{"id":16898,"date":"2020-04-26T19:32:35","date_gmt":"2020-04-27T01:32:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=16898"},"modified":"2020-04-26T19:43:06","modified_gmt":"2020-04-27T01:43:06","slug":"boating-bridges-and-budgets-another-rant-about-pritzker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2020\/04\/boating-bridges-and-budgets-another-rant-about-pritzker.html","title":{"rendered":"Boating, bridges, and budgets – another rant about Pritzker"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/p>\n

On boating:<\/strong><\/p>\n

From CapitolFax, reporting on Pritzker\u2019s latest briefing, Saturday afternoon, April 25th:<\/p>\n

Q: We had heard some people wanting clarification on the boating, that\u2019s going to be allowed starting May 1, two people per vessel, people were wondering. Is that two unrelated people what if it\u2019s say husband wife and kids that all live in the same home, can there be more than two people in the boat if they are direct family members?\u2026<\/p>\n

A: [He answered and then went back to clarify.] It is restricted to two people per boat You can\u2019t have five people or 10 people in a boat. It is restricted to two, but not necessarily restricted as to whether they\u2019re related to one another.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Folks, this makes no sense.\u00a0 Why should two unrelated people be told to stay apart in their daily lives, but for \u201cessential\u201d activities, yet it is acceptable for them to go boating together?\u00a0 Why would a family of three or four or five be \u201csafe at home\u201d together, but not on a boat together?<\/p>\n

Is it about enforcement \u2014 that is, that officials can count two vs. more-than-two but can\u2019t identify who is and isn\u2019t a part of a family?\u00a0 Or is it a decision made by someone picturing two friends in a canoe at a state park boat launch, and unwilling to backtrack to reflect the situation of people wanting to boat with their families?<\/p>\n

If Pritzker wants to keep community support, his orders had better be rational.<\/p>\n

On bridges:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, my mother has a dental bridge that needs fixing but she\u2019s been told by her dentist that they can only provide emergency dental care until the shelter-in-place order is lifted.\u00a0 But here\u2019s another exchange at Pritzker\u2019s briefing<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Q: The Illinois State dental society has sent you a letter asking to be considered an essential business. Since you need a dental exam before some elective surgeries are you considering letting them reopen?\u2026<\/p>\n

A: We actually never closed dentists or doctors offices in the EO. They have the ability to operate but, I know that many dentists have chosen not to open because the challenge, as I understand, having talked to a dentist about this is that the aerosolization of someone\u2019s saliva when they\u2019re being worked on makes it very difficult to protect the dentist and therefore, many dentists have just been open only for emergency dentistry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is garbage.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the official statement of the Illinois Department of Public Health<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Dental offices should cease routine dental care immediately . . .<\/p>\n

Dental offices should limit dental services to emergency and urgent care until further
\nnotice . . . .<\/p>\n

Providing this limited oral health care will limit unnecessary exposure due to population mobility and limited availability of PPE and will divert people seeking dental care in hospitals to dental offices.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and the Illinois State Dental Society, in light of Pritzker\u2019s comments, responded:<\/p>\n

The Governor\u2019s comments today solidify ISDS thoughts regarding Emergency Order 2020-10, but also indicate a dire need for IDPH and Governor Pritzker to clarify the Vol. 3 release, especially as it bears the names of both Governor Pritzker and Dr. Ngozi O. Ezike.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Again, if Pritzker wants community support, don\u2019t lie to us.<\/p>\n

On budgets<\/strong> (I could equally well have labelled this \u201con bankruptcy\u201d . . .):<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Pritzker was asked<\/a>, having rejected the possibility of bankruptcy, \u201cwhat options would you necessarily consider absent a federal bailout?\u201d<\/p>\n

His answer:<\/p>\n

What we do need to do is make sure that we do as I was doing before we got to this crisis, which is to balance our budget on a regular basis to begin to build surpluses so that we can pay down existing bills, that were there before I came into office to make sure that we\u2019re continuing the services that people need in the state, while also being fiscally responsible.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

His office has previously provided an estimate of the impact on the government of Illinois\u2019 budget due to the shutdown<\/a>, when it was planned to last until April 30 \u2014 a revenue loss of $2.2 billion in FY 2020 (which ends on June 30) and $4.625 billion in FY 2021.\u00a0 How much worse this\u2019ll be now that he\u2019s extended the shut-down to May 30, has not been reported.\u00a0 But that means that Pritzker owes the people of the state of Illinois an actual answer to the question of \u201chow will you balance the budget\u201d that isn\u2019t simply \u201cwe will balance the budget because I say we will.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, one presumes the answer he would give, were he to be honest, would be, \u201cwe don\u2019t know what we\u2019ll do if the federal government doesn\u2019t give us money to help meet our expenses.\u201d\u00a0 But his approach, over and over again, is to reject the idea that the impact of his decisions on the economy or on the well-being of people in the state, should have any bearing on his decisions.<\/p>\n

And what\u2019s more, back on April 13th,<\/a> he listed his three requirements \u201cbefore restrictions can be significantly eased.\u201d\u00a0 The first and second requirements are by now in line with many others\u2019 statements:\u00a0 increased testing and contact tracing.\u00a0 But the third?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need a treatment to lessen the severity of the symptoms, so that fewer people go to the hospital, fewer move from a regular hospital bed to an ICU bed, and fewer go from an ICU bed to a ventilator.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, there\u2019s nothing I would like better than this sort of treatment, whether it\u2019s hydroxychloroquine or injecting bleach into your veins (no, Trump did not actually say this), or, well, pretty much anything else.\u00a0 \u00a0And there are reports that doctors are working harder at new methods for treatments that avoid ventilators, and that\u2019s good news.\u00a0 \u00a0But there is simply no guarantee that this \u201ctreatment\u201d will materialize, and there is no guarantee that a vaccine will be found, and one way or the other, we cannot stay on lockdown waiting for either of these two demands to be met.<\/p>\n

And, again, this is not about letting granny die so that we can go to the movies.\u00a0 It\u2019s about letting people get their frickin\u2019 cancer screenings and treatments, among other things that are not happening and which will cost lives in ways that won\u2019t be measured as easily but will still be real.<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019ll remind you that not only have I been wearing a face mask but I have been making and giving them away \u2014 after I find a home for the latest batch, I\u2019ll have given away over 100.\u00a0 And we have stayed at home except for necessary groceries and other items, and have made my teen very unhappy with our restrictions.\u00a0 (Yes, I was literally about to take him to the Secretary of State\u2019s office to get his driver\u2019s license when they closed down, and yes, I will be angry if months and months go by in which I need to chauffeur him to whatever sort of thing he finds to do in the summer if the summer camp where he\u2019s scheduled to be a counselor, doesn\u2019t open, because he still can\u2019t get his license.)\u00a0 I am playing by the rules.<\/p>\n

But every time Pritzker does and says these things, I understand the protestors more and more.<\/p>\n

I guess on the bright side, well, at least we haven\u2019t gotten any more reports of hypocrisy similar to Mayor Lightfoot getting a haircut<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Image:\u00a0https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File%3AJ.B._Pritzker_speaks_to_the_Evanston_chapter_of_Action_for_a_Better_Tomorrow_IMG_2370_(cropped2).jpg; By SecretName101 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On boating: From CapitolFax, reporting on Pritzker\u2019s latest briefing, Saturday afternoon, April 25th: Q: We had heard some people wanting clarification on the boating, that\u2019s going to be allowed starting May 1, two people per vessel, people were wondering. Is that two unrelated people what if it\u2019s say husband wife and kids that all live […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1418,1421,828],"class_list":["post-16898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-j-b-pritzker"],"yoast_head":"\nBoating, bridges, and budgets - another rant about Pritzker<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On boating: From CapitolFax, reporting on Pritzker's latest briefing, Saturday afternoon, April 25th: Q: We had heard some people wanting clarification on\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2020\/04\/boating-bridges-and-budgets-another-rant-about-pritzker.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Boating, bridges, and budgets - 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