April 8, 2020
The Latest Drive to Blame Trump
By Mario Alexis Portella
Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates appeared on Fox News Sunday in which he reiterated his 2018 statement that the world should be “preparing for a pandemic in the same serious way it prepares for war.†Gates, whose foundation -- the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation -- has invested heavily in global health, suggested staging simulations, war games, and preparedness exercises to simulate how diseases could spread and to identify the best response. The concluding analysis, as per the mainstream media (and certain social/online communications), is that the Trump administration has done exactly the opposite.
Among the evidence to prove their argument has been Trump’s cutting funding for the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention and its infectious disease research. For fiscal year 2020, Trump proposed cutting the CDC budget by US $1.3 billion, nearly 20% below the 2019 level. This is a complete falsehood.
While it is true that among the president’s budget proposals was one to reduce funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Congress never enacted those cuts. Some Democrats, such as former Vice President Joe Biden went so far as to say at a CNN townhall on February 26 that Trump “tried to defund the CDC.†Again, President Trump proposed reducing the CDC budget -- some years by double-digit percentages -- not completely defunding it. Incidentally, Democrats, including Biden, have since dropped the qualifier “tried†from their claims, saying that Trump had reduced the CDC funding. On ABC’s “This Week†on March 1, Biden said: “They’ve cut the funding for the CDC.â€
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https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/04/the_latest_drive_to_blame_trump.html