Governor Larry Hogan (R-MD) and Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) joined together in a bipartisan plea through the Washington Post: What governors need from Washington during this health emergency. In their comments posted on Tuesday, March 30, 2020, the two governors, who have both been bold and aggressive in their actions to contain COVID-19, called on the federal government to: reinforce our health-care system, shore up state budgets, allow maximum flexibility for spending aid, prepare federal unemployment insurance for an unprecedented surge, and keep “mission-critical” federal workers healthy.
Hogan is the co-chair of the bipartisan National Governors Association (NGA), and Whitmer is Michigan’s new governor less than a year and a half into her job. Hogan has been aggressive in shutting down parts of Maryland early on when other states were resisting any efforts. Whitmer has reacted aggressively since the first case of COVID-19 surfaced on Tuesday, March 10. In their call for better federal coordination, they advise, “The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) needs to better coordinate the distribution of supplies based on need. Right now, there is no single authority tracking where every spare ventilator is or where there are shortages.”
In calling for much more funding, especially funding Medicaid and humans services they say,
“In a rapidly evolving public health emergency, governors need more flexibility to quickly adapt as circumstances change and the demand for resources shifts — sometimes on even an hour-by-hour basis. That’s why we’ve asked Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to allow governors broad discretion in how we spend federal coronavirus relief funds — without imposing onerous reporting requirements that only waste time and money.”
