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 • 4 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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"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."
This isn't a business you fucking moron.
That's the best way to handle a potential crisis, don't.
Also, you're a failed businessman, 'president', and human being.
He is a known liar, crook, bigot, moron, and cheat. This should be disqualifying for him to hold high office.
I agree with Trump. If there were an emergency we could Draft Doctors and Nurses to meet any challenge. There's no need to have a huge standing army of doctors and nurses when they're not needed. During Wars we've drafted soldiers, we've taken control over our entire economy to focus production including health care on the war effort so why couldn't we do it again if the need arose.
You can't draft people! You have to ask for volunteers. Now I'm not saying that our medical professionals won't step up but I'm just sayin'
I can't but the Government can, they drafted a lot of doctors for WW2 so what's to stop them from doing the same thing in a health emergency?
It's called thoughtful preparation. As well, if you think that the government can just pull medical professionals outta their ass, then you must not be aware of the staffing crisis already facing our nations medical fields.
There are currently 15,000 people who work for the CDC. Isn't that enough for thoughtful preparation ?
It would take an act of Congress to institute a draft. You know how well they get along....
Back in WWII, all kinds of men were drafted because the gov't needed warm bodies
They're not all doctors, are they?
80% of the people who work for the CDC have undergraduate degrees. About half of the people who are employed by the CDC have higher level degrees. For example, they might have PhDs, master’s degrees, and MDs.
No matter how partisan the leadership might be I doubt they could stop their party members from voting across party lines if there were an emergency situation. Most politicians want to be reelected.
President Obama put something in place for 47 countries regarding future pandemics and tRump gutted all but 10. Something that should be in place, not scrambling for in the future when there is an actual emergency/pandemic.
Of course you do.
Well for one thing, there is NO DRAFT in peacetime, hence no authority to draft Doctors and Nurses.
For another thing, epidemiology is a specialty. A pediatrist, oncologist or optometrist aren't TRAINED to handle the needs of a patients with a highly infectious disease.
That was in 2008. After a hiring freeze and 3 years of cuts, how many work there now?
Oh and BTFW, one of the major health care systems in just Indiana/Illinois employs over 18,000.
Like I asked...they're not all doctors, are they?
He didn't mention "drafting" people. I think he said what you did - if we need them, we can hire them.
That is what zuksam said
It doesn't work that way 1st. If tRump hadn't gutted everything Obama put in place regarding pandemic responses and what was already in place, there should already be something in place, not hiring people when it's already an emergency FFS.
Not to mention —our country, just like many others, are facing large, sometimes insurmountable staffing shortages. Where are you gonna find doctors\nurses\ technicians etc when there are not enough, anywhere, to be found?
Right because there are qualified doctors and nurses all over the country just sitting in their parents basement play video games waiting for the CDC to give them a call. /s
They just had to quarantine 34 RNs in CA because Trump's HHS being utterly incompetent. How much more of that can our system take?
that was a couple of weeks before some of the staff started falling...
So... Is this what the freedom loving conservatives are about now? Forced labor?
It is all Donald Trump knows apparently. His 'smarts' and experience is in maneuvering others into positions where he can take what he wants from them at a figurative gunpoint. I am not bashing him either. Look at how this man operates. He asks for nothing, without insisting on it repeatedly.
I'm not so sure it's that easy to just go out and hire doctors. I have a hard time just getting laborers.
What Donald Trump wants is at least two parts:
Where is the outrage? Donald Trump and his conservative base is climbing down this nations figurative throat and up through its rectum. If there is going to be outrage this is the moment and year for it!
What cuts were made to the cdc budget?
Did Trump Fire the US Pandemic Response Team?
As a new coronavirus spread in 2020, so did concerns about the United States' preparedness for a potential pandemic.
The Trump administration fired the U.S. pandemic response team in 2018 to cut costs.
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Amid warnings from public health officials that a 2020 outbreak of a new coronavirus could soon become a pandemic involving the U.S., alarmed readers asked Snopes to verify a rumor that U.S. President Donald Trump had “fired the entire pandemic response team two years ago and then didn’t replace them.”
The claim came from a series of tweets posted by Judd Legum, who runs Popular Information, a newsletter he describes as being about “politics and power.” Legum’s commentary was representative of sharp criticism from Democratic legislators (and some Republicans) that the Trump administration had ill-prepared the country for a pandemic even as one was looming on the horizon.
Legum outlined a series of cost-cutting decisions made by the Trump administration in preceding years that had gutted the nation’s infectious disease defense infrastructure. The “pandemic response team” firing claim referred to news accounts from Spring 2018 reporting that White House officials tasked with directing a national response to a pandemic had been ousted.
Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer abruptly departed from his post leading the global health security team on the National Security Council in May 2018 amid a reorganization of the council by then-National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Ziemer’s team was disbanded. Tom Bossert, whom the Washington Post reported “had called for a comprehensive biodefense strategy against pandemics and biological attacks,” had been fired one month prior.
It’s thus true that the Trump administration axed the executive branch team responsible for coordinating a response to a pandemic and did not replace it, eliminating Ziemer’s position and reassigning others, although Bolton was the executive at the top of the National Security Council chain of command at the time.
On Feb. 24, 2020, the Trump administration requested $2.5 billion to address the coronavirus outbreak, an outlay critics asserted might not have been necessary if the previous program cuts had not taken place. Fortune reported of the issue that:
The coronavirus was first detected in Wuhan, China, in the winter of 2019, and cases spread around the globe. The U.S. had 57 confirmed cases as of this writing, while globally, roughly 80,000 patients had been sickened with the virus and 3,000 had died. As of yet , no vaccine or pharmaceutical treatment for the new coronavirus. Data from China suggests the coronavirus has a higher fatality rate than the seasonal flu, although outcomes depend on factors such as the age and underlying health of the patient.
Readers can find the latest coronavirus information from the CDC here .
Nice "contribution". Fact remains, he did NOT cut the budget which is what your seed is about. Way to switch it up and misdirect. Your post contributes NOTHING to your original posit of budget and your fact check was for "fired the U.S. pandemic response team in 2018 to cut costs.".
The current budget for 2021 does include 16% cut to the CDC, but it's only a proposal.
Previous budget cuts were ignored by Congress but Trump did eliminate Zeimer's position and team.
Trump 2021 proposes cutting $58 million for fighting AIDS, $ 50 million of would go back to the CDC for another 'global health security' project.
Sudden Departure Of White House Global Health Security Head Has Experts Worried
Rear Adm. Tim Ziemer is among the departures since John Bolton became head of the National Security Council.
By Lauren Weber
Rear Adm. Tim Ziemer, the head of global health security on the White House’s National Security Council, left the Trump administration on Tuesday. The news was announced one day after an Ebola outbreak was declared in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The departure comes amid a reshuffling of the NSC under newly named national security adviser John Bolton, which includes a change in organizational structure that eliminates the office Ziemer led. Ziemer’s staff has been placed under other NSC departments.
Ziemer, who had been described as “one of the most quietly effective leaders in public health,” was widely lauded in the global health community for his work on the President’s Malaria Initiative, which helped save 6 million lives, before joining this administration.
“Admiral Ziemer’s departure is deeply alarming, especially when the administration is actively working to cut funds that addressed past pandemics like Ebola,” Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.), the vice ranking member of the foreign affairs committee, told HuffPost in a statement. “Expertise like his is critical in avoiding large outbreaks.”
According to Robert Palladino, NSC spokesman, the reorganization will streamline the process, and he said Ziemer left “on the warmest of terms.”
Ziemer’s exit follows the departure last month of White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert, who was another champion of investment in global health security. Bossert left the day after Bolton began as national security adviser.
Ron Klain, the former Ebola “czar” under President Barack Obama, told HuffPost the combination of their departures was a blow to global health security.
“Proposing a rescission of Ebola contingency funds on the very day that a new Ebola outbreak is announced is badly misguided; forcing out the two top officials in charge of epidemic response at the White House – Tom Bossert and Tim Ziemer – is even worse,” Klain said. “Doing it all at the same time shows a reckless disregard for the dangers we face.”
Some global health security experts also aren’t so sure about whether the reorganization will maintain global health security and biothreats ― such as potential pandemics like Ebola ― as a priority.
Beth Cameron, who previously served as the senior director for global health security and biodefense on Obama’s NSC staff and is currently the Nuclear Threat Initiative’s vice president for global biological policy and programs, called his departure “a major loss for health security, biodefense, and pandemic preparedness.”
“It is unclear in his absence who at the White House would be in charge of a pandemic,” Cameron said, calling it “a situation that should be immediately rectified.”
Tim Rieser, a staffer for the Senate Appropriations committee and senior foreign policy aide for Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who has been called one of the “most powerful staffers in Congress presiding over U.S. foreign policy and U.S. foreign assistance,” echoed Cameron’s comments.
“We have no idea at this point who at the White House is in charge of global health security, at a time when infectious diseases can spread like wildfire in a matter of days threatening millions of Americans here and abroad,” Rieser said.
Loyce Pace, the president and executive director of the Global Health Council, a membership organization that lobbies for global health priorities, reiterated the need to know who is leading pandemic response.
“We really need a strong leader in place from the U.S. who will help coordinate an interagency response and can really provide that kind of assurance and contribute to the progress made in global health security,” Pace said.
The development is also troubling some global health leaders, as it points to a larger pattern within the White House not to put adequate resources behind global health preparedness, said Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow for the Center for Global Development. Konyndyk previously led parts of the 2014 Ebola response for the Obama administration as the director of USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance.
Konyndyk cited President Donald Trump’s recent proposal to rescind unspent funds that had targeted Ebola, as well as the administration’s “failure to seek sustained funding for some of the global health security investments that began under the last administration.”
While advocates were happy to see that Congress almost doubled global health security funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the 2018 fiscal year, Trump’s stance has been to call for cuts to overall global health aid. Previous versions of the president’s budgets have called for spending reductions at the CDC, USAID and the Global Fund.
Rieser also pointed to the White House’s choice not to push for more funding in this arena, saying bipartisan support has meant Congress has appropriated “significantly larger amounts than the White House has requested to help less developed countries improve their capabilities to conduct surveillance and respond quickly to disease outbreaks.”
When asked about the proposed rescission of the Ebola funds, a spokesperson for the NSC told HuffPost that sufficient funds were available through USAID for an outbreak and that if additional funds were needed, the State Department could appropriate them through funding for other programs.
The spokesperson also stated that in such a situation, other donor countries would be expected to contribute, including by supporting the World Health Organization’s Contingency Fund for Emergencies.
Ultimately for Konyndyk, the change in structure at the NSC could be an “unraveling of some capabilities and resource streams that date back across two administrations and have pretty bipartisan support on the Hill.”
“I hope it’s not lost on anyone that it happened the exact week that we have new reports on the Ebola outbreak,” Konyndyk added.
"did eliminate Zeimer's position and team."
And that is called CUTTING COSTS - not cutting the budget.
What's the difference?
Plus it's not cutting costs or cutting the budget - it's gutting a necessary process/agency because Obama put it in place.
People were reassigned, not fired. Not one damned penny was saved until Ziemer retired in 2019.
Reading the linked articles would bring a certain amount of "enlightenment", no?
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.
Trump didn’t just hand off the coronavirus epidemic to Pence—he lied about the threat to Americans
One Wednesday evening, Donald Trump held a press conference to announce how the United States would address the looming threat of the 2019 novel coronavirus. Trump’s primary action was to place Mike Pence—a man who not only directly intervened to help make an HIV epidemic in Indiana worse, but also wrote columns expressing doubt about the link between cigarettes and cancer —in charge of the epidemic. Why Pence? According to Trump, people with actual experience in the area were too busy. So apparently Pence will handle what could be the most pressing issue facing the nation because he has some free time.
For nearly an hour, Trump rambled in a terrifyingly incoherent appearance that sent the stock markets into an after-hours nosedive. Again and again, Donald Trump insisted that there were 15 cases of COVID-19 in the United States, listing off the outcome of some of the first cases to be diagnosed, and ignoring the fact that the actual number is 60. And that 60 includes the first case in the United States to have no known contact with someone who traveled to a region where the infection is rampant. While Trump was waving off the crisis as something that would never happen, it gave every appearance of already being in the room.
Again, the number of coronavirus cases in the United States at the time of the press event was 60. In order to try to make the number seem smaller, Trump, along with Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, continually left out not only cases that had been diagnosed on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship before being returned to the United States, but both cases from diplomatic flights and the Diamond Princess passengers who had been tested and confirmed after returning the United States. The whole “15 cases” thing appears to be an arbitrary division created simply to make the incidence sound small—in spite of reality.
And here’s something critical that seems to be getting overlooked. Those “original 15” that Trump mentioned included the case in California that appears to be the first known case of possible community spread within the United States. Here is Azar speaking on Wednesday morning , hours before Trump’s press event:
That case that they were “still discerning” was the California case. As UC Davis Medical Center has made clear , that patient was transferred to it from another hospital on Feb. 19—over a week ago. It requested testing for COVID-19 at that time, but was turned down because the CDC was not looking for community-spread cases . However, after UC Davis insisted, the CDC did conduct a test on Sunday. The results of that test were confirmed on Wednesday.
Not only did Trump and Azar handle their press events by deliberately underplaying the number of cases being treated in the United States, but they were also aware that coronavirus was circulating in the population before Trump stepped behind the podium. That patient was one of the “total of 15” that Trump kept talking about. He just didn’t share that with the public.
According to the CDC (updated today) the total number of confirmed in the USA is 14. Twelve are travel related and now two are listed as person to person spread.
From the link:
So in just over a month, they have only tested 459 people. They're testing more than that every DAY in North Korea and many other countries.
It is not our job to police the entire world, Obama was the type of FUCKTARD that believes in one world order, fortunately we have a replacement for the 'Son of a Bitch' Obama that has different views.
So why hasn't Trump cut the military in countries where they are just sitting around? Why has Trump increases the military budget, most equipment and personnel are just sitting around.
You mean like...
I'm sure he would do more if he could but then that would give the TDS sufferers even more to cry about, that he was being a dictator.
FYI Trump campaigned on bringing troops home and stepping back from being the worlds police.
Obama thought ahead and listened to the smartest scientists on the planet.
Trump only listens to the fossil fuel and pharmaceutical industry propagandists.
Exactly.
And it’s not about policing the world. It is about being on the frontlines with the best and brightest, when and where these organisms start popping up.
Get the feeling that with a changing climate "popping up" will be common.
Used to be a paramedic with highly developed diagnostic skills. There is an ER doctor that took me under his wing and taught me to expect the unexpected. We both expected a pandemic 20 years ago.
If it or anything with the name Obama on it, Trump will undue it.
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?
This 'president' doesn't have a clue about anything except lining his own pockets.
When were they disbanded due to inactivity?????????
Jim, I'm sure you have proof of those things you are so sure about.
[deleted]
Did you not see where everyone is whining because he cut staff in 2018 because they weren't really doing anything? YOU were the first one to bitch here, on your very own seed. [deleted]
Which proves that it was because of inactivity HOW?
I've still been waiting for that proof. . . . . . . .
From YOUR linked interview above........................
Goddamn do you two read the links you post? Rhetorical evidently.
I know what the fuck I posted.
So you're saying, because tRump said it, it is true, is your proof?
That post, other than the "do you read......" part was NOT addressed to you and in response to Dulay. And that was his reasoning. I showed you mine and referenced yours where your comment was concerned..................and you have egg on your face for not reading YOUR own ......................
Prove it isn't true.
It isn't true. You need to read what I just posted. Just because tRump says it, doesn't make it true.
You have yet to prove it was due to inactivity, it wasn't due to inactivity, it was due to the fact that President Obama put it in place.
That's the reason he gutted it.
bullfuckingshit
It's true.
So your posit it that Trump not only knows WTF he is talking about but that he telling the truth.
Sudden Departure Of White House Global Health Security Head Has Experts Worried
Rear Adm. Tim Ziemer is among the departures since John Bolton became head of the National Security Council.
By Lauren Weber
Rear Adm. Tim Ziemer, the head of global health security on the White House’s National Security Council, left the Trump administration on Tuesday. The news was announced one day after an Ebola outbreak was declared in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The departure comes amid a reshuffling of the NSC under newly named national security adviser John Bolton, which includes a change in organizational structure that eliminates the office Ziemer led. Ziemer’s staff has been placed under other NSC departments.
Ziemer, who had been described as “one of the most quietly effective leaders in public health,” was widely lauded in the global health community for his work on the President’s Malaria Initiative, which helped save 6 million lives, before joining this administration.
“Admiral Ziemer’s departure is deeply alarming, especially when the administration is actively working to cut funds that addressed past pandemics like Ebola,” Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.), the vice ranking member of the foreign affairs committee, told HuffPost in a statement. “Expertise like his is critical in avoiding large outbreaks.”
According to Robert Palladino, NSC spokesman, the reorganization will streamline the process, and he said Ziemer left “on the warmest of terms.”
Ziemer’s exit follows the departure last month of White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert, who was another champion of investment in global health security. Bossert left the day after Bolton began as national security adviser.
Ron Klain, the former Ebola “czar” under President Barack Obama, told HuffPost the combination of their departures was a blow to global health security.
“Proposing a rescission of Ebola contingency funds on the very day that a new Ebola outbreak is announced is badly misguided; forcing out the two top officials in charge of epidemic response at the White House – Tom Bossert and Tim Ziemer – is even worse,” Klain said. “Doing it all at the same time shows a reckless disregard for the dangers we face.”
Some global health security experts also aren’t so sure about whether the reorganization will maintain global health security and biothreats ― such as potential pandemics like Ebola ― as a priority.
Beth Cameron, who previously served as the senior director for global health security and biodefense on Obama’s NSC staff and is currently the Nuclear Threat Initiative’s vice president for global biological policy and programs, called his departure “a major loss for health security, biodefense, and pandemic preparedness.”
“It is unclear in his absence who at the White House would be in charge of a pandemic,” Cameron said, calling it “a situation that should be immediately rectified.”
Tim Rieser, a staffer for the Senate Appropriations committee and senior foreign policy aide for Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who has been called one of the “most powerful staffers in Congress presiding over U.S. foreign policy and U.S. foreign assistance,” echoed Cameron’s comments.
“We have no idea at this point who at the White House is in charge of global health security, at a time when infectious diseases can spread like wildfire in a matter of days threatening millions of Americans here and abroad,” Rieser said.
Loyce Pace, the president and executive director of the Global Health Council, a membership organization that lobbies for global health priorities, reiterated the need to know who is leading pandemic response.
“We really need a strong leader in place from the U.S. who will help coordinate an interagency response and can really provide that kind of assurance and contribute to the progress made in global health security,” Pace said.
The development is also troubling some global health leaders, as it points to a larger pattern within the White House not to put adequate resources behind global health preparedness, said Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow for the Center for Global Development. Konyndyk previously led parts of the 2014 Ebola response for the Obama administration as the director of USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance.
Konyndyk cited President Donald Trump’s recent proposal to rescind unspent funds that had targeted Ebola, as well as the administration’s “failure to seek sustained funding for some of the global health security investments that began under the last administration.”
While advocates were happy to see that Congress almost doubled global health security funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the 2018 fiscal year, Trump’s stance has been to call for cuts to overall global health aid. Previous versions of the president’s budgets have called for spending reductions at the CDC, USAID and the Global Fund.
Rieser also pointed to the White House’s choice not to push for more funding in this arena, saying bipartisan support has meant Congress has appropriated “significantly larger amounts than the White House has requested to help less developed countries improve their capabilities to conduct surveillance and respond quickly to disease outbreaks.”
When asked about the proposed rescission of the Ebola funds, a spokesperson for the NSC told HuffPost that sufficient funds were available through USAID for an outbreak and that if additional funds were needed, the State Department could appropriate them through funding for other programs.
The spokesperson also stated that in such a situation, other donor countries would be expected to contribute, including by supporting the World Health Organization’s Contingency Fund for Emergencies.
Ultimately for Konyndyk, the change in structure at the NSC could be an “unraveling of some capabilities and resource streams that date back across two administrations and have pretty bipartisan support on the Hill.”
“I hope it’s not lost on anyone that it happened the exact week that we have new reports on the Ebola outbreak,” Konyndyk added.
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.