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Comment by randomfool | Hacker News Reader

> STEIN: You’ve consistently called for enormous cuts to the CDC… Does this experience at all give you pause?

> TRUMP: No…I’m a business person, I don’t like having thousands of people around when you don’t need them…we can get ‘em back really quickly.

https://twitter.com/ddiamond/status/1232829064194469893

This is not the correct approach for an organization responsible for early warnings and preparation.

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That's what you get when you put TV personalities that get off on the words 'you're fired' in charge of critical institutions.

Imagine the outcry if he applied that logic to the military. Just shut down the DOD. We can always raise a citizens' militia if anything bad happens.

This may not be all that inaccurate now:

https://federalnewsnetwork.com/navy/2020/01/for-new-navy-chi...

Be a patriot, stop veteran support now (they're doing jackshit for us).

Is this satire? I think the DOD is overfunded too but there isn't much that citizens from the local shooting range can do against a drone missile.

That's the point. Just cutting down the military when you don't need it and scaling it back up "really quickly" when it's needed obviously does not work, just as it does not work to cut down the CDC and scale it back up "really quickly" when there's a pandemic incoming. Both institutions provide a significant part of their value by "standing by", so qualified personnel can spring into action quickly in case they are needed.

It's just that Trump obviously applies double standards here: while the military is fine to burn through billions without supplying immediate value (outside of that provided by its mere existence) for a large part of that money, the CDC as a civil organization is apparently not allowed do to the very same thing, even when it costs much less money in comparison. And that's what api obviously wanted to point out. I can't see too much satire in that.

That's the point, having a trained - equipped army at the ready costs money. One could save money by dissolving the army when it's not needed, but clearly you can't respond the same when it's suddenly needed.

The point was that the cost of saving money is effectiveness.

Clearly, this isn't always the case, there is a difference between bloat/overpricing/unnecessary spending vs cut backs that hinder operation ability.

That's the point. Trump is acting like he's running a hotel where the cleaning crew, janitors, concierge, etc are all easy to fill positions and easy to onboard, whereas getting qualified people for the CDC/military and onboarding them is not at all a simple task.

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