Damn that Tea Party - Roots of medical supply shortages

[packman]

Dire shortages of vital medical equipment in the Strategic National Stockpile that are now hampering the coronavirus response trace back to the budget wars of the Obama years, when congressional Republicans elected on the Tea Party wave forced the White House to accept sweeping cuts to federal spending.

Among the victims of those partisan fights was the effort to keep adequate supplies of masks, ventilators, pharmaceuticals and other medical equipment on hand to respond to a public health crisis. Lawmakers in both parties raised the specter of shortchanging future disaster response even as they voted to approve the cuts
….

efforts to bulk up the stockpile fell apart in tense standoffs between the Obama White House and congressional Republicans, according to administration and congressional officials involved in the negotiations. Had Congress kept funding at the 2010 level through the end of the Obama administration, the stockpile would have benefited from $321 million more than it ended up getting, according to budget documents reviewed by ProPublica. During the Trump administration, Congress started giving the stockpile more than the White House requested


https://www.propublica.org/article/us-emergency-medical-stockpile-funding-unprepared-coronavirus

[ffr]

1. So basically Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell killed the restocking of our PPE stockpile

Which is to say, if IMPotus tRump would like to blame someone, look in the mirror, it's those pesky Tea Party rePuticans that swept him into power. Before the 2010 Tea Party, there as another crisis in 2009 that drew on the stockpile. The Obama administration significantly depleted the federal stockpile of N95 respirator masks to deal with the H1N1 influenza outbreak in 2009.

The stockpile's resources were also used during hurricanes Alex, Irene, Isaac and Sandy. Flooding in 2010 in North Dakota also called for stockpile funds to be deployed. The 2014 outbreaks of the ebola virus and botulism, as well as the 2016 outbreak of the zika virus, continued to significantly tax the stockpile.

Some reporter should ask Mitch McConnell what ever happened to the funding votes to replenish these emergency resources? Was that all part of his Tea Party's sequestration efforts? As an inquiring mind, I'd like to know.