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Comment by coding123 | Hacker News Reader

It really does. I don't often attribute major changes in the economy to a sitting president. But after dismantling and shunning half of the security apparatus, and not listening to advisors, this is what we get. He single handedly dismantled the CDC when he became president [0]. He routinely doesn't listen to his national security advisors [1]. If we just had started social distancing 2 weeks before, we would be in an entirely different situation.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/24/trump-cuts-u...

[1] https://newrepublic.com/article/147366/anti-intelligence

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> He single handedly dismantled the CDC when he became president.

From what I can tell, that was a 2021 budget proposal (done before this all started) that hasn't been approved or taken effect.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-cut-cdc-budget/

Based on this chart (and the article you posted) he has proposed cuts to their non-infection disease related programs but congress has kept the funding intact.

https://envirodatagov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Screen-...

I think people are confusing the CDC with the Pandemic Response Team: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/

You are right, the biggest funding cuts came when the “Tea Party” led GOP came into control of congress, during the previous administration.

See e.g. https://www.propublica.org/article/us-emergency-medical-stoc...

I already began social distancing more than a month before the guidelines were released, and I didn't need to wait for the government to tell me to do it. My lungs seem to be working fine as of now.

This statement is hyperbolic nonsense:

"He single handedly dismantled the CDC when he became president[0]"

Few quotes you might have overlooked:

"repeatedly attempting to slash funding..."

" proposed a 20% cut to the CDC’s emerging and zoonotic diseases program"

Congress did not let this happen and has actually INCREASED the CDC budget.

The actual enacted program budgets for the CDC in 2016 and 2017 were both under $7.2 billion, but for 2020 the budget Congress adopted for it is nearly $7.7 billion.

"dismantle the CDC"- Please, give me a break...

Why is it the United States' job to identify health problems in China? Does any other country have bureaucracies to identify public health issues in other countries? Why is the United States expected to be the police watchdog of the world, while simultaneously being critiqued for having a presence in other countries? Why is the United States expected to stand up a separate bureaucracy for public health in China while also paying for the majority of WHO funding, an org that is literally tasked with identifying major global health threats and helping countries get ready?

If the United States is now expected to have bureaucracies specific to China and other countries, one must wonder why we're expected to provide services to foreign countries while not actually having sovereignty over them.

If there's one thing the Trump administration has done right, it has been to slowly rid America of foreign entanglements. Thank goodness.

To invoke the notion of foreign entanglements in response to an epidemic, which knows no borders and can't really be contained to them, is kind of rich.

I think most people here are suggesting that we ought to, even as an isolationist state, if that is your preference, monitor and be prepared for pandemics even if they appear in other countries.

Indeed, and we pay for an organization whose purpose it is to do exactly that. We should be asking why that org (WHO) failed, instead of asking why we didn't fund yet another organization with the exact same mission.

The question is why the US should have a unilateral office dedicated to pandemics in China when we have another multilateral one. We should have one or the other, for sure -- monitoring pandemics is important for national security -- but why should we have two?

> Why is it the United States' job to identify health problems in China?

Because a health problem in China, or anywhere in the world, presents a RISK to the the United Stated

> Because a health problem in China, or anywhere in the world, presents a RISK to the the United Stated

Correct. This is why we are the primary fund-provider to WHO. We should be asking why that org failed us, not why we didn't have yet another org for the same purpose.

And after investigating the failure, we should consider whether or not continuing with that org makes sense, or if we should set up another organization and sever ties with the old one, in the interest of not duplicating effort.

Not sure what your point is

This seems like basic risk management.

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