Health And Safety Policy Of Usaid: Fill & Download for Free

Why are markets not reacting positively to any of the measures President Trump has proposed to address the crisis?The markets’ve known long before the pandemic, this president has no idea what’s good for an economy.It’s the very reason economic performance pales comparing to the previous administration, even before the pandemic[1] .How did anyone think this guy was a success or has an economic clue , he couldn’t even hang onto 400 million bucks left to him by dad.[2]Here’re examples of inept decision making straight up;Trump’s director stands by plan to cut Centers for Disease Control budget.‘Unconscionable’: Trump moves to reduce social safety net program from over a million amid coronavirus crisisYa, none of that’s what “the market” wants to hear, facing catastrophic pandemic, this moron thinks “that’ll help the economy”.@JuddLegumWORTH REPEATING: In 2018, Trump fired the entire US pandemic response team.These were the experts with decades of experience dealing with precisely the kind of situation we are in today.Trump did not replace them.He eliminated the positions.http://popular.info/p/unpreparedThings like that crushes confidence this president can even correct mistakes, he can’t even admit them, I guarantee he’s going to blame Obama for he himself dismantling the outstanding programs in place to address these events.Had Trump worked with the democrats or an actual economic Nobel laureate he could have come up with effective strategy, instead taking advice from economic half wits. (Birds of a feather, ya know?)Crippling the feds ability to offset economy contraction, relying on completely inept, inexperienced, selfish, self dealing “advisors” the likes of Kushner, his daughter, Miller.The American economy now follows the very same trajectory of Trumps vast catalog of failure, leaving destruction, misery, Dept and loss in his wake, his miserable record of business and finance in demonstration, he has no clue what is or is not good economic policy.For example, the president actually thinks “economic stimulus” means tax cuts.Even though he already cut taxes, which did not stimulate the economy.Economic growth crashed thanks to Trumps tax grift, which gives middle class assets to the wealthy.[3]In most cases, his type of grift (marketed as “tax cuts”) inhibit economic growth.[4]Giving money to corporations is disincentive to their hiring model.…corporations don’t hire because they have money, they hire if they want more money.Corporations invest to offset tax liability, reducing the liability reduces incentive.Study: Tax Cuts for the Rich Don’t Spur GrowthNext huge mistake, Trump insisted on lowering rates inspite of the fed’s advice.[5]Neutering tools that should have been there infusing funds into a collapsing market when actually needed, instead, used to sooth his insecure ego.Borrowing is now already close to free, lowering interest rate further doesn’t make borrowing attractive anymore, rates are already low;Donald Trump has already gotten the interest rate cut he wants.Everyone predicted that undermines effective monetary action when needed;The Fed is courting disaster by leaving interest rates too lowSecond, he was too late doing anything.This is a self inflicted pandemic, self inflicted by the inexperienced, underprepared, inept executive.Trump responsible for the ‘original sin’ leading to the pandemic terrorizing the country: National security expert…national security expert Juliette Kayyem said the country would not be in the position it is in —— had Donald Trump allowed health officials to do their jobs.Instead of that, this president fired seasoned experts who would have effected policy to offset the pandemic.Unprepared2018, the Trump administration ousted Rear Adm. Tim Ziemer, who served as the Senior Director of Global Health Security.His work on Malaria during the Obama administration helped save 6 million lives.He could have, should have taken this seriously, you know, like the previous president when faced with similarity, like someone with even normal intellect, instructing agencies to do the proven necessary , re-hiring experts he never should have fired, adapting protocol already on the books, which would have helped contain the pandemic.Instead, like a petulant child, “the scientists are wrong”, “the medical industry is wrong”, “every other country is wrong”Telling everyone he is a medical sevant “knowing more than experts”(because his uncle taught at MIT).Good grief!Everyone else is always wrong, he is always right, it was “a hoax”, “a liberal conspiracy”, “this is nothing more than the flu”[6]Instead of being prepared, which we were, he dismantled our ability responding to these catastrophic emergencies.Highlighting is mine[7]“The president fired the pandemic specialist in this country two years ago,” Bloomberg said. “So, there's nobody here to figure out what the hell we should be doing.”In 2018, Trump administration eliminated the position of senior director for global health security and biodefense as part of a broader downsizing of the NSCLast year, the USAID program known as PREDICT was shuttered.The initiative was launched in 2009 and designed to improve the “detection and discovery of zoonotic viruses with pandemic potential.”The program is credited with identifying nearly a thousand new zoonotic viruses, which are transmitted between animals and humans, and influencing the response effort currently being employed to combat the coronavirus, which is a zoonotic infection.This supposed president actually tried, and continues trying to defund the very ability to address these issues, it's as if he's doing the work for our enemy.Year after year cutting programs in budget proposals, firing whoever he could, whenever he could, to help pay the deficit caused by his insane tax grift.Thankfully, the adults in the room, (Democrats) curtailed that effort, but Trump was determined and undermined our ability anyway, (see below and above)Earlier this month, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., sent a letter to the head of USAID asking him to reinstate the program in light of the spread of coronavirus.Thank goodness we have adults in the room trying to prevent at least some of the damage.Footnotes[1] S&P 500 Has Performed Far Worse Under Trump Than Under Obama[2] Decades of Trump’s inheritance fail to explain how he’s funding mysterious cash purchases[3] Perris Calderon's answer to Although Democrats want to defeat Trump and reverse many of his actions, why would they not want to keep his economic policies when the economy has been so strong in their wake? Is it just perverse opposition for its own sake?[4] Perris Calderon's answer to Do corporate tax cuts really create jobs? Why doesn't empirical evidence, as reported in this article, support that claim?[5] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/27/why-is-trump-attacking-federal-reserve-we-answer-your-questions/[6] Trump says the coronavirus is the Democrats' 'new hoax'[7] Did Trump try to cut the CDC's budget as Democrats claim?: ANALYSIS

Here is a list of things that would have been very appropriate and intelligent things to do in response to Covid-19, none of which the Trump Administration did.Years before the virus hits, you expand funding for the CDC and NIH (Trump proposed cutting funding and unbelievably, his 2021 budget for both cut CDC and NIH). You absolutely do NOT eliminate the pandemic team within the CDC (like Trump did). You absolutely do NOT keep the pandemic management roles in DHS empty and unfilled (like Trump did). Ideally you have a senior person in DHS who has a strong infectious disease background because there is only going to be greater risk of pandemics now and in the future because of climate change.Did I mention climate change? You put the force of the USG behind efforts to study climate change and its’ impacts. You don’t ban USG research in to it. You don’t unfund or cut offices that do that work. You don’t prevent USG researchers from going to conferences that study climate change and its’ impact. Here’s a reality check for climate change skeptics and deniers: among people who research climate change in great detail, pandemics are a BFD, something that there is a lot of work on. Seriously—there is tremendous amounts of pandemic research and analysis that is occurring through the climate change lens/perspective.You know all of those rules that the Trump Administration has reversed or not enforced dealing with game hunting and cracking down on trafficking of endangered species? Well, it appears the vector location where the Covid-19 virus appeared to emerge is a wildlife market in Wuhan. Yeah, people are pointing at bats—but that’s simplistic. How bats get involved is they poop—and other animals eat it. Or the bat eats a bug (like a mosquito) that sucked some blood off of a creature. Ladies and Gentleman, let me introduce you to the Pangolin. Very endangered, it has a coronavirus internal to most Pangolins that is almost a dead ringer to what is hitting humans now—except it has mutated a bit. And Pangolins (especially from Africa) are very popular in China. Did pangolins spread the China coronavirus to people? I think when all is said and done with this virus in 2–3 years, we’ll likely conclude that Covid-19 did NOT come directly from the pangolin. But they played a role. That’s why the flu stations are in China. Yes, the season starts in that part of the world. But they have so much mixed use farms (ducks and pigs together, eat each other’s scat, viruses intermix, end up in bats or birds and so China is the birthplace for most modern new flu strains—that’s why the Swine flu scare to come out of Mexico was unexpected).Healthcare—woah, this is a biggie. As in: expand the number of people in the US who have healthcare (so they have access to it—and no, I don’t mean “they can always go to the ER!”). What happens with more people getting health insurance? Fewer smokers, more early screening, access to testing, more preventative care, and when people get it (and most cases will be mild) they’ll get better advice on how to avoid spreading it (which increases the chances that you stay healthy). The Trump administration has gone in the complete opposite direction, seeking to kneecap Obamacare, has a court case right now up on appeal that would wipe out Obamacare (doing this in the middle of a pandemic—that’s a perfect storm folks—a fricking perfect storm from an epidemiological or public health perspective).Supplies. If you’re smart, and you realize that because every day the world is getting smaller (more global, more migration, more business travel) combined with climate change produces warmer climates and more extreme weather, you start preparing for pandemics more than we currently were. You have a larger supply of gloves and masks for medical workers and first responders. A larger supply of Tamiflu (and anti-viral) as well as antibiotics (because you don’t know what is going to emerge). You do “what if” scenarios that you war game out with key leaders in industry and government: what would it take to ramp up production of antibiotic X in 2 weeks? What if we had to quarantine a couple of cruise ships? What if a military unit overseas became infected with something communicable? What if the next flu season was a killer? You can’t plan for everything or even most things—but you don’t have to. You work out—how do we handle a pandemic? FEMA does this sh*t all the time with hurricanes and natural disasters—talk to anyone at the state or federal level who does emergency preparedness and they’ll tell you that if you prepare for 3–4 scenarios it enhances your ability to deal with all of them because you get supplies pre-positioned, you get light on your feet organizationally, you develop an emergency response capability. Good lord—look at the fricking Trump Administration—inept at anticipating and then quickly responding to Maria and the other hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico and the USVI. My point is not that they were delayed specifically in preparing for Covid-19, it’s that they don’t prepare for and handle crises well in general. Talk to anyone in disaster planning for organizations and they’ll tell you it all starts with what you do before the crisis ever hits. Oh, and btw, you don’t respond to pandemic risks by slicing funding from one concern to get money for another (I’m talking about Congress cutting Ebola funding to address Zika over the wishes of the Obama Administration—that’s just bassackwards!).Now everything I’ve listed so far is stuff you do BEFORE anyone in the administration even knows how to spell “coronavirus” let alone knowing Wuhan has a crisis. This is all pandemic-101 stuff. And the Trump Administration flunked all of it—every single thing I’ve mentioned.Now let’s talk about what happens when one of the CDC flu spotting stations in China gets a report from a doctor (let’s call him….Li Wenliang) complaining that the government won’t listen to him about this new type of flu. Let me eliminate the suspense and just tell you that everything I’m about to list about what you do once you get a hint this is happening—is stuff the Trump Administration has done poorly on.6. You don’t cut off access to China—you rush people in. You get additional CDC and NIH talent in China. This isn’t a variation on the normal flu. China is the hothouse for this stuff—the flu season starts with them, that’s why CDC has flu spotting stations there—to get a jump on the flu and begin development of a flu shot early. Except this isn’t influenza. But with teams on the ground quickly, getting samples, observing what the Chinese are going, trying to nail down this bad boy as quickly as possible—that is what you do as soon as you hear a unsubstantiated rumor coming out of Asia. Ditto with Iran (more on this later). Ditto with Italy. It’s critical to get a reliable test nailed down and then start testing like crazy. Why? Because the first most critical step in dealing with pandemics before they become a pandemic is: INFORMATION. We were late on this. The USG didn’t get started on a test until late (we were relying on China, rather than pushing our people out in to the field we were cutting off access) and then when we got a test we only tested people returning from China. Information tells you what kind of beast you’re dealing with, how to deal with it, how widespread it likely is, who’s must vulnerable. It all starts with information and that only happens if, at the first hint of a problem, you push people in to the infected areas rather than cutting them off.7. Set up a task force to coordinate the gathering and sharing of the research from the field plus interact with various agencies (DoD, DHS, CDC, NIH, CIA, DoS, USAID, FBI, Customs, TSA, FDA, USAMRID, US Surgeon General—who has been invisible through all this mess by the way—and I’m sure I’ve left about 12–15 other offices or agencies off the list) to coordinate who is doing what, what supplies are being acquired, begin briefing states and governors and their health directors. This action should have started within a week of the first cases coming out of Wuhan. And the head of this task force should be a research or medical professional. Fauci is a good person to go with—he’s fought this fight before and has bi-partisan credibility. The head of the Center for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (Nancy Messionier) would also be a great choice. I’d probably avoid the head of USAMRID (Col. Darrin Cox) because he’s active duty US military that would feed wild conspiracy rumors that this is somehow a Chinese/American/Israeli bioweapon. But Carl Shaia who retired there back in the Fall was the former Director of Administration (but is now a civilian) and he’d do a bang-up job managing a task force of a lot of government people dealing with complex, unplanned health and medical issues—if you felt like you didn’t want to pull Fauci or Messionier from their organizations (because their supervision of their work was too vital) than Shaia could be a good option. If the head of DHS or HHS was someone with public healthcare expertise then they’d be a fallback option. We don’t currently have an actual DHS head (that position is vacant) and the acting person (formerly of TSA) Chad Wolf has no background in this issue. Alex Azar (HHS) is a lawyer and worked in healthcare organizations but frankly wouldn’t be a strong choice in terms of knowing the public healthcare players. Picking Mike Pence is a poor choice. He double-screwed up the HIV mini-epidemic in Indiana (first cutting support for PP, then refusing to follow the data and wouldn’t do a needle exchange until the cases had exploded). Pence isn’t the worst choice—as a governor he’s got background in dealing with emergencies (in his case: floods and tornados) so that’s a positive plus he’s pretty high up. Still, with a little bit of research (ie: 4 hours) I could give you about 200 names of people who would be a better choice than Pence.8. What Donald Trump says. Now if you really want to know the optimal approach here, it would be that Donald Trump never says or tweets anything about Covid-19 or the Coronavirus at all—when asked about it he refers to the head of the taskforce and then shuts up. That would be optimal. But if we can’t have that, then it would be that he says NOTHING in any media form without clearing it first with a senior healthcare SME (subject matter expert). This post is already too long for me to list all the things he’s said so far that are dumb or false: the virus would go away in April because of temperatures (tell that to Singapore, plus there is a new paper out of the Harvard epidemiology Dept. that says this virus doesn’t seem be affected by warmer temps), that the WHO death rate was wrong (not what he should have said), that Democrats are trying to make this a scare tactic to win the election, that there was nothing to worry about. Donald Trump has added probably not one piece of value to this whole issue—just confusion or wrong information plus delays. I mean, suggesting we should seal the border with Mexico: they have 5 cases as of yesterday and 3 of them came from exposure to foreigners (Italy and America)—I think Mexico might want to seal their border for protection from the US! If you could cut him out of the picture and he’d tolerate that from Day One, things would be so much better now.9. Policy on cruise ships: have one. Right now the US does not and is scrambling. Think about that—there have already been a couple of cases of passengers on cruise ships with Covid-19 signs, why hasn’t the US developed a policy for what to do other than tell the ship to stay offshore? We knew this was an issue a month ago and we’ve got ships off the US coast that we’re trying to figure out what to do because there is no policy in-place. This is exactly what the USG is supposed to do—establish policies. And I said cruise ships because that’s an immediate issue. Someone is going to have a 14 hour plane flight and in the middle of the flight (with air being circulated through the cabin) it will be clear that a passenger is sick with the coronavirus—so what’s the procedure? Have them disembark and stand in line at a crowded customs and immigration portal with hundreds of other incoming passengers? Every single US airport that has an international terminal needs to be setting up infrastructure and implementing USG policy (except there is none) besides setting up hand sanitizer and putting out more tissue dispensers.10. Establish and follow basic risk protocols for individuals who are exposed or possibly exposed re-entering the country. The healthcare workers who met the plane load of sick and at-risk Americans returning to the US—none of them had any kind of protection or established procedure for processing those individuals. WTF? This sounds like an isolated example. There will be hundreds of thousands of Americans seeking to return back to the US from overseas. Students, business professionals, tourists, retirees, military, diplomats, USG workers, professors. You need a basic protocol for screening and handling them (and it’s not all the same—it will vary with the country they’re coming from, if they’ve been tested, if they have obvious signs, if they’d had contact). That doesn’t exist right now.11. Information is critical at times like this—to avoid panic. You don’t want to downplay it all, you need to be open and honest but put things in perspective. So for instance, people need to be told that you should not be wearing a mask unless you’re sick (wearing a mask INCREASES the likelihood you get infection if you’re exposed to someone) unless you change your mask every hour (or every encounter). In the effort to downplay the spread and infection, there is very little (okay, none) Federal govt. resources talking publicly about “let’s talk through planning for if schools in most of the country shut down for a month—can we get all businesses to give people temporary family leave?” Local governments are working on this (kudos to them) but they’re often having to do this in the dark. The Feds should be driving this and be pre-eminent. What Jay Inslee (gov. of Washington State) had to tell Pence is sad, just appalling but that’s a reflection on the Federal coordination effort to-date. So information not only about “this is what we know, this is what we don’t know, here’s what you should be doing know, here’s what you should plan for just in-case” is critical and it’s not happening. That’s not really happening publicly driven by the Feds, it’s very piecemeal and fragments. Look at the comments from Carson (HUD). He shouldn’t be in the public eye on this except the Trump information shortage/gap has people hungry for information and since he was a surgeon, he got approached by media. So he was asked about the Trump policy on the cruise ship approaching the US and he said it was finalized but it wasn’t going to be revealed yet. Then he said it was formulated but some details were being worked out. Then he said there were no plans as of yet. This is from one senior Administration official within one 24 hour period who shouldn’t even be talking about cruise ships. And this happens because there is no coordination or reliable information source on this issue at the moment. So people are going all over the place seeking information.12. There are a gazillion specialty situations that need to be addressed by government. If you’ve got a kid overseas in an exchange program (say—studying art in Milan, or teaching English in Beijing), can they come back home? Or what if they wait till the end of the semester? What about US military? What about large crowds at sporting events—any policy or recommendations regarding those? I bet every police officer out there is now wondering “hmmm….how does this affect me and possible infected people or areas?” Could you imagine medical professionals or first responders refusing to go out in the field if we have a shortage of gloves and masks? Certain industries (any place like Orlando that does a lot of conventions), cruise ships, airlines, travel, tourism, caterers, restaurants—they’re likely dealing with tremendous business crashes right now or in the near future. Saying “we’ll give you a tax break” is a crappy answer—that’s not what they need right now. Their immediate concern is about safety and a tax break doesn’t address that. They need to be given some direction on what to expect, how the USG is going to intervene, if there will be tests set up when people board/deplane/disembark. These are issues that industry can’t solve or fix and a tax break is irrelevant to. And we aren’t even talking about jobs like TSA that involve touching a lots of things. The latest word I’ve heard is that Covid-19 can live for up to a week on a surface. So any high-traffic screening personnel would be a great risk-2,000 people could come through your shift and it only takes one to pass on something (because of a suitcase they brought from home where an asymptomatic individual—not the traveler—coughed on it).13. This is related to #11 but you need to balance the panic and the information. You should not be trying to “spin” this event or push good news. Right now, the Trump Administration has tried hard to downplay this and say it is something that will go away quickly with little pain. Meanwhile the markets are taking deep dives, Italy is quarantining 15 million people, and the Fed issues an unprecedented emergency rate cut while the President is saying “no biggie.” Let me let you in on something: our numbers on infections in the US are bogus. We’ve mostly been testing only people who were traveling overseas or those immediately next to someone who’s infected. Partially that was lack of planning, partially that was a lack of test availability. Once we expand the number of tests, you’re going to see the number of people with a “positive” result (meaning: they got it or have antibodies so were exposed and may be a carrier) to probably go up 5X the current number (if not higher). That’s to be expected—we had artificially low numbers previously. But to fearful members of the public, it will seem like their government was lying to them or that all of sudden the virus has gotten really bad when it hit the US (neither case was true). That’s why the mis-statements by the Trump Administration and the efforts to downplay this sucker are just stupid, stupid, stupid. You’ve got a balancing act—it’s tough—but it’s critical. You’ve got to level with people, talk about what we know, what we don’t know, talk a little about an unknown future. When you try to downplay or minimize the bad news, and then you suddenly get a bunch of bad news, you lose your credibility. You don’t just look bad, instead you become the bad guy.14. Protecting Asians and Immigrants. The Trump Administration is probably the least credible and competent governmental entity to engage in this. You’re already seeing individuals verbally or physically attacking Asians. People who are 2nd generation US and from Japan or the Philippines are being told to go back to China. After 9–11, George W. Bush gave a very powerful speech where he said we were all Americans, we couldn’t turn on each other, that it should still be safe for someone wearing a hijab to go to a mosque, and it was shameful for us to betray our values by turning on minorities. At a time when there are a ton of rumors, lots of fear, it’s important for our government to do something that they’re very capable of doing—standing up for targeted minorities and letting people know “hey, they’re not the danger here.” Seriously—this is a “no-brainer” kind of action because the USG is well positioned to deal with it, can do it RIGHT NOW, and variations of this come up whenever there is a terrorist attack, a pandemic, a violent crime or something that stereotypes a specific group. And it doesn’t require scientists coming up with a new vaccine or some medical advance. it’s about USG leadership saying “hey—no scapegoating, we’re all in this together, don’t turn on each other.” Has anyone seen anything from Trump or Pence or any senior USG official addressing this issue? I haven’t.15. Do not rely on information from Xi. China has not handled it well, they were initially in denial. Xi basically told Trump “nothing to worry about, it’s going to go away” and then Trump came out with his “it will disappear in April” statement. Let healthcare professionals talk to their foreign counterparts—they’ll be able to decipher what is bullish*t and what is truth.16. South Korea: we should have teams over there right now looking at what they’re doing. ROK isn’t perfect but they’re a great example of getting it “mostly” right. They’ve got drive-in stations for quick tests to see if you’re contagious or not. From the git-go they were testing far more people than just international travelers—making us look like idiots. South Korea hasn’t been perfect but they’ve been pretty darn good. I bet that right now, we’re so focused on the US that any potential lessons or tips we might gain from ROK are going to be ignored until this thing plays itself out and a year or so from now we’re doing a “hot wash” and go “gee, wouldn’t it have been smart if we’d implemented this thing they tried in South Korea?”17. Do not, do not, use the Coronavirus as an excuse to implement other policies you have. The Trump Administration has already tightened immigration rules with Iran (actually, we should be sending CDC teams there to see what we can learn and also identify if it’s the same strain). Trump has talked about closing the border with Mexico (but not Canada which has far more cases—although a significant number came from exposure to Americans—sorry Canada!). Do you hear any talk of closing immigration with Italy (which is attempting to quarantine 15 million of its’ citizens)? Nope, neither have I. You see, the problem when you do stunts like this (sneak in another policy using the rationale of it’s dealing with Covid-19) is it ends up hurting your credibility and perceived confidence across the board. If shutting down borders is “the answer” then why shut off a border with Mexico but not Canada? If shutting down borders is “the answer” then why allow trucks full of auto parts from Mexico to still come in to the US (answer: it would shut down nearly all US auto manufacturing plants and immediately lead to a recession plus kill Trump in a bunch of battleground states like Michigan that he needs to win).18. This last piece is tough to do but it’s now essential: we need to flatten the curve and expand capacity ASAP. Let me explain the concept: the US healthcare system is near capacity. We don’t have a lot of empty beds. We have fewer doctors (especially in rural areas) per capita then places like Italy. Our ICU’s are maxed out mostly (in part due to a very bad flu season). A massive influx of new Covid-19 cases is a healthcare disaster. It doesn’t matter if the case mortality rate for infections is only 1% (or .2%) rather than 3.5%. You end up with not enough ventilators, not enough ICU beds, not enough healthcare providers. And while the extreme Covid-19 cases (about 4–10% of those infected) are in ICUs, other patients are either underserved or don’t get help. Seriously folks, with every epidemic the public healthcare data shows an increase in mortality for healthcare issues not related to the pandemic. So if you’re a healthcare administrator, you should be doing whatever you can to add beds, bring people out of retirement, add interns or admin support to free up nurses from work that someone without a degree can do. In terms of the Trump administration (ie: this question), they should be pushing all strategies to add capacity. And we (as an administration) should be looking at ways to “flatten the curve” by reducing the speed of infection. This chart is from Vox and Christina Animashaun and it illustrates why Covid-19 is got a lot of public healthcare folks alarmed, why you’re seeing so many Universities and localities canceling events and what the Federal Government needs to be focusing on much more than it currently is.I’m sure I’m leaving out a couple of other things but this post is long enough as is. Quite simply, the Trump Administration has done a terrible job preparing for a pandemic and then responding to the initial news and then acting when it hit the US.Let me say one last thing here: some people will write this post off as being “anti-Trump.” Preparing for disasters (diseases, natural emergencies, energy blackouts, rioting, etc.) is a special kind of challenge. We have professionals who do this stuff for a living. It absolutely infuriates me when we violate some of the most basic rules of disaster planning and emergency management—whether it’s with storms or pandemics. If this post comes off as “anti-Trump” it’s only because the Administration has badly bungled their response to the coronavirus. We had a reasonable shot at containing this sucker. No longer.

Though I’m not sure I qualify, I feel just fine because they know the budget process and how budgets evolve. I’m fine with it because I read it and know that it is a budget seeking to eliminate duplication, increase efficiency and effectiveness. I don’t give much credence to horror story mongers** who seek to promote anxiety and outrage.Poets and pundits are fine for entertainment, but policy, not so much.[**A monger is a seller, especially of something specific like a fish monger or an ironmonger. You can use the noun monger as a word on its own, although it frequently shows up as a suffix, in words like cheesemonger. Monger can also be used as a verb meaning "to sell or peddle." monger - Dictionary Definition]Trump’s actual 2018 budget blueprint at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/omb/budget/fy2018/2018_blueprint.pdf I suggest reading it. Don’t let people tell you about it, (only 62 pages) be really informed.I’ve read it and find little is any evidence that it bad for the country.USDASafeguards the Nation’s supply of meat, poultry, and egg products by fully funding the Food Safety and Inspection Service,Provides $6.2 billion to serve all projected participants in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Trump Administration Releases Budget Blueprint National WIC Association - no change in fundingFully funds wildland fire preparedness and suppression activities at $2.4 billionReduces funding for lower priority activities in the National Forest System, such as major new Federal land acquisition…Continues to support farmer-focused research and extension partnerships at land-grant universities…Reduces funding for USDA’s statistical capabilitiesEliminates the duplicative Water and Wastewater loan and grant program… can be served by private sector financing or other Federal investments in rural water infrastructure, such as the Environmental Protection Agency’s State Revolving Funds.Reduces staffing in USDA’s Service Center Agencies to streamline county office operations, reflect reduced Rural Development workloadReduces duplicative and underperforming programs by eliminating discretionary activities of the Rural Business and Cooperative ServiceEliminates the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education program, which lacks evidence that it is being effectively implemented to reduce food insecurityDEPARTMENT OF COMMERCEStrengthens the International Trade Administration’s trade enforcement and compliance functions, including the anti-dumping and countervailing duty investigations, while rescaling the agency’s export promotion and trade analysis activities.Provides $1.5 billion, an increase of more than $100 million, for the U.S. Census Bureau to continue preparations for the 2020 Decennial Census.Consolidates the mission, policy support, and administrative functions of the Economics and Statistics Administration within the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the U.S. Census Bureau, and the Department of Commerce’s Office of the Secretary.Eliminates the Economic Development Administration, which provides small grants with limited measurable impacts and duplicates other Federal programs…Eliminates the Minority Business Development Agency, which is duplicative of other Federal, State, local, and private sector efforts…Saves $124 million by discontinuing Federal funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) program, which subsidizes up to half the cost of State centers, which provide consulting services to small- and medium-size manufacturers…as was originally intended when the program was established.Zeroes out over $250 million in targeted National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) grants and programs supporting coastal and marine management, research, and education including Sea Grant, which primarily benefit industry and State and local stakeholders.Maintains the development of NOAA’s current generation of polar orbiting and geostationary weather satellitesAchieves annual savings from NOAA’s Polar Follow On satellite program… by expanding the utilization of commercially provided data to improve weather models.Maintains National Weather Service forecasting capabilities…Continues to support the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)…DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSERepeals the defense sequestration by restoring $52 billion to DOD…Increases DOD’s budget authority by $52 billion above the current 2017 levelProvides the resources needed to accelerate the defeat of ISIS.Addresses urgent warfighting readiness needs…Begins to rebuild the U.S. Armed Forces by addressing pressing shortfalls, such as insufficient stocks of critical munitions, personnel gaps, deferred maintenance and modernization, cyber vulnerabilities, and degraded facilities.Lays the groundwork for a larger, more capable, and more lethal joint force, driven by a new National Defense Strategy that recognizes the need for American superiority not only on land, at sea, in the air, and in space, but also in cyberspace.Initiates an ambitious reform agenda to build a military that is as effective and efficient as possible, and underscores the President’s commitment to reduce the costs of military programs wherever feasible.Strengthens the U.S. Army by rebuilding readiness, reversing end strength reductions, and preparing for future challenges…Rebuilds the U.S. Navy to better address current and future threats by increasing the total number of ships.Ensures a ready and fully equipped Marine Corps.Accelerates Air Force efforts to improve tactical air fleet readiness, ensure technical superiority, and repair aging infrastructureThese are the other agencies in the budget. This answer is already too long, therefore let’s save space.DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONDEPARTMENT OF ENERGYDEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICESDEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITYDEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENTDEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIORDEPARTMENT OF JUSTICEDEPARTMENT OF LABORDEPARTMENT OF STATE, USAID, AND TREASURY INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMSDEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATIONDEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURYDEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRSENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCYNATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATIONSMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATIONDon’t let pundits and poets tell you what the white house’s budget brief is all about read it and remember the process. All POTUS propose their budgets and Congress decides.Trump’s budget, hardly, it will be the US budget decided on by Congress (because they have the money) and the POTUS (who has to run things).So watch the process carefully and keep your Representative and Senator advised of your desires (they have e-mail), and so does the POTUS. You count and so does your opinion.