The Fall of the CDC | Hacker News Reader

The Fall of the CDC

propublica.org

25 pointssorokod5 comments

The underlying problem is the lack of oversight that has allowed a president to continue to go rogue and command our institutions as his authoritarian playthings. Regardless if his malevolence is due to backwards ideology, deliberate foreign agenda, or just Dunning-Kruger ego, the Senate needs to express a newfound willingness to convict on a new impeachment. That's the proximate cause of our ongoing dumpster fire, which at this point indicts all Republican politicians who have supported the corruption.

The longer term fix is of course to stop delegating so much authority to the federal executive in the first place. Ideally more powers would be vested to the states and therefore under control of state governors, but that's a libertarian pipe dream.

@Proven, your comment is dead, but I am going to respond regardless:

> Almost all power belongs to the States. The Congress cannot do anything not in Article 1, Section 8 (https://www.senate.gov/civics/constitution_item/constitution...).

> The CDC is in fact unconstitutional and should be terminated.

I do not disagree with where you're coming from in principle (as I alluded to at the end of my comment). But if that's the change we want, how we go about it is important. Right now the US is highly dependent on the federal CDC - equivalent local institutions generally do not exist to a significant extent, due to much lower tax rates and inability to print money. If we wish to move towards more local control, then we need to make sure our local institutions are functional before getting rid of the federal ones, lest we be left without anything as we have been for this pandemic.

Furthermore, to the extent that the federal bloat needs to be downsized, there are more pressing federal agencies that need to be reigned in first. It's foolish to want to sabotage agencies that provide us actual services (CDC, NPS, SSA) while overtly freedom-hostile agencies (NSA, CIA, DEA) continue on unimpeded.

Say No To Elected Kings.

So each state to have it's own version of the CDC?

That would be robust decentralization, yes. They would coordinate with one another and a downsized federal agency to fund shared projects. By retaining control of their own budget and authority, states would become resistant to federal whims.

Take the recent spat about the federal government not helping California pay for the fires. Ideally federal taxes would be slightly lower, California taxes would be slightly higher, and there would be no need to rely on federal money. So much federal control has been created by taking extra money from the states and then distributing it back to us with strings attached.

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