Budowsky: Biden should name Bloomberg COVID czar

To seize the high ground on the COVID-19 health crises and the national economy, former Vice President Joe Biden should name Michael Bloomberg to manage his efforts to defeat COVID-19 and revive the American economy that suffers — and will continue to suffer until the virus is defeated — extreme damage from the plague of illness and death caused by the virus.

America urgently needs and wants a totally engaged president working with a CEO-level manager to execute an aggressive, coherent national response to defeat the virus.

Medically, Bloomberg has been a leader supporting dramatically improved health care for many years, from his support for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to his forceful continuing support to defeat the deadly and job-destroying virus today.

Economically, Bloomberg effectively and successfully managed New York City as mayor and created an internationally respected business that provides high quality products, jobs for workers and success for business.

Politically, Bloomberg managing programs to defeat COVID-19 would expand Biden’s strong public approval for his leadership against COVID-19 to winning the battle of public approval on national economic issues.

Governmentally, President Biden with Bloomberg would bring credibility and clout to his plans to work with business, labor and bipartisan leaders in Congress to defeat the virus and create millions of jobs for workers.

President Trump never understood that the only way to save the American economy is to destroy the virus, not his political opponents. Until the virus is destroyed, the economy will never recover. Biden and Bloomberg understand this. Many Republicans in Congress, especially in the Senate, privately agree but are too intimidated by Trump to say so, which is why Democrats may well regain control of the Senate.

Obviously, the original shutdown clearly worked against the virus. However, the reopening, which was partially justified, clearly went too far too soon without adequate preparation, which I repeatedly warned about in columns.

Obviously and predictably, the virus has now returned with a vengeance that is leading even Republican governors to begin reversing some of the reopening in states including Florida and Texas.

Equally obviously and predictably, the odds are now dangerously high that the dreaded second wave, which destroyed the national and world economy after the virus in 1918, could occur again when the flu season begins in September and October. This would create even more horrifying disease and death and even more devastating destruction to the economy and jobs than Americans are enduring today.

A great strength of Biden’s candidacy is that a large majority of voters understand that he knows that presidential leadership against the virus is urgently needed, but totally absent today, and that Biden is secure enough to bring in the best people and delegate responsibility to solve the nation’s deadliest health care catastrophe in a century.

I would flatly assert that if Biden were president in January 2020, and Bloomberg managed his response to COVID-19, leading experts such as Anthony Fauci, former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb, and experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would have been brought into the inner circle and respected. Of the more than 140,000 that are dead today from the virus, tens of thousands of them would be alive today.

As Bloomberg wrote in an important op-ed for Bloomberg News on July 19, Trump’s latest attack against the CDC puts lives at risk. His campaign to discredit Fauci is shameful and destructive to America’s health. His total abdication of federal leadership is a crime against common sense. The commander in chief must lead the battle, not be AWOL from the mission, and his medical generals must be empowered, not insulted.

Biden and Bloomberg in government would do a moon shot magnitude program to provide far more testing, contact tracing, and financial support for therapeutic drugs now in short supply that would save countless thousands of lives, create millions of jobs, and win powerful and decisive public support.

Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and former Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Ark.), who was chief deputy majority whip of the House of Representatives. He holds an LLM in international financial law from the London School of Economics.