8% for able bodied, working age adults. So good luck at cutting anything. It's about $19,000 for EACH American counted as "poor" by the Census. About 6% of the budget is for those "welfare" type programs, and 4.8 % of GDP for social security (Medicare is going to pass SS in 2040). We've all paid into Social Security, Medicare, and worker’s compensation, so many people don't like the word "entitlement" for those, even though we are entitled to them through our contributions. http://www.heritage.org/.../examining-the-means-tested...

Hoosiers didn't need guardians in 1947

This floats around a number of conservative blogs citing on-line newsletter Foundation for Economic Freedom, but I also found it in a book, Contemporary American Federalism, by Joseph Zimmerman (SUNY Press, 2008), a preview of which was in Google, but not the section with the footnote which cited the source. I hope it is real, because on the Internet if something sounds too good to be true, you're usually right to be suspicious. In any case, our states, like our citizens are so accustomed to being on the dole, this would be tough to pass today. "Being fooled," of course, refers to many of FDR's programs during the Great Depression. And as single moms have learned since the mid-60s, Uncle Sam is not a good step-father.

House Concurrent Resolution No. 2 of the 85th General Assembly of the State of Indiana, passed by that state’s House and Senate in January 1947.

"Indiana needs no guardian and intends to have none. We Hoosiers—like the people of our sister states—were fooled for quite a spell with the magician’s trick that a dollar taxed out of our pockets and sent to Washington will be bigger when it comes back to us. We have taken a good look at said dollar. We find that it lost weight in its journey to Washington and back. The political brokerage of the bureaucrats has been deducted. We have decided that there is no such thing as ‘federal’ aid. We know that there is no wealth to tax that is not already within the boundaries of the 48 states.

So we propose henceforward to tax ourselves and take care of ourselves. We are fed up with subsidies, doles and paternalism. We are no one’s stepchild. We have grown up. We serve notice that we will resist Washington, D.C. adopting us."