Trump defends huge cuts to the CDC's budget by saying the government can hire more doctors 'when we need them' during crises
Category: News & Politics
Via: tessylo • 6 years ago • 93 commentsBy: (Joseph Zeballos-Roig) Business InsiderFebruary 27, 2020,
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
PoliticsTrump defends huge cuts to the CDC's budget by saying the government can hire more doctors 'when we need them' during crises
Business Insider February 27, 2020, 10:42 AM EST
President Donald Trump.
Associated Press
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President Trump defended his huge CDC budget cuts during a press conference on the federal government's response to the coronavirus.
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"I'm a businessperson. I don't like having thousands of people around when you don't need them," Trump said. "When we need them, we can get them back very quickly."
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Experts said restoring funding to a government agency could be a cumbersome process, which requires an act from Congress that needs to be signed into law.
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The White House has spent two years cutting the CDC's budget.
President Donald Trump defended his huge budget cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during a Wednesday press conference on the federal government's response to the coronavirus.
He said it was easy to bolster the public-health agency and cited his business approach toward running the federal government.
"I'm a businessperson. I don't like having thousands of people around when you don't need them," Trump said. "When we need them, we can get them back very quickly."
The president said some of the experts targeted by the cuts "hadn't been used for many years" and that additional federal money and new medical staffers could be obtained swiftly since "we know all the good people."
The remarks came as CDC experts warned that the virus' spread in the US was "inevitable" and urged Americans to prepare. But the Trump administration has spent the past two years cutting critical positions and gutting programs, which health experts said weakened the federal government's ability to manage a health crisis.
In 2018, the White House eliminated a position on the National Security Council tasked with coordinating a global pandemic response. The CDC that same year also axed 80% of its efforts to combat disease outbreaks overseas because its funds were depleted.
In its latest budget proposal, the Trump administration proposed a 16% cut to CDC funding — even as Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar seeks emergency spending from lawmakers to combat the coronavirus.
It has spread to at least 47 countries so far after originating in China. Europe has been hit particularly hard by the coronavirus . The US has 60 confirmed cases so far, though the vast majority of them came from infections overseas.
Jen Kates, the director of the Global Health and HIV Policy Program at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said in an email to Business Insider that the latest round of proposed budget cuts "would certainly hamper the work of the agency."
She said CDC has "already been grappling with tight resources for addressing the nation's public health, as well as domestic and global health security threats."
"To date, such funding has been episodic, typically coming only after outbreaks hit a tipping point and rarely being enough to shore up resources in the long run," Kates said.
Other experts elaborated on the cumbersome process to shore up a government agency that's been battered by rounds of budget cuts.
Don Moynihan, a public-management professor at Georgetown University, said in a tweet that "once you have gutted institutional capacity you cannot, in fact, quickly restore it."
Appropriating federal money to the CDC would require a bill from Congress that passes both chambers and gets Trump's signature, Bobby Kogan, the chief mathematician for the Senate Budget Committee, said.
"In addition to requiring a new law to be passed to hire people, you have to actually, you know, spend the time to hire people," Kogan said in a tweet .
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What cuts were made to the cdc budget?
He's a fucktard who is the worst president this country has ever had
I don't know why you have to bring up Obama but thank god he is no longer in office, I agree though Obama is a fucktard.
Restoring this comment and one below, since the seeder widened the topic to include Obama - s
Of course the whataboutism comes out....this is an article about Crooked donnie not Obama.
Well when using childish words like fucktard you should be specific who you are talking about. The only fucktard I know is the 'Son of a Bitch' Obama.
Just another "BULLSHIT" ….. "I HATE TRUMP"....article !
Trump has cut NOTHING going to the CDC.
The Trump administration's proposed 2021 budget includes cuts to the CDC's activities related to chronic disease.
Congress hasn't approved the budget , so CDC funding in 2021 remains unclear.
Trump's "logic" is skewed as usual. First you can't just hire any doctor, they need to be educated in pandemic diseases, coronavirus specifically right now. Second, his "logic" would apply to most services, why need police, firefighters, paramedics, emergency personnel, majority of military...I could go on and on. These types of position need training, need education, need to be constantly up to date on latest techniques, just like CDC staff, you can't just hire them when needed.
And you honestly think he doesn't know that? SMH. I am sure they have a "pool" of experts to choose from when they were disbanded due to inactivity and also sure they get some hellacious compensation when they do accept.
You are the second one that seems to think that highly trained medical experts just hang out on unemployment waiting for a call from the CDC so they can just drop everything and jump into the fray.
It's not like there are any pharmaceutical companies or research universities here in the US and all over the world for the to work at. /s
"hellacious compensation" form the government, in an emergency?
As a person living in the eye of the covid-19 storm I would say that this is the time when the CDC is needed and in fact should be expanded and funded with however much they ask for in order to deal with this epidemic.
I will just jump in. The thread is already beyond me endurance ot read this morning. This is republican cheap-skate governance practice. AKA: Small government. Just how small it will get is anybody's guess.
I have never been to Washington, D.C. though I have heard it stated that there are agencies and bureaucracies 'littering' the place. However, it really does matter who is being trusted to do the winnowing down. Besides, I will never agree to condense to a core level were you put thousands and thousands out of jobs—people have career paths, mouths to feed, debts to pay, and quality of life issues.
But, Trump is a syndicate boss who likes to fire people whom he can't control. Now its agencies that are being culled. Is it for purposes of good governance, or just a short-sighted strategy to produce fake indications of a successful presidency?
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
— Martin Niemöller
It is time to rescue your government from a truly deceptive, won't take no as a proper answer, so-called, "Leader." We can do better. We must do better. We must trust our leader has our best interest at heart as a people.