I'm not taking that approach, and didn't mean to come across that way. You only want the federal government to handle your problems if you failed/couldn't handle the problem yourself.
If you're in Indiana and think you need an extra 20,000 face masks. You better have exhausted all options including hiring local manufacturers before waiting on rations from the federal government. Perhaps, even looking into local services to disinfect and reuse masks with doctoral approval. Whatever the case maybe, you solve the problem there if possible.
The federal government has enormous power, but it's fucking slow and can only focus on a select few things at a given time (by design). Having the federal government handle the problems of a city is a huge failure. Maybe it can be a lot of help when the problem is only NYC. But what happens if la, Seattle, San Fran, Detroit etc start demanding the feds solve all their problems too. Things get spread too thin and systems fail and the city might descend into some earthly version of hell.
As for me, I'm doing my part. I'm still working. I'm still producing food. Most of it is sold state/regional, but usually our melons go to New York/New Jersey in May. Not sure if things will change this year, but I'm rooting for everyone to make it out of this okay and l'll be there for as many people as I can help. Me and my guys decided early on that we didn't want to live in a world where people don't have enough food, so we said we'd keep going even if the local government wanted us to stop (this conversation happened before the whole "essential" worker crap topic came up).
I'm hoping New Yorkers will be enjoying my honeydews and cantaloupes in about a month. Godspeed.
