Clueless in Olympia

Source: ShiftWA.org

While speaking to a class of elementary school students in Spokane, Governor Jay Inslee said that he has no plans yet for what would be required for regions to move into Phase 3 of his random “Roadmap to Recovery”, or what would be allowed once a region reaches it.  The governor said, “I doubt there will be anything clear in the next several days about the issue.” And he ought to know, since he is the only one who gets to decide how the state re-opens its economy. This is more evidence that Inslee’s “Roadmap to Recovery” is more of a “Random Acts of Stagnation Program”, as thousands of small business owners and workers are seeking leadership on what needs to occur for them to pay off all the debts they have incurred under the past year of Inslee’s one-man rule. (KHQ TV)

State Senate Republican Leader John Braun exposes the hyper-partisanship underlying Governor Inslee’s COVID-19 related actions by stating, “The executive branch cannot expect its COVID-19 policy decisions to be welcomed and trusted when the underlying data is unreliable and unverified, measures are applied arbitrarily rather than scientifically, and reasonable questions go unanswered.”  In a well-reasoned argument in his newsletter “Economic Sense”, the senator from Centralia criticizes Inslee’s use of unverified data in making arbitrary decisions, while providing little or no transparency in the process.  Senator Braun was critical of the governor’s refusal to work with local health officials before making decisions which continue to negatively impact millions of lives.  Braun cited the recent mistake of state officials using faulty hospital data, which initially kept six counties in South Central Washington stuck in the economy-crushing Phase 1 of Inslee’s plan.  When local health officials identified the data error, they notified the state, which eventually enabled hundreds of small businesses across those counties to partially reopen.  Senator Braun was also critical that the governor “hasn’t confirmed there is a Phase 3, which activities will be allowed in a Phase 3, and whether the metrics for advancing to a Phase 3 are the same as they were for advancing to Phase 2?  Those are reasonable questions that the executive branch should have anticipated, yet no answers have been offered.” (Economic Sense)