If you don’t test, it doesn’t exist.

The problem… - sigh, here we go again, like every other time before it - is funding: who is going to pay for it?

The federal budget for 2024 was supposed to, and did, start on October 1, 2023. However, that budget was never approved until one House speaker lost their job, and the job of the second is now very much in jeopardy for “colluding” with lawmakers on both sides, which used to be called “governing” but now people scream as if it is tantamount to treason - except ofc whenever they themselves do it and then it’s all okay, obviously (eyeroll).

In this environment, even “normal” functions are being halted, and there is no excess capacity for things that would require above and beyond. Maybe individual states can start picking up the slack, or collections of them? Maybe a company can volunteer to pay their shareholders less in return for doing such testing, or even transparently raise the price of the goods, letting consumers know what additional value they are getting from the more expensive product? As if a sufficient number of people would notice and do anything other than simply purchase the cheapest one, as always?

And maybe our media can stop being shocked every time this happens? I for one no longer consider it “cute”. Whatever happened to factual reporting, that doesn’t attempt to affect outrage, especially for something like this where that would have already happened anyway!?

Therefore I choose to blame myself: perhaps I should just block any article from the NYT, if this is simply always how it is going to be from now on…