> Sure DeBlasio and Cuomo 100% bungled the response in March especially Okay, so we agree on that. > The city has been massively transformed to allow outdoor

> Sure DeBlasio and Cuomo 100% bungled the response in March especially Okay, so we agree on that. > The city has been massively transformed to allow outdoor dining. Easily 1000's of restaurants and bars now have outdoor dining in what would usually be street parking spaces. As journalists have documented extensively, New York's expansion of street space is incredibly paltry compared to what other cities in the US have done. No, it's not zero, but it's clearly not enough (per the article), and it's not even keeping pace with what other cities are doing. > NYC gave direct cash grants to businesses with <10 employees. I know business owners got the money. Those grants were approved and funded before Care Act / PPP was passed. Once PPP opened there was no point in NYC trying to compete, the city can't print money. Yes, there is a a point to the city (and the state) providing direct aid to local businesses on top of the federal assistance. And there absolutely is a point to the city and state targeting funds to essential industries that are hit particularly hard - which is what plenty of other jurisdictions have already done. > Other states were able to give more direct financial assistance to businesses because they didn't have to spend so much on actual COVID response. Remember NY received a tiny amount of federal funding relative to population and actual pandemic impact, because of who was in control of the funding formula. First of all, New York wouldn't have needed to spend as much on COVID response if Cuomo and DeBlasio had actually done their jobs in January or February. But more importantly: the limiting factor here isn't money. As I outlined in my post, the state is actually spending money in ways which are directly harmful to small businesses, with no justifiable public health gain. DeBlasio and Cuomo could literally just base their policies on what other cities and countries have done with success, and that would already be miles ahead of what they've decided to do instead. The problem isn't that they can't. The problem is that they've genuinely expressed zero desire to.