> WE the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity...

The Constitution itself states the role of the Federal government is to prevent mass turmoil and to help the general public. In fact, it lists both of those objectives before it mentions the securing freedoms and liberty; it is generally believed that the preamble is ordered in terms of the priority of its objectives. I understand that there is a very real argument that the Federal government should not be responsible for the well-being of every single citizen but a safety net in times of pandemic is, in my opinion, nowhere close to a Constitutional overreach based on how these objectives have been interpreted.

> a safety net in times of pandemic is, in my opinion, nowhere close to a Constitutional overreach based on how these objectives have been interpreted.

Fair.

The provisions in the bill are not impermanent, though. If they had a time limit on them, they would be reasonable.

[Edit for spelling]

Novel coronaviruses and high-lethality flu strains aren't going to stop appearing, and if anything are going to become increasingly common as the world population increases and becomes ever more interconnected. Putting a time limit on the social safety nets needed to deal with them means you have to rebuild the entire structure again every time it happens, and the only benefit is cutting costs by a few billion dollars a year in between outbreaks (less, when you consider training and turnover costs from creating an entire program from scratch and then destroying it every time). The US takes in upwards of $3 trillion in taxes: we can easily afford it, just shut down a military base or two somewhere.

> Novel coronaviruses and high-lethality flu strains aren't going to stop appearing, and if anything are going to become increasingly common

You aren't wrong. South Korea has prior experience in this arena and they've done really well by learning from their prior contagions.

I think there is a lot the Fed could do to enable state CDCs to handle outbreaks in the future. Part of all of this is the logistical half: materials for testing (which I understand is one of the major slowdowns this time around), distribution of knowledge, etc.

There's a lot of ground to cover even at a municipal level. The Fed has the ability to collect information and act as a hub of best practices. I think that will be critical for saving lives this time around and next.

[edit for missing words]

> intent of the framers

The Framers were not omniscient, and the Constitution isn't a religious text. They allowed slavery, forbid women to vote, and held an 18th-century understanding of economics and science. While their design philosophy for our government is good to consider, we are not beholden to them to implement as they would have wished.

The most successful nations today - in terms of population health, happiness, and well-being - are Western European countries with strong social safety nets.

> The Framers were not omniscient, and the Constitution isn't a religious text.

Sure, but this is the text we have. If you don’t like what it creates, change it, there is a procedure to add amendments or change the whole thing altogether. Of course, the difficulty then is that quite a lot of people in fact like what we have and want to keep it this way.

And there is nothing in that text that prohibits establishing a real social safety net with protections for workers. “Just amend it if you don’t like it” is a straw man in this context.

Well, not anymore, now that Supreme Courts decided that the federal government can do whatever it wants. Originally though, the authors of the constitution, and the convention, had a very clear idea and very clear limits on what federal government can do, in fact enumerating those things. Social safety net is not one the enumerated list of things government can do, and the constitution would never have passed in the first place if the convention members had thought it is.

What happened however was that the Supreme Court decided that the enumerated clauses are irrelevant, and that government can do whatever it wants, just saying magic words of "general welfare" and "interstate commerce". That's why there's no interest in passing amendments anymore: why bother when you can just get Supreme Court to stamp whatever you want?

I'm not against having federal social safety net, but I'd prefer it to be passed the way founders intended, and how things used to be done before the Progressive era in Supreme Court: by expanding the enumerated list of things government can do, through constitutional amendment. What I don't like is having it passed through the Supreme Court backdoor, by interpreting the constitution literally opposite to what it was intended and commonly understood to mean when it was written.

Again, there is nothing prohibiting the establishment of a social safety net in the constitution. What you have said here is just building another strawman next to the first one.

There is nothing allowing it either, and the clear intent of the writers was to not allow the government to do anything that was not explicitly enumerated on the list of things it is allowed to do. This is laid out clearly in last few sections of Federalist 41.

Then, as I said in my original comment, pass a new one. You might have to convince others to agree, but don’t forget that we live in a society, and you’re not the only one who gets to have a say.

Bad argument: https://think-liberty.com/philosophy/bad-arguments-vol-10-so...

>This is laid out clearly in last few sections of Federalist 41.

It doesn't matter what the Federalist papers say, as far as the Constitution is concerned, since the Federalist papers are not a body of law.

The Tenth Amendment of the Constitution reads as follows: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Powers not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution and also not prohibited by the States are not prohibited by the Constitution. The states can literally, and perfectly legally, vote to grant the government additional powers as they deem necessary, without holding a Constitutional congress and ratifying new amendments each time.

> It doesn't matter what the Federalist papers say, as far as the Constitution is concerned, since the Federalist papers are not a body of law.

No, in fact it matters very much when the question is what the writers of the Constitution meant and intended.

> The states can literally, and perfectly legally, vote to grant the government additional powers as they deem necessary, without holding a Constitutional congress and ratifying new amendments each time.

Sure, the States can vote themselves social welfare, or anything else that the Constitution doesn't prohibit. You could have California Social Security with no constitutional issues at all. That is clear. It's the federal government that cannot do so -- or at least cannot under the obvious and intended reading of the constitution.

>No, in fact it matters very much when the question is what the writers of the Constitution meant and intended.

The writers of the Constitution were not unanimous in their beliefs - the Constitution was a compromise of principles, not a statement of absolute consensus. You're simply declaring the authors whose opinions you agree with to be correct.

James Madison himself opposed versions of the tenth Amendment limiting the Federal government to only the expressly enumerated powers, quoting from Wikipedia here: "James Madison opposed the amendments, stating that "it was impossible to confine a Government to the exercise of express powers; there must necessarily be admitted powers by implication, unless the Constitution descended to recount every minutia."[0]

>It's the federal government that cannot do so -- or at least cannot under the obvious and intended reading of the constitution.

Yes, the Federal government can do so through Congress. The only powers the Federal government is forbidden from exercising are those not enumerated in the Constitution and any others forbidden by the states. Nowhere in the Constitution are the states prohibited from granting powers to the Federal government - which you yourself conceded earlier. Indeed, it would contradict the Tenth Amendment and other parts of the Constitution[1] to claim that states don't have that authority.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_...

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implied_powers

I'd put fair odds on the entire package falling under the Commerce Clause, given that it could be argued to be fundamentally all about keeping the economy running something like normally through large disease outbreaks.

> The Federal government's duty to the people (according to the Constitution) is seeing to their safety from foreign threats. Testing for all is in line with that duty. Being a social safety net is the duty of your family, your church, and your friends. Maybe even your state government.

This is technically correct, and at the time perfectly reasonable.

What would the founding fathers advise when they observed our current situation, where we've allowed the planet to grow into this massively interconnected system, the particular design of which is derived from the "fact" that we've been optimizing for profits above almost everything else (like redundancy/resiliency/shock) for the last <x> decades? I imagine they'd start by remarking that they would never have gotten us into this situation in the first place (for reasons that I hope should finally be visible to people) - but now that we're here, what do you think their advice (including temporary measures) would be now that a significant number of variables have significantly changed?

> Bottom line, personal responsibility goes a long, long way in terms of dealing with job loss and economic downturns.

We personally and responsibly elected officials to provide government assistance for various things rather than just hoping charity covers the gap. So that's fine, right?

>We personally and responsibly elected officials to provide government assistance for various things rather than just hoping charity covers the gap.

Who's "we", and what jurisdiction are you talking about? If you're talking about the US federal government, you're factually wrong, especially for the executive branch, but also the Senate.

Post was anti-any-Federal-social-programs-at-all, and clearly we have tons of those, even if they're less comprehensive and less generous than in pretty much all other advanced-economy states. So at some point we decided those were a good idea. We may decide other ones are good ideas, too, eventually.

Point is I reject the idea that personal responsibility and deciding the right way to handle something is to have the government do it are necessarily opposed. I think the premise is somewhere in "not even wrong" territory.

> So at some point we decided those were a good idea.

I know that this isn't true for at least Social Security. The original promise was that it would be purely voluntary. It was later rolled out to be mandatory. It has also turned in to a stack of IOUs.

Obamacare was a stack of lies (prices didn't stay the same, quality and access to care decreased, providers could not be kept). It also is a money pit.

I also know that despite our awful implementations of social programs no other economy in the world currently rivals that of the US. Even in poor economic conditions. The poorest of the poor in this country is in magnitude better conditions than their companions in other countries. I'm don't want my country weighed down any more, the way most others are.

> The poorest of the poor in this country is in magnitude better conditions than their companions in other countries.

This is objectively untrue by pretty much any measure.

For instance on plenty of health related metrics the US is significantly worse than most first world countries (such as infant mortality), and some regions are worse than even many third world countries (such as Texas).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_an...

44th on this list

The idea that poor people are significantly better off in the USA is a flat out lie.

If enough people don't like those things we can get rid of them, right? I guess enough people like them.

Also, specifically:

> It has also turned in to a stack of IOUs.

I mean, that's what an awful lot of financial instruments are. It'd still kinda be true even if the fund were bales of cash in a warehouse.

Replying in parallel because I cannot reply to the child post.

> infant mortality

The measures used in the US for determining infant mortality are much more stringent than in other countries [0]. This accounts for the ranking: we track mortality where others do not.

[0] https://www.nationalreview.com/2011/09/infant-mortality-dece...

National Review is garbage. That article states, "Any assumption that the practice of underreporting is confined to less-developed nations is incorrect. In fact, a number of published peer-reviewed studies show that underreporting of early neonatal deaths has varied between 10 percent and 30 percent in highly developed Western European and Asian countries." Yet the article doesn't include references to these "published peer-reviewed studies". Garbage.

I had to do some digging, which is frustrating. Proper journalism cites sources (when able to - corroboration is sufficient in some cases). I apologize for not doing my digging before hand.

Here you are:

1) the WHO admits that measures in countries it collects data from are often not taken in a consistent manner. "Monitoring progress is challenging in light of weak health information systems in some countries. Problems such as underreporting and differences between official data and estimates made by international agencies are some of the contributing factors."

2) We have "... anecdotal evidence suggests that countries do not use consistent practices in measuring these data [2] [3]"

I'll have to do more digging. These are hard to find references. There may be a hard copy of [2] at my university's law library.

[0] http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/Life-stages/materna...

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4193257/#__sec2...

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12343088

[3] Hartford RA. New Perspectives on Infant Mortality in the United States: Findings from International Research Studies. Presented at the Association for Social Sciences in Health Meeting at the National Institutes of Health; Bethesda, MD.. Feb. 4, 1992 <-- What's interesting here is that the authors of [1] left a link to scholar.google.com, with no specific reference. This may take a while to track down.

> Federal government's duty to the people (according to the Constitution) is seeing to their safety from foreign threats

Where does the Constitution say this?

The Preamble states that one of the purposes of the Constitution is "to provide for the common defence".

Article 1, Section 8 specifies that Congress shall have power to: punish piracy, declare war, raise and support armies, provide and maintain a navy, provide for calling forth the militia to repel invasions.

Article 2, Section 2 specifies that the President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States.

Defending the nation against foreign threats is integral to national security and definitely part of the US Constitution.

Your argument is that we should not pass anything to help those affected by the virus and help prevent the spread but that we should also end medicare, medicaid, snap and social security because that's not what the framers intended?

The role of government is fluid, roles and responsibilities change with facts on the ground.

Condemning the poor to death is not the way to go.

> Your argument is that we should not pass anything to help those affected by the virus and help prevent the spread

No. My argument is that if we don't sunset socialist policies, they will become rule of law. Without a time-limit provision the socialist programs in this bill are partisan.

> we should also end medicare, medicaid, snap and social security because that's not what the framers intended

Yes. Social Security removes a person's ability to choose how they spend and save the money that gets shuttled to the government. All social programs create dependency on the state; a state of being that we call "unhealthy" when it is between two consenting adults. I think that it is even less healthy when a person becomes dependent on a bureaucratic behemoth that does not have their best interest at heart.

I'll point you to the cases of Alfie Evans [0] and Bloomberg's comments on death panels [1]. Social programs aren't about helping people (even though they are talked about that way). Social programs are about power and removing choice from people.

> Condemning the poor to death is not the way to go.

I do not condemn the poor to death. I say that the states are responsible for their people, not the Federal government. This isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. It is possible for states, family, friends, etc. to see to the welfare of their own and for the Fed to stay in its lane. No one is condemned to anything.

[0] https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/25/health/alfie-evans-appeal-bn/...

[1] https://twitter.com/CANCEL_SAM/status/1229127380402393088

[edit for spelling]

What is the difference between the states or federal government running social programs. Different states have vastly different financial capabilities, that's why they each pay into the federal government who then provides the same benefits to all regardless of their state. This prevents people in a state such as Kentucky receiving a tiny percentage of the benefits an economy like California could provide.

I get we are coming at this from vastly different perspectives but I see no issue with a social program such as sick leave, and medical care becoming permanent. I would argue this pandemic is a strong argument for universal health care. The poorest among us by not getting tested can spread the virus to those who are able to afford getting tested and treated. If I am a poor hourly worker and I get sick, I am still going to go to work because if I stay home my kids don't eat. When I am at work I likely make food for wealthier people who then get sick due to my lack of ability to afford to take time off. Guaranteed paid time off fixes this. This pandemic is not a one time event, there will be more and they could be worse.

Of course social programs are about helping people. If I am poor and cannot afford food for my family, what choice has SNAP taken from me? If I am am cold and cannot afford heat, what choice has LIHEAP taken from me?

> Social programs aren't about helping people

One of the primary arguments against Social Security at the time of its enactment was that it would reduce the labor by allowing more people to safely retire in old age. I think we can safely say that this is, in fact, what actually happened.

No.

Yes, clearly what we need to deal with a crisis is a little personal responsibility, not a government that even pretends to be effective at addressing it.

Exactly. It's my personal responsibility to single-handedly ensure the medical system is not too overloaded to handle otherwise treatable cases. That means I personally have to starve if necessary. Not at all something that requires a collective effort. m(

I hope this is sarcasm, because I surely don’t intend to die of this virus or the consequences of this pandemic simply to benefit you. If the government won’t help me survive, I’ll do what I need to do to survive myself. There’s your “personal responsibility” right there.

for the record: yes, that was sarcasm. the "m(" is a face palm. :D

What more couldve been done? Not a rhetorical question. It's just that I dont see how the governement could stop the initial spread since little to nothing was known in the really early phases of the epidemic. Even the early mortality rates were probably... not honestly reported by China.

If you compare it to a country like Italy that oddly enough seems to be getting praised for it's handling of the pandemic, what more should the US have done? Especially considering how much more lethal it is in Italy and just how crazily fast it spread there. Still, as a non american, it seems to me like everyone talks about how incompetent the US is when they are doing the same or better than their peers?

Here's a few things that could have (and reasonably should have) been done:

* Getting testing kits distributed earlier.

* Not downplaying the severity and contagiousness of the virus.

* Not presenting the virus as a Democratic hoax.

* Putting industry experts in charge of the response rather than politicians.

* Having a fully staffed CDC.

There have been multiple statements by the administration to correct or rectify earlier statements by the same administration. The response has been confusing, contradictory, and in its partisan nature (see bullet point 3 and 4), untrustworthy.

I won't disagree with anything you said when it comes to what the governement did/didn't do but that's the thing, I think the sheer element of luck and numbers that comes with pandemics makes most of that irrelevant. Infected people came from Europe, Iran, China, etc. I don't think any adequate response could've dealt with that. Consider Italy, in which we just didn't know the extent of the disease's spread.

Would it have been wise to test people that travelled there? What if Italy was doing just fine but Sweden had an unknown huge infection number? Would checking every single traveller make sense then, because it could've been anywhere? And from the point when it was already inside the US and highly contagious, does Trumps incompetence really matter?

I mean we are at that point where it's definitely not stoppable. if the situation worsens in terms of mortality and infection numbers become unmanageable then yeah I think that would be something else. But right now the US is actually doing better than the average

If you want an example of how to competently handle this crisis, just look at South Korea.

The US had a whole month to get prepared for this, and instead did pretty much nothing, and even refused to import test kits and prepare itself for large-scale testing the way SK did.

The US has absolutely been incompetent, and while it hasn't been the only incompetent country (Spain is probably another one), it's easily the most visible because of its size and economic power and status as a superpower.

Wouldn't Italy be a worst example than Spain?

I'm honestly not sure. Italy has some conditions that made it more vulnerable, like a larger portion of its population being older.

So what? Whataboutism proves nothing and is a distraction from the main issue (that the Trump administration bungled its response).

I'm not trying to make any "whataboutist" argument, it's just that the best way to judge the performance of the US or any country is to compare it to their peers. I'm not even arguing about who's better here, I'm saying that even with an incompetent administration the US seems to fare okay, which seems to indicate it's a lot more complex to deal with or to prevent than people seem to think?

Especially since comments and news about this seem to always highlight how bad the US is dealing with this and how efficient and proactive the EU is when facts prove the opposite? There is a lot of things the rest of the world can blame the US gov for, but this?

> everyone talks about how incompetent the US is when they are doing the same or better than their peers?

This has to do with who is currently POTUS. The media in this country are far left leaning, to the point that most at the national level panicked when he was elected. If a person's only source of information is the big 3 or 4 outlets, they will never hear anything positive about the current administration.

This has to do with specific criticisms of what the current POTUS does or doesn't do.

The idea that people "just" hate him is a pernicious excuse for avoiding discussion of those specific criticisms.

The idea that the "media" is far left leaning is factually incorrect. The most popular news network in America is highly supportive of Trump: https://www.foxnews.com/media/highest-viewership-network-his...

The other four are not.

Ah yes, the monolithic "media" run by liberal, capitalist organizations are "far-left"

The idea that "nothing more could have been done" by the government is a laughable farce, the US federal government continues to incompetently bumble and lots of people are going to die as a result. They are sticking to their guns on cutting CDC funding for crying out loud.

I agree on a lot of what you say but my main point here is that it seems like European countries, even with affordable/free healthcare, better funded governement orgs and a lot less ground to cover have empirically worst results. So isn't it just a lot of... Luck? More than competence or lack thereof?

One major difference here to keep in mind is that Europe as a whole generally has much, much higher population density than most of the US, as well as far less distance between population centers. Accidental spread between towns and cities is much easier there just by pure geography.