Counting
Last week there were two big scandals in politics. The first was about New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and the early COVID crisis. As the pandemic raged through senior citizen homes, it seems that the state manipulated the death statistics to “look better”. The original statistic was 8,000 deaths in the nursing homes. But we now know that 7,000 more who died were transported to hospitals and were considered hospital deaths rather than the “nursing home” deaths.
It seems like a “counting game”, manipulating statistics to control the narrative. But it’s the State of New York, where the Democratic Party is willing to eat its own. Democratic politics in New York are bad. For a time the Republicans controlled the legislature, because one group of Democrats hated another group so much, they aligned with the Republicans. It’s other Democrats that are using the numbers to attack Cuomo.
Frozen
And the other scandal? As the state of Texas froze, people were trapped in their unheated homes. Some even died of hypothermia or loss of power to drive lifesaving equipment. Others were forced to find water by breaking the ice on swimming pools to boil, as the water infrastructure froze. As the pipes burst, the system-wide water pressure dropped and failed.
That scandal has two parts. The state of Texas is an “ independent” operator when it comes to utilities. They cut themselves out of the national power grid, so that their market was “free” from Federal government regulation. Since the big power needs for Texas is in August air-conditioning season, some power generators actually go off-line for the winter. Others failed to “winterize” their generating facilities, so that when this year’s Arctic weather reached to the Gulf of Mexico coast, they were forced to shut down.
So Texas can’t “borrow” energy from other states.
Texas energy was cheap, and they got what they paid for in the past two weeks. And to add insult to energy, many Texans took advantage of the cheap energy with variable rate energy plans. As energy was generally plentiful, the prices were low. But since the energy is scarce right now, their variable rates are skyrocketing. Some are getting monthly electric bills in the tens of thousands – really. That for the electricity that left them frozen.
Out of Dodge
And of course, there was the humorous side of the Texas disaster. Senator Ted Cruz hopped a plane to Cancun to dodge the weather. Watching him fly down there, trying to ignore IPhone cameras along the way, then head back home the next day was almost as much fun as listening to his tortured explanations of what he was doing.
But before we go on with discussion of the issues, isn’t this normal? We’re not talking about “the other guy” who used to be in the White House, about what craziness he said, or did, or failed to do. We are talking about “normal” crises, and “normal” politics, and the normal antics of America’s politicians. What a relief.
What’s Important
Both of these issues have real consequences for real people. If the people of New York were more fully aware of the early nursing home statistics, perhaps they would have demanded different choices from their government. Though, to be honest, as I remember at the time as the first major outbreak of COVID rocked the nation, we were all very aware of the toll taking place in nursing homes. Would 15,000 instead of 8,000 made a difference? I don’t know.
Cuomo does have an awkward political moment. One excuse his Administration used was that in the rush to deal with the COVID crisis, they didn’t realize the statistical “error”. But later, when the pace slowed, it wasn’t corrected. And in the meantime, the Governor had time to write a book, American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic. It ended up on the New York Times bestseller list. That certainly raises questions about his priorities.
And both of these crises have political consequences. The Governor and the Senator’s missteps are some of the first moves of the Presidential campaign of 2024 . Are you ready? The New York Governor built an image of competency as he gave his “chats” during the spring of COVID, but the negative ad will show him busy writing his book as seniors died.
And of course, the image of Ted Cruz dodging cameras at the airport to head for the beach as Texans froze in their beds, will make a great ad for some opponent. We may forget all that in the meantime, but the grainy black and white videos will remind us of their priorities when their states were in crisis.
Normal politics: welcome home!
