Quote:The Obama administration repeatedly sought to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), yearly budget requests show -- seemingly undercutting former Vice President Joe Biden's repeated attacks on the Trump White House for its pandemic preparedness.

Numerous Democrats, including Biden, have falsely claimed that Trump slashed the CDC budget, and Biden has suggested that he would never pursue similar cuts. The Associated Press has noted that those claims "distort" the facts, with FactCheck.org pointing out that CDC funding has actually increased under the current administration, largely because Congress insisted on maintaining funding levels for both CDC and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Nevertheless, speaking to ABC News' “This Week” on March 1, Biden claimed: “They’ve cut the funding for the CDC.” On Friday, Biden stepped up his attacks, writing on Twitter: "Donald Trump's careless, shortsighted actions left our nation ill-prepared and now Americans are paying the price."

In its fiscal year 2013 budget, while Biden was vice president, the Obama administration sought a total funding level of $5.9 billion from the CDC, or a $569 million cut from the 2012 budget of $6.46 billion. In fiscal year 2015, the Obama administration wanted a $414 million cut year-over-year, and again in the fiscal year 2017 budget, the Obama administration looked to eliminate $251 million in CDC funding.

The proposed cuts take into account money budgeted for The Prevention and Public Health Fund, which was established under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 to bolster the nation's health care system. When not including that fund, the Obama administration sought CDC cuts in five of its eight years.

Some of the Obama administration's cuts specifically took aim at the CDC's preparedness initiatives.

“Now, President Obama’s 2012 budget calls for paring some of that spending. Funding for a public health emergency preparedness program run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was cut by about $72 million below fiscal 2010 levels in the budget proposal.” The Wall Street Journal reported in 2012.

Those cuts would later intensify. “The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) takes a hit of about $270 million in the Obama administration's proposed fiscal year 2014 budget, including significant cuts to biodefense and emergency preparedness programs," according to a 2013 post from the Center For Infectious Disease Research And Policy.

Then, in 2015, President Obama called for $50 million in budget cuts amid a measles outbreak -- and White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest's claims that ObamaCare would pick up the slack were rated false by The Washington Post's fact-checker.

“Chipping away at 317 funds — even if the majority of cuts are going toward vaccine purchases — jeopardizes the immunization system in general, public-health officials and advocates say. It restricts the ability of local public health departments to prepare for and respond to outbreaks and educate providers, Chris Aldridge, senior director for infectious disease at the National Association of County and City Health Officials, told The Washington Post in 2015.

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When Democrats accuse Trump of doing something, it usually turns out that Obama actually did it.

^ predictable

Hey, he had to come up with the money to keep murdering babies. That is the Dems number agenda you know.