Cutting National Security Funds Dealing with Naturally Emerging Outbreaks Now Seen Dangerous to Americans’ Health

Little attention has been paid to how the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus could have been much different if it had simply paid attention to its own threat assessment issued in 2017:

“Naturally emerging outbreaks of viruses such as Ebola and SARS, as well as the deliberate 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States, demonstrated the impact of biological threats on our national security by taking lives, generating economic losses and contributing to a loss of confidence in government institutions.”

Unfortunately, the administration did not follow its own warning. If it had, our health crisis would look much different. Instead, it downgraded the emphasis on pandemic threats by reducing funding and personnel on the National Security Council charged with pursuing critical information on the subject. The Trump administration, in one of the biggest funding mistakes in recent decades, proposed reducing funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s quite a whopper!

I am not aware of the cost saving that may have been anticipated from the reduced funding but I doubt if it came anywhere near the $8.3 billion appropriation signed by the President to deal with the outbreak. Unfortunately, the money contained in the bill signed last week, may take weeks to reach municipal health departments who need the funds immediately, causing the outbreak to possibly get worse.

And then there’s Trump’s personal efforts to undermine important parts of the government and many of the institutions we rely on it these kinds of emergencies. Trump tweets “fake news” at least once a day while ridiculing any government agency decision he disagrees with as emanating from the “deep state.”

He has bungled the handling of the current emergency by making untrue statements about the virus hoping to convey a false sense of security to the public and, in doing so, attempting to shore up his re-election prospects. This dangerously cynical approach to governing is allowed to continue because Republican senators fail to speak up and challenge the President.

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Photo Credit: NIAID-RML/de Wit/Fischer