Why the coronavirus crisis should make us rethink the State of the Union

But there are also lessons to be learned for the future.

We must turn our attention to why we were so unprepared for a pandemic such as the coronavirus, and how we can prioritize long-term risk assessment and contingency planning. Certainly, we all can agree that our political class should spend less time reacting to the tweets and surface-level topics that drive ratings on cable news and more time ensuring that American ingenuity will be ready to respond to future crises.

The good news: There is already a mechanism in place that makes risk assessment not just possible, but mandatory. The president’s job description, as enshrined in Article II, Section 3, of our Constitution, includes this mandate: “He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient … ”

It’s a simple directive. Congress must insist that the president accompany the annual State of the Union address with a public disclosure of current risks and threats to the nation, mirroring what the SEC requires companies to publish in the prospectuses they present to investors.

In its current form, the State of the Union is a night of pure political theater that lets the president take victory laps, introduce wedge issues, and promise favors to various segments of the electorate while his fellow party members stand up and cheer. We should at least expect that fanfare to be accompanied by a more sober reflection on existing and potential threats to our security and prosperity.

When the next black swan arrives — be it another pandemic, a cyberwar, or a disruption to our electrical grid — we should expect that, at the very least, the sitting president will have identified the threat and has prepared workable strategies for answering it. States might adopt similar requirements from their governors.

That’s not to say we should have unrealistic expectations that political leaders can anticipate, much less solve, all of our problems. But holding our leaders accountable is an important civic responsibility, especially now. Why did the federal government slow down, rather than speed up, private labs’ ability to respond to a national need for more coronavirus testing? Why have we let state licensing requirements and certificate of need rules regarding medical facilities put artificial limits on the number of medical professionals and hospital beds and ventilators during this crisis?

Proper planning for potential crises should encourage government policies that increase flexibility and dynamism in the private sector and in civil society. That’s where we always see many of the most uplifting stories of crisis response.

During Hurricane Katrina, Walmart was far more effective than the Federal Emergency Management Agency in getting essential supplies to those at risk. On 9/11, al Qaeda terrorists managed to navigate the government bureaucracies approving immigration visas and securing air travel, but a self-organized group of passengers acted on their own to prevent Flight 93 from targeting our nation’s capital.

Now, it’s the coronavirus. In the coming days or weeks — let’s hope it’s not months — people will be getting back to work. To ensure our safety, we will need a supply-side response from private firms to increase the availability of N95 face masks, disposable gloves, hand sanitizer, and the like.

Another benefit of requiring public risk assessments would be a likely change in thinking about indebtedness. By running massive debts during good times, as we did throughout the recovery of 2010-2019, we face fewer options for government to play a constructive role in a real emergency. Long-run problems, such as the unfunded liabilities of Medicare and Social Security, or the economic costs of projected climate change, tend to enter our political debate today only as wedge issues that can be used for electoral advantage.

What we really need is a genuine discussion of the cost-effectiveness of strategies to fix our problems — not create more debt for all of us. That will only happen with institutional pressure to reject new liabilities and be proactive about cost savings.

Think tanks on both sides of the aisle should unite, alongside other actors in civil society, to insist upon transparent risk assessment by government leaders. The think tank community, in turn, would be positioned to help prepare contingency plans based on empirical evidence and insights from across various disciplines.

Government is seldom transparent. Political campaigns are now run with almost comically ambiguous slogans, promising to bring “hope and change” or to make our country “great again.”

Let’s make sure that the coronavirus pandemic has at least some silver lining. Let’s make it a wake-up call that our politics should focus on solving genuine problems and preparing for threats that disrupt our way of life. Right now, we’re seeing the consequences of our culture of identity politics. We didn’t know. We didn’t prepare. And now, we face an uphill struggle to ensure the safety and economic well-being of our fellow citizens.

It’s not guaranteed that the path forward would have been rosier if we’d had a more complete view of the risks we might face in this time of global pandemic. But it’s certain that if we had a better idea of the reality of the threat, and were working with public officials, private sector stakeholders, and policy experts who understood the needs of both people and our economy, we’d have better answers today.

Brad Lips is the CEO of Atlas Network, a global network of more than 500 independent partner organizations in over 100 countries that promote individual freedom and are committed to identifying and removing barriers to human flourishing.