Ok so I don’t know much about the us legal and political system, but a couple of questions:

- why does a judge in a lawsuit get to make the decision here? I.e. why is this kind of law not debated as part of public discourse and a decision made through a democratic path?

- given this benefits a tiny fraction of people in the US, why doesn’t a particular party/politician take a stand on it as a policy to win a chunk of votes?

For the first point, a UK former judge spoke extensively on the topic of the courts overstepping their remit as part of the 2019 Reith lectures: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00057m8

> - why does a judge in a lawsuit get to make the decision here? I.e. why is this kind of law not debated as part of public discourse and a decision made through a democratic path?

What judge?

The FTC investigation mentioned in the article may end with the FTC filing a lawsuit, but that would be about whether Intuit deceived taxpayers (by directing them towards a paid version even if they were eligible to file for free), not whether the Free File program should exist or whether the IRS should develop its own software.

The Free File program as it currently exists is the result of executive action, a “memorandum of understanding” between the IRS and tax software companies. [1] Last year there was a bill in Congress that would have codified it into law, but that part of the bill was dropped due to concerns it would permanently bar the IRS from developing its own software. ProPublica’s reporting about Intuit’s obfuscation played a part in that outcome. So there was a “public discourse” of sorts, although it’s a pretty obscure issue.

Also:

> given this benefits a tiny fraction of people in the US

Keep in mind that a large fraction of Congress follows the ideology that, broadly speaking, the government can’t do anything right and it’s best to outsource as much as possible to private companies. Intuit’s lobbying was obviously a major factor, but they were playing for a receptive audience. Congress is also not particularly tech-savvy, by and large.

[1] https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/news/2019/jun/congress-...

When it comes to understanding why some politician doesn’t take up an issue as their primary cause, I think it’s not useful to consider what the good-faith debate would look like. That doesn’t happen. Often the untrue things your opponents can accuse you of matter more in the discourse than your stated reasons for supporting an issue. When it comes to taxes and tax policy in the US, those untrue things are vast.

> - given this benefits a tiny fraction of people in the US, why doesn’t a particular party/politician take a stand on it as a policy to win a chunk of votes?

Because national politics in the U.S. in 2020 is big business. It's not about votes or public policy, it's about redirecting funds to party coffers, paid consultants, and ideally the office-holders themselves (or at least their advisors, family and friends).

It's outright ludicrous how a private company is able to introduce a law that prevents a government agency from doing its job.

Yep. One such story is a podcast episode from Planet Money https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/03/709656642/epis...

Grover Norquist is probably more of the reason than Intuit.

Free File Act the article talks about was not passed and did not make it out of the Committee.

A similar bill was passed in 2019: https://www.propublica.org/article/congress-is-about-to-ban-...