This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/us/coronavirus-texas-patrick-abbott.html

The article has changed 34 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 3 Version 4
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick Suggests Seniors Willing to Die For U.S. Economy Texas Tries to Balance Local Control With the Threat of a Global Pandemic
(about 3 hours later)
HOUSTON — President Trump’s message that he wants the country to get back to work sooner rather than later has hit home with at least one senior state official — Dan Patrick, the Texas lieutenant governor. HOUSTON — In Texas, where distrust for the state and federal governments runs deep, the State Legislature meets by law as infrequently as possible, once every two years.
Mr. Patrick, the Texas chairman of the president’s campaign, appeared on Fox News on Monday and said that he was not only ready for the country and the economy to get moving again amid the coronavirus pandemic, but also that he and other grandparents might be willing to die for that to happen. With 254 counties, the most of any state in the country, the Texas version of government has meant in theory that local authorities, as opposed to the elected leaders in Austin and Washington, are the ones really in charge. Even those who run state government in the go-it-alone Lone Star State often avoid appearing too eager to run state government.
“My message is that let’s get back to work,” Mr. Patrick, 69, said on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” “Let’s get back to living. Let’s be smart about it, and those of us who are 70-plus, we’ll take care of ourselves, but don’t sacrifice the country.” But the bedrock Texas commitment to local control is now being put to a very public, life-or-death test amid the spread of the coronavirus.
He added: “I’m not living in fear of Covid-19. What I’m living in fear of is what’s happening to this country. And you know Tucker, no one reached out to me and said, ‘As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival, in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?’ And if that’s the exchange, I’m all in.” Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday continued to resist calls to issue a statewide order to keep millions of Texans in their homes as protection against the fast-moving virus. A day earlier, Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor and the Texas chairman of the president’s campaign, drew nationwide attention to the state when he endorsed President Trump’s desire to get the country back to work and said that he and other older Americans might be willing to sacrifice themselves to the virus to make that happen.
Mr. Patrick’s comments set off a backlash online, but were also met with some approval, with the reaction often splitting along Democratic and Republican lines. On social media, humorous GIFs about whether the old should sacrifice themselves for the young spread like wildfire, and #NotDying4WallStreet began trending on Twitter. “My message is that let’s get back to work,” Mr. Patrick, 69, said on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Monday. “Let’s get back to living. Let’s be smart about it, and those of us who are 70-plus, we’ll take care of ourselves, but don’t sacrifice the country.”
One woman used the hashtag to comment: “Not one single human being deserves to die for somebody else’s stock portfolio.” At a news conference on Tuesday, Mr. Abbott used strong language to encourage Texans to stay indoors, but he stopped short of ordering them to do so. “The best thing that you can do to ensure that we are not spreading Covid-19 in the state of Texas is stay home, unless you need to be out,” Mr. Abbott said, referring to the disease caused by the coronavirus.
In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo appeared to mock the idea. “Well, we’ll just sacrifice old people. They’re old people anyway. And the old get left behind,” he said at a news briefing on that state’s explosive number of coronavirus cases. “What is this, some modern Darwinian theory of natural selection? You can’t keep up, so the band’s going to leave you behind.” The country’s second-biggest state has been improvising its way through the crisis, influenced at times by the sheer span of Texas, by its partisan divides, by its rural-versus-urban split, by its top leaders’ support of Mr. Trump and by its small-government, low-regulation mythos.
He added: “No American is going to say accelerate the economy at the cost of human life. Because no American is going to say how much a life is worth.” A regulatory patchwork has unfolded in Texas in recent days, with restrictions, curfews and stay-at-home orders that change from county to county. Lacking a statewide mandate, several cities and counties have issued their own stay-at-home orders for residents, covering cities like Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, Houston, Fort Worth, Arlington and El Paso.
At a news conference in Austin on Tuesday, Gov. Greg Abbott continued to resist issuing statewide stay-at-home orders similar to those in California and New York, instead issuing a new directive that requires state agencies and private companies to submit regular testing numbers to the state, and hospitals to give daily reports on bed capacity. In cities like Amarillo and in much of rural West Texas, there is relative freedom of movement, although even many small towns have followed Mr. Abbott’s previous orders and shut bars and banned dining-in at restaurants.
He did seem to indicate that more severe measures may be on the way, however, remarking that he was surprised to see how many people were on the road when he was on his way to the news conference. “A pandemic does not respect political subdivisions, and it doesn’t care that on one side of the street you’re in Dallas County and on another side of the street you’re in Collin County,” said Mayor Eric Johnson of Dallas, who sent a letter with other local officials to Mr. Abbott urging him to consider issuing a statewide order. “I was willing to sign on to that letter because I was convinced not by my gut, but by our local health community that that would be the most effective approach.”
“It is clear to me that we may not be achieving the level of compliance that is needed,” he said. “That’s why I said before, I remain flexible in my statewide standard.” Texas has more than 700 cases of the coronavirus and 11 deaths, with most of the cases in the major metropolitan areas of Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio. In nearly 190 of the state’s 254 counties, there are no confirmed cases at all.
Asked directly about Mr. Patrick’s comments, Mr. Abbott said that his primary goal was to stop the spread of the coronavirus, which he said was a necessary first step before the economy could pick up again. Texas and Florida are the largest states whose governors have declined to order residents statewide to stay at home.
“If the goal is to get the economy going, the best thing we can do to get the economy going is to get Covid-19 behind us,” he said. “We must bend the curve on the growth of the coronavirus in Texas. As soon as we do that, the economy will come roaring back.” Mr. Abbott has been under pressure by Mr. Johnson and other local officials and by several Democratic state legislators to order a statewide measure keeping people largely in their homes, similar to those in place in California and New York. But he has resisted, touting the concept of local control that Texas has always adopted in responding to disasters. And in the state’s tradition of independent thinking, the governor has earned both praise and support for his strategy.
Many economists say that there is no clear-cut exchange as Mr. Patrick suggested, predicting that a return to normal business, travel and gatherings could worsen a recession and put intense stress on the health care system by causing many more people to sicken and die. Some state leaders, like Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, have acknowledged conversations about how to restart state economies, but also said that they would not put business interests first. “I’m a Republican, and we always talk about local control,” said Mark Henry, the county judge and top elected official in Galveston County, on the Gulf Coast southeast of Houston, which issued its own, local stay-at-home order. “This is what it looks like. He’s in a tough spot in that he’s got 254 counties, the most of any state in the country, and trying to apply a one-size-fits-all solution just doesn’t work.”
“If it’s public health versus the economy, the only choice is public health,” Mr. Cuomo tweeted on Monday night. “You cannot put a value on human life.” Mr. Abbott has said that with so many counties unaffected so far by the coronavirus, what works in urban Texas does not necessarily work in rural Texas. He said on Tuesday that his primary obligation was to public health and safety, but added, “If the goal is to get the economy going, the best thing we can do to get the economy going is to get Covid-19 behind us.”
Mr. Patrick told Mr. Carlson that he did not want to appear to be morbid, but he said that if he became sick, he would try to get better, “but if I don’t, I don’t.” And later he added, “Tucker, I intend to be around a long time on your show, but it’s worth whatever it takes to save the country.” Mr. Abbott has taken a series of steps to curb the spread of the virus, including deploying the National Guard, banning dine-in service at restaurants, shutting schools and limiting social gatherings to groups of 10 or fewer people. He suggested that more severe measures may be on the way, remarking that he was surprised to see how many drivers were on the road when he was on his way to the news conference in Austin.
At a news conference at the White House on Monday night, Mr. Trump said he would weigh whether to keep the economy so tightly closed after the current 15-day period, which is set to end Monday. He said the government could extend it another week and that some regions could reopen for business before others. “It is clear to me that we may not be achieving the level of compliance that is needed,” he said, adding, “We will continue to evaluate, based upon all the data, whether or not there needs to be a heightened standard and stricter enforcement.”
“Our country wasn’t built to be shut down,” Mr. Trump said. “America will, again, and soon, be open for business. Very soon. A lot sooner than three or four months that somebody was suggesting. Lot sooner. We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself.” Mr. Abbott’s remarks on Tuesday came amid a national backlash over Mr. Patrick’s statements on Fox News, in which he echoed comments by the president, who had expressed hope that the economy could be restarted sooner rather than later.
Mr. Patrick said that he trusted the president’s judgment, should he decide to extend the period another week, but that some businesses could not wait an uncertain period of several more months. “I want to live smart and see through this, but I don’t want the whole country to be sacrificed,” he said. Mr. Patrick took it further.
Texas and Florida are the largest states whose governors have declined to order residents statewide to stay at home. Texas has more than 700 cases of the coronavirus and eight deaths, with most of the cases in the major metropolitan areas of Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio. “I’m not living in fear of Covid-19. What I’m living in fear of is what’s happening to this country,” he said. “And you know Tucker, no one reached out to me and said, ‘As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival, in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?’ And if that’s the exchange, I’m all in.”
Mr. Abbott said on Sunday that more than 200 of the state’s 254 counties have had zero cases of people with positive tests for the coronavirus, and what works in urban Texas does not necessarily work in rural Texas. On social media, humorous GIFs about whether the old should sacrifice themselves for the young spread like wildfire, and #NotDying4WallStreet began trending on Twitter.
“I’m governor, not of Dallas, I’m governor, not of Houston,” Mr. Abbott told reporters. “I am governor of those locations. But I’m also governor of all 254 counties. And so when it comes to statewide interests, I’m looking at what is in the best interest for people around the state of Texas.” In Texas, some elected officials were silent on the lieutenant governor’s stance, while others scratched their heads.
The governor’s approach has created a patchwork of local restrictions that differ from county to county. Lacking a statewide mandate, several cities and counties have issued their own stay-at-home orders for residents or were in the process of announcing them, including Dallas County, Austin’s Travis County, Houston’s Harris County and the cities of Waco and San Antonio. “I got to tell you — my children and my grandchildren really like to have their Tootsie around for a while longer, and I think everybody else would, too,” said the Republican mayor of Fort Worth, Betsy Price, who issued a stay-at-home order in her city on Tuesday. “I can’t imagine where he was coming from with that.”
Manny Fernandez reported from Houston, and Alan Yuhas from New York. Michael Gold and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs contributed reporting from New York. In the central Texas tourist town of Fredericksburg, in a county that has zero confirmed coronavirus cases, Greg Werts was one of three employees on duty at the Peach Basket General Store downtown. Mr. Werts, the store’s 50-year-old general manager, said he shared the lieutenant governor’s desire to “get this great nation of ours moving” but did not support Mr. Patrick’s remarks.
“That is very extreme,” said Mr. Werts, who describes himself as a libertarian. “Extremism in any form is bad,” he said, adding that “something more moderate would have been more reassuring.”
And in Waco on Monday, Mayor Kyle Deaver announced a citywide stay-at-home order for the city’s 138,000 residents, though before he could say a word, a gloved woman stepped in front of him and quickly sprayed down the microphone and stand with disinfectant.
Mr. Deaver expressed both disappointment that Mr. Abbott had failed to issued a statewide stay-at-home order and regret that as mayor he had to issue one at all.
“This is not easy, not easy for any of us,” Mr. Deaver said. “We’re Americans and we’re Texans and we’re used to our independence and freedom, and I hate taking that away from us. But we must do this together if we’re going to get through this quickly.”
Another Republican county executive with a personal stake in the issue said he supported Mr. Abbott. That official, Jeff Branick, the county judge in Jefferson County, near the Louisiana line in East Texas, has been self-isolating recently after his wife developed symptoms of the coronavirus. The couple is now awaiting test results.
“I trust his judgment,” Mr. Branick said of the governor.
In San Antonio’s Bexar County, the county judge, Nelson W. Wolff, a Democrat, said he also agreed with the governor’s local control approach. His problem was that he wished the state’s leaders abided by it at all times, not just during a public-health disaster.
The state’s conservative leaders have at times abandoned their belief in local control, he noted, and inserted themselves into the affairs of the state’s large cities — most of which are controlled by Democrats. The state in recent years has become involved in Houston’s public schools and Austin’s homelessness problems, for example, which has not sat well with some local leaders.
“He fought us on local control issues and stuffed it down our throat,” Mr. Wolff said of the governor. “Now he’s leaving everything to us. I don’t mind leaving everything to us. I wish he was consistent is the only thing I would say.”
Manny Fernandez reported from Houston, and David Montgomery from Austin, Texas. Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Alan Yuhas and Michael Gold contributed reporting from New York.