Shepherding a state through a crisis like the coronavirus pandemic is a hard job, and few people know the pressures of what a governor like Tony Evers is ending.
Former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker knows the pressure of being a state’s lead elected government executive. In an interview with WTMJ’s Steve Scaffidi, Walker criticized how Evers chose to first extend his “Safer at Home” order until May 26 without initially giving a plan as to how the state might re-open businesses that have closed, a plan perhaps similar to the Badger Bounce Back plan Evers released four days later.
“They were extending an order out from last Thursday about a month and a half without explaining why,” said Walker.
“We should be looking at the data, and I think, at a minimum, look at the next two weeks to made decisions on how far off (this goes).”
Walker said three things concerned him: The coronavirus itself, the pain it is inflicting on small business and workers who are affected both short and long term, and what he said was “the encroachment on civil liberties.”
“Many of our government officials have taken that too far,” he said.
The former governor argued that hospital-related numbers are trending downward, which counters the argument from Governor Evers – as he told WTMJ earlier on Tuesday – that Wisconsin has not yet reached a flattened curve.
Moving forward, Walker suggested using a data-driven approach looking at the rest of the month.
“Between now and the end of the month, let’s see where the trends go before we keep pushing off how far into the future we keep the state closed,” said Walker, suggesting that Evers should then “start a logical plan to slowly stagger.”
When asked specifically about how Evers, a Democrat, is using a plan mainly based on Republican President Donald Trump’s guidelines for re-opening businesses, Walker said the following in part (full comments above in your podcast player):
“They came out with the ‘what’ last Thursday with no detail, no explanation.”
“Then they came back this week and scrambled to put together (the plan).”
“I would argue the trend of new cases has been going down since April 1. Let’s have some reasonable expectations and work together to achieve it.”
