I don't understand this argument, what if the CDC was actually overstaffed? Do you know? I have no idea...

Lives are always on the line when it comes to disease, but we have never placed an infinite value on human life. By your logic and morality, the CDC should receive additional funding and staffing until there are 0 deaths from disease every year, regardless of diminishing returns. What if increasing funding and staffing of the CDC by 100x reduced the incidence of flu-related deaths by 10%, would your justification mandate this?

To call the cuts "needless" and justify it by arguing that "there are lives on the line" is simply not a good argument unless you are willing to take the argument to its extreme conclusion. If instead what you are arguing is that you believe that the previous budget and staffing was at a correct figure, and that you believe that the increase in body count that will come as a result of the adjustment of that figure (which I doubt is knowable at this moment at time, or if it is even greater than 0) is not a worthwhile tradeoff, then that is a completely different argument.

Your entire premise is based on a basic logical fallacy. You absolutely do not have to take the argument to its extreme, and that is literally called an appeal to extremes.

The argument made was that cutting the CDC, and leadership related to global pandemics was probably a bad idea now that we may be experiencing one. Not that we should spend all of our money on the CDC regardless of returns.

But that's precisely my point. I'm not saying that you or the OP is actually arguing the extreme of the position, I'm saying that the argument that "cutting the budget is needless" because "lives are on the line" implies the extreme unless you are willing to accept that there is a correct amount of diminishing returns where we would agree that cuts to the budget were not needless, but justifiable, regardless of lives being on the line. So if we accept that we both agree that there is a figure where this tradeoff takes place, then what I'd like to know is why the previous figure was correct, and the figure post-cuts is not.

Scott Adams calls what you're talking about “a half-pinion”, ie. when someone only looks at one side of an argument to form their opinion.

I'm not sure what side of the argument I'm ignoring, do you mind clarifying? I feel as though my argument is precisely predicated on adding additional considerations into the mix, rather than ignoring some component of the original point.

I was actually agreeing with you. I was trying to say the other poster had a “half-pinion”. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

Ah, I see. Ya, I often reach for metaphors like this:

https://storage.needpix.com/rsynced_images/perspective-37858...

Basically, staring at one of the shadows on the wall and declaring confidently that you know what the shape of the solid is that produced it.

Can Congress vote to provide emergency funding to the CDC to make up for the cuts?

Maybe, but it's probably not like, say, ditch digging, where you round up some people with strong backs and hand them shovels and get to work. Probably takes time to ramp up. The time to do that was a few months back.

You can’t just spin up this capability quickly once it has been lost. There is lot of experience needed

Put this in a more familiar context: say the CDC had just been rooted by a bunch of hackers. How much time would it take for Congress to cut a check versus setting up the organization structure, hiring highly-skilled in-demand people, getting them on-board and trained up with the environment, and letting them learn enough about the systems to start hardening them, etc.?

This kind of capacity takes years to develop even if you can cut it quickly.

No, for reasons very similar to those which The Mythical Man-Month explains often prevent throwing more resources at a late software project.

Thanks for all the responses everyone - I understood this concept but failed to apply it here (where it most certainly does apply).

Dont know if anyone is still keeping tabs on this thread, but apparently Trump's "CDC budget cuts" are a falsehood. He proposed cuts but was overruled by congress. In fact, CDC received an increase in funding. See the following link:

https://apnews.com/49de80242dd8b58bd34af7cb19f1323a

> MIKE BLOOMBERG: “There’s nobody here to figure out what the hell we should be doing. And he’s defunded — he’s defunded Centers for Disease Control, CDC, so we don’t have the organization we need. This is a very serious thing.” — Democratic presidential debate Tuesday.

JOE BIDEN, comparing the Obama-Biden administration with now: “We increased the budget of the CDC. We increased the NIH budget. ... He’s wiped all that out. ... He cut the funding for the entire effort.”

THE FACTS: They’re both wrong to say the agencies have seen their money cut. Bloomberg is repeating the false allegation in a new ad that states the U.S. is unprepared for the virus because of “reckless cuts” to the CDC. Trump’s budgets have proposed cuts to public health, only to be overruled by Congress, where there’s strong bipartisan support for agencies such as the CDC and NIH. Instead, financing has increased.

Not to go too off topic and political but could you see any republicans going up in direct contrast to Trump saying : 'all is under control' ?

I certainly cant. And as shameful and sad as it sounds, until people start dying.. I don't see much movement on this.

It's going to be very late once people start dying. COVID-19 takes about 2 weeks to develop severe pneumonia. Once dozens of people start dying, assuming 1% fatality, there would be thousands of patients 2 weeks ago, spreading exponentially.