Trump Regime Opposes New Funds for Testing, Tracing, and CDC in Virus Relief Bill

Erica Werner and Jeff Stein, reporting for The Washington Post:

The Trump administration is trying to block billions of dollars for states to conduct testing and contact tracing in the upcoming coronavirus relief bill, people involved in the talks said Saturday.

The administration is also trying to block billions of dollars that GOP senators want to allocate for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and billions more for the Pentagon and State Department to address the pandemic at home and abroad, the people said.

The administration’s posture has angered some GOP senators, the officials said, and some lawmakers are trying to push back and ensure that the money stays in the bill. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to reveal confidential deliberations, cautioned that the talks were fluid and the numbers were in flux.

Even Republicans are getting it through their thick skulls that Trump and his regime really do only care about the optics — they care only about the reported number of positive test results, not the actual number of infections.

I wrote this on April 10:

Any feasible plan starts with massive testing, completely subsidized by the government. And yet just yesterday the president claimed we don’t need mass testing. The one thing that everyone who knows what they’re talking about agrees on is that we need mass testing — and the president is arguing we don’t need it.

We needed massive federalized testing months ago. And here we are in July, with daily records for cases nationwide and several states raging out of control, and the Trump regime is pushing to block spending for what’s needed. The house is ablaze and the fire department is calling for the water to be shut off. They’re not just a little off course, they’re insane.

We’ve elected a mad king and he’s surrounded himself with enablers.

★ Saturday, 18 July 2020