You are right about Trump trying to cut CDC and Dept. of Health budgets each year he has been in office, but Congress approving bills funding at higher levels than Trumps budget proposal. However, funding has slightly decreased.
The Forbes article says: "
The cuts started in 2018, as the White House focused on eliminating funding to Obama-era disease security programs."
Past tense.
"The Trust for America’s Health 2019 report on funding of the public health system includes a chart on CDC funding adjusted for inflation, and that shows a small overall decrease, of $460 million from fiscal 2016 to 2019, or $170 million from fiscal 2017 to 2019."
The most recent emergency response budget for the Corona virus was approved by Congress at a higher amount than the White House proposal (Congress $8.3 B approved, Trump proposal $2.5 B).
Then there are qualified CDC people who have been forced out, and the lack of a job of coordinating a pandemic response in the White House.
"President Obama had instituted the unit in 2016 following a years long Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Trump appointed Ziemer, who had been coordinator of the President’s Malaria Initiative under both President George W. Bush and Obama, to head the office in April 2017."
Ziemer departed abruptly a little over a year later just as a new Ebola outbreak was starting in Congo.
Tom Bossert, a former White House homeland security adviser who helped develop the administration’s biodefense strategy and was the designated lead for coordinating the American response to a biological crisis, was also reportedly pushed out when Bolton took over. Bossert resigned in April 2018, a day after Bolton started as national security adviser. Three anonymous sources told the Washington Post that Bolton requested his resignation.
But the lack of someone in the White House to coordinate the response to a widespread disease outbreak in the U.S. is something numerous experts and groups at the time had cautioned against.
In a November 2019 report, the Center for Strategic & International Studies recommended restoring the global health security position on the NSC as one of seven key changes to better protect the American public from global health threats.
“It remains unclear who would be in charge at the White House in the case of a grave pandemic threat or cross-border biological crisis,” the report reads, noting that such leadership is “critical in navigating challenging political issues like quarantines and travel bans and in communicating to and reassuring the American public.”
“The authorities currently in place at HHS are insufficient to address these critical, complex, and often urgent interagency demands,” the report continues. “In addition to coordinating the interagency process, a global health security and biodefense directorate at the NSC can reform fragmented programs and ensure higher efficiencies, strengthened accountability, and better spending of scarce resources.”
Then, there's the issue of Trump (just yesterday) talking about how the testing effort was going well whereas his top health official had to state the testing effort has been a failure.
The testing system for coronavirus in the US is currently failing, a top health official has admitted.
"The system is not really geared to what we need right now... let's admit it," said Dr Anthony Fauci from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
US admits 'failing' on coronavirus testing
I guess some people can find some comfort in the fact that
some of Trump's efforts to cut budgets & qualified staff have met with successful resistance, but not sure whether we should all feel hopeful that the necessary intent and understanding is there.
