Charles P. Pierce: Yeah, Let's Go After the Disaster Responders

[babylonsister]

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a21991127/mick-mulvaney-cut-budget-disaster-response-donald-trump/

Yeah, Let's Go After the Disaster Responders
There's no budget cut that isn't worth making to Mick Mulvaney and the Trump administration.
By Charles P. Pierce
Jun 29, 2018


Remember public service? That was a cool idea. From the WaPo:

The White House is proposing to reduce by nearly 40 percent the uniformed public health professionals who deploy during disasters and disease outbreaks, monitor drug safety and provide health care in some of the nation’s most remote and disadvantaged areas. The proposal is part of a plan announced last week by the Office of Management and Budget to overhaul the federal government. It would cut the size of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps from its current 6,500 officers to “no more than 4,000 officers.” Administration officials, who have said the officers are “more expensive” than equivalent civilians, want “a leaner and more efficient organization” better prepared to respond to public health emergencies. They have not offered projections on how much might be saved.

How much actual goddamn budgetary sense does this really make? Leave aside the fact that these people do god’s work in terrible conditions and on a moment’s notice. And leave aside the fact that the United States has been one of the world leaders in the fight against epidemic disease—in its effects as well as its causes—since Dr. Joseph Warren was going door-to-door with smallpox vaccinations in and around Boston.

And now this, which I am sure is peanuts, but which makes the kind of statement that people like Mick Mulvaney love to make.

Jim Currie, executive director of the Commissioned Officers Association of the U.S. Public Health Service, said the reductions would greatly affect the Corps’ ability to respond to disaster sites as it routinely does now. “I don’t quite understand the animosity toward the Commissioned Corps,” he said. “These folks are doing day jobs” — at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health and elsewhere within the government — “and when they’re needed, they go and deploy and work their butts off for 12 to 14 hours a day.”

The Corps has deployed to natural disasters, disease outbreaks and humanitarian crises. More than 1,460 officers were sent to respond to hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, including more than 350 who deployed twice, said Kate Migliaccio Grabill, a commander and USPHS spokeswoman. Nearly 300 officers were sent to staff a U.S. field hospital in Liberia during the 2014 Ebola epidemic. When thousands of unaccompanied minors crossed into the United States from Mexico in 2014, triggering a humanitarian crisis, more than 350 officers were sent to the Southwest to provide a variety of services, including medical screenings and behavioral health support. During this current crisis involving migrant children separated from their parents at the border, the service is also being tapped to help, HHS Secretary Alex Azar said Tuesday.

The Corps also works in the federal prison system and, most extensively, in the Indian Health Service, two other institutions that are generally the victims of chronic short-weighting in the budget process. I’m not sure why this one jumped out at me today, but it seems like everything does these days.

[Iliyah]

1. They have to cut everything that help us, the middle class and poor

so the rich can live a life of extra super luxury.

[enough]

2. They want all elements of government to fail, so people stop believing in government. NT

[kairos12]

8. Definition of Disaster Capitalism.

[Arkansas Granny]

4. This theory is not as unbelievable as it might have been in the past.

Everything Trump touches hurts someone.

[defacto7]

5. Could be. The idea has been floated among

elites for more than a century. The ultra powerful seem to forget in their apathy that they are not as invulnerable as they think they are. They would end up culling the human race.

[Blue_true]

7. Don't worry.

If things go to hell, we will have the elites to eat, and I don't mean giving them blowjobs either.

[Blue_true]

6. Backdoor privatization.

They claim civilians can do the job as well, but anyone who has had a relative in a hospital know how poorly suited such an organization would be for dealing with a complete unknown. Private doctors' offices would be even worse. My guess, they get rid of people and outsource the function to a large private, for profit contractor, we won't know how fucked we are until there is a big epidemic.

[Hekate]

9. "I love the smell of Third World downfall in the morning"...

Said no one ever. Except Trump and his ilk.

[stuffmatters]

10. Dems didn't even run ads against Repug Incumbents that they voted against 911 First Responders

If they had done it in the past, we would not have a Republican Congress now. IMHO.

I know of only one case where a Dem candidate actually delivered this long overdue news to voters on the Repug incumbent : Ca 49 in 2016: Doug Applegate's ad stating Issa had voted against the 911 First Responders shocked North San Diego County permanently away from Darrell Issa, took his reelection from shoe in to a less than 1% victory , left Issa clear that he would never win back those San Diego votes, and ultimately led to Issa's "retirement." One ad on Issa's votes on one issue did that.

It makes no sense to me. We have a Republican Congress now simply because their voters are never informed by Dem opponents of their Repug Congressperson's most despicable votes. The Republicans Fight against the 911 Responders is just one example.

Mulvaney & Repub Budget Quacks feel it's easy to get away with slashing federal funds for those who selflessly and heroically keep us all safe. Bkz they've gotten away with it in secret for so long. Their local news doesn't tell voters,, their local newspaper don't tell voters and, so far,rarely have Dem Opponents of these Incumbents honed in on their disgusting votes.