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States and cities can't run deficits and so can't create the funding for this out of thin air. Republicans have campaigned for years on a platform that "Government doesn't work" and have been remarkably committed to providing evidence for that claim when elected. Both hiring people and solving a crisis with government intervention go against their instincts.

There are loads of teachers, librarians, sports coaches, parks employees, etc, etc that can’t do their jobs due to COVID. Those people could be doing contact tracing.

Good luck making it work in a hyper individualistic society. Person A who has been told they're required to do contact tracing will get annoyed that their neighbour B doesn't have to do it but is still getting money. Add to that mix the antivaxxers, conspiracy theorists, people that dislike government, etc.

These people are already being paid their normal salaries by the government. If they don't want to work, they can quit. Now, if someone is in a high risk group, they probably shouldn't be out in the field, but a lot of contact tracing is done over the phone.

My response to that right now would be “Too damn bad.”

Teachers are still working during COVID, in fact they probably have to do more work to adapt to hasty, scrappy adoption of online learning.

I don’t think the other ones exist in significantly large amounts to be meaningful and even then, keep in mind that furloughed people are not getting paid. The money has to come from somewhere to start paying them for whatever again, and states and cities have limited funding resources even before COVID blew a hole in most tax revenues.

There are enough people generally out of work to hire all the contact tracers we could ever need.

You do have to pay people money to hire them though, and states and cities do not have the financial slack to just hire more people as tax revenues keep falling.

The only entity capable of nationwide deficit spending is the federal government, which seems unwilling to step up to the plate.

Exactly my point. The question is: why?

States and cities often have balanced budget laws. Even if these were repealed (look how easy that has been for the Eurozone), states do not have the mechanism for bankruptcy (see: Puerto Rico). And cities have one but it can get extremely messy (see: Detroit, New York in the '70s)

The feds have decided to prioritize the economy in an election year, for some short-sighted definition of a good economy. And the party in power has never liked a strong federal government anyways.

My question was regarding the federal government's involvement. I can't fathom why they would let so many people die, unless we elected hundreds of sociopaths to federal office.

Teachers? I’m not sure the teachers unions would go for that.

I addressed the “states can’t run deficits” when mentioning that the federal government could, and should have stepped in. As to the Republican playbook of starving programs for funding and saying “Look! It doesn’t work,” that’s literally part of the problem.

> States and cities can't run deficits and so can't create the funding for this out of thin air.

They can issue bonds to raise capital and, last I heard, the Fed is buying.

In CA, when Gavin Newsom began reopening the state (many folks thought, "too early"), he repeatedly insisted it was not because of political pressure, but because of the data.

But at the same time, there were health officials being given PUBLIC DEATH THREATS by people who insisted that wearing a mask was dangerous to their health.

Ultimately, I suppose you have to give into politics and public pressure. A mandate that nobody respects and can't really be enforced has no value at all. It's plausible that responding to political pressure and trying to reopen, or give dates and phases, would result in better adherence than just telling the whole state "sorry, stay home indefinitely".

> A mandate that nobody respects and can't really be enforced has no value at all.

A mandate is essentially unenforceable, yes, but it's valuable regardless. It's about setting social norms and expectations. If public figures had put forward a consistent message regarding masks from the beginning, we'd have seen better compliance and fewer people would be dead now.

If public figures had put forward a consistent message regarding masks from the beginning

True, and that was impossible once CDC decided to lie to the public in an attempt to preserve supplies for hospitals.

You cannot have massive job program without state financial going into red. And states have to balance their book every year.

Is that actually a thing that states aren’t allowed to borrow?

State and local governments are allowed to borrow and they do quite a lot of it. The difference is they don’t have a guaranteed buyer for their debt like the federal government does with the federal reserve.

> The difference is they don’t have a guaranteed buyer for their debt like the federal government does with the federal reserve.

That is no longer true: https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/muni.htm

  On April 8, 2020, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
  (the Board), by the unanimous vote of its five members and with the approval of
  the Secretary of the Treasury, authorized the establishment and operation of the
  Municipal Liquidity Facility (MLF) under section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve
  Act (12 U.S.C. § 343(3)). The MLF is intended to support lending to state, city,
  and county governments.
  
  Under the MLF, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (Reserve Bank)
  will commit to lend on a recourse basis to a special purpose vehicle (SPV). The
  SPV will purchase eligible notes directly from eligible issuers at the time of
  issuance.
  
  [...]
  
  The Department of the Treasury, using funds appropriated to the Exchange
  Stabilization Fund under section 4027 of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and
  Economic Security Act (CARES Act), will make a $35 billion equity investment
  in the SPV in connection with the MLF.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/municipal-...

States borrow but almost all must balance the budget. When they borrow it should be a project, not to cover a shortfall. This is not a federal requirement but a restriction the states put on themselves.

https://www.ncsl.org/research/fiscal-policy/state-balanced-b...

How many of those states have emergency powers provisions that would allow them to override that restriction?

I don’t have any special insight beyond what’s in the article. This is likely why state governments have been talking about federal aid.

Which is why I mentioned the federal government could have, and should have stepped in.

> We have millions of people out of work whom we could be paying to do contact tracing

Paying to millions of unemployed people to do contact tracing - does not mean effective contact tracing.

Why not? It’s not like it demands any specific skills, and there are a lot of people out of work who would jump on the chance to not go back to their old jobs right now.

It demands somewhat general but far from universal skills. Look at for example the CDC's suggested training (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/downloads/php/cont...) - this isn't something the average person will be able to pick up quickly and easily.

>We have millions of people out of work whom we could be paying to do contact tracing

I was recently (a year and a half ago, time flies) out of work, and I did get a solicitation about a contact tracing job since the epidemic started. I didn't think my experience was applicable, nor am I free, but somehow they found me. Maybe they have indeed been trying to recruit pretty widely?

"over 130k have died" - it's over 140k already (and even few hundreds short of 150k) :/