To the Editor:

The US Constitution is beautifully laid out to distinguish the limitations on the federal government’s powers to rule over the separate states and over the individual people. Specifically, Article 10 of the Constitution states that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved by it to the states respectively, or to the people.” More clearly, if the Constitution does not specifically name a power that the federal government has, then that unassigned power is reserved to the several states respectively or to the people.

The Corona virus pandemic has recently seriously threatened the good health and even people’s very lives to the extent that it constitutes an imminent national emergency that requires decisive action by government agencies from the federal, state, and local government levels to try and mitigate the effects of this scourge on both lives and the national economy. In recent weeks, there have been heated exchanges between state governors and federal agencies from the President and Corona virus panel headed by Vice President Mike Pence. These exchanges include disputes between state and federal agencies about the amounts and types of supplies needed, how to test for people who are carrying the virus and a myriad of other problems.

To date, our national federal system, where governors are consulting with various federal agencies and coordinating supply issues as well as the status of new or old medications on the Corona virus seems to prove that the federal system is working. Increasingly, some agencies are developing potentially more efficient methods of testing for the presence of antibodies in people who have unknowingly been infected by the virus.

I conclude that the American system, flawed as it is, brings the American people together, and by encouraging discussion across political, economic, and disparate social outlooks, is beginning to identify areas of agreement which will gradually result in some jointly productive economic activity.

Richard Grover
Mason Twp.

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