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by triceratops 2115 days ago
You're going to call this more "politicization" but the reality is the US government ignored and downplayed the pandemic until it was too late. This isn't really a debatable or left/right viewpoint. After that, criticism of the response was inevitable, leading to the claim that the pandemic was "politicized".

The only way it would have been not "politicized" was if the initial response had been even halfway competent.
1 comments
hervature 2115 days ago
No I'm not going to call your comment "politicization". Here is the government trying to act [1].

Both sides include poison pills that they know that the other side won't pass. Why is a new $2B FBI headquarter or SALT reform even in a COVID bill? They both agree to at least $300B directly to the people, just pass that. Now is the time to have unanimous agreement on things that will help, not include provisions to help your constituents.

[1] - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/30/upshot/corona...

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triceratops 2115 days ago
> a new $2B FBI headquarter

Included by the White House, according to the article you posted. Which also mismanaged the initial response, so hardly surprising.

> SALT reform

According to the article, it was a temporary elimination on the SALT cap, not wholesale reform. Temporary tax relief during a recession should hardly be considered a poison pill.

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hervature 2115 days ago
Do you not see your own bias? I'm criticizing both sides for using a pandemic for political gain while you openly shun one side and trivialize the same behavior of the opposite.

Sure, I shouldn't have said reform. But are you seriously going to pretend that it isn't a political move by the Democrats when they were so vocal in 2018 in their opposition? [1]

Money quote:

""" Cuomo said New York will challenge a provision of the law that limits how much Americans can deduct from their federal taxes for payments made to state and local governments. Many of the people most affected by that provision live in states run by Democrats, which tend to have higher state and local tax rates. """

The irony in all of this is that I'm not a US person. I can't vote and am not on the path to residency. I have no dog in this fight. This is a literal replay of the silly argument that I got into recently that started this thread.

[1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/01/03/cuomo...

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triceratops 2115 days ago
Oh don't get me wrong, I'm aware I'm biased. You just picked a bad example. Just because lifting the SALT cap temporarily is politically advantageous, doesn't mean it doesn't help lots of people. All kinds of tax relief are on the table[1][2][3] as part of the Covid response, so why call just this one "political"?

If you live and work in the US, you probably pay US taxes, so you do have a dog in this fight whether you like it or not.

1. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/memorandum-d...

2. https://www.irs.gov/coronavirus/new-employer-tax-credits

3. https://www.irs.gov/coronavirus/coronavirus-tax-relief-for-b...

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