(02-28-2020 11:23 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  And it isn't a non-sequitur to comment that the reduction in funding of EPIDEMIC PREVENTION of all things, in the country where this virus originated could have been a net negative. I'm not sure what their exact activities were, but I'm guessing they dealt with preventing epidemics to attempt to keep them from become pandemics. But I guess the CDC could have completed misrepresented what their action groups did...

OK, I have a question. When a department is faced with budget cuts, why do you suppose that the first places they cut are in the field, and in particular field positions with particular potential for catastrophe? Why not instead fire a bunch of six-figure bureaucrats who drive LMDs (Navy term, large metal desks) around DC and who actually do nothing except shuffle papers?

They could have fired a bunch of overpaid a-hole bureaucrats in Washington and saved far more. So why didn't they? Because those a-ole bureaucrats got to pick where the cuts came.

Quote:I think it's a perfectly valid argument to wonder what sort of impact the funding would have had, and if it would have been enough to slow or stop the epidemic. But to say it's a non-sequitur is a stretch.

The operative word is "wonder." We can wonder about lots of things. But wondering about something and proving it are far, far apart.

(02-28-2020 09:53 AM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  Not from either the WaPo or CNN articles, we don't. That's the problem with what passes for journalism these days. Maybe the CDC was doing ground-level research in China, and in expanding its knowledge database was doing a lot of good and getting bang for the taxpayers' buck. Or maybe not. The only argument the articles make is that if Trump cut the funding, then the cuts must have been bad. That's not even logical.

But, then again, intelligent and educated people, who ought to know better than be taken in by that kind of argument, fall for it. So, for purposes of influencing public opinion, that kind of "journalism" seems to work.

No one should be better at critical and independent thinking than a graduate of an elite university, and that even the recent Rice graduates lack that skill is positively horrifying, IMO.

Surely you are just trolling us? I mean, the answers you seek are literally a google away. Just peruse the CDC's website on the Center for Global Health to figure out what it does:

Quote:CDC, through CGH, monitors disease outbreaks 24/7 around the world to prevent regional and global health crises that affect health, security, and economic stability abroad and at home.

CGH coordinates global health activities across CDC. CGH has four divisions – Division of Global Health Protection (DGHP), Division of Global HIV & TB (DGHT), Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria (DPDM), and Global Immunization Division (GID). Each division has a specific focus, but all aim to protect the health of Americans at home and to save lives overseas.

The CDC Division of Global Health Protection website has links to 2017 and 2018 reports detailing what these programs did in those years.

The DGHP notes that in 2017 it:

• Trained more than 2,100 new disease detectives, who are critical to countries’ abilities to quickly find and stop disease outbreaks, through DGHP’s Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP).
• Mobilized “rapid response teams” of CDC experts over 240 times to support emergency response in 50+ countries across the globe.
• Provided technical expertise for 25 of 39 WHO Joint External Evaluations (JEEs) that offer clear and independent assessments of each nation’s health security capabilities and identify critical actions for improvement.
• Monitored and stopped dangerous health threats, tracking nearly 340 events of public health importance through surveillance systems that operate 24/7.
• Conducted new research to look at the dynamics of transmission and reservoirs for Zika virus in 4,726 amphibians, birds, reptiles, and mammals and 27,216 mosquitos in Peru, Brazil, and Colombia.
  

Link the 2016 report from the Center for Global Health if you need further reading.

(02-28-2020 11:56 AM)mrbig Wrote:  Surely you are just trolling us? I mean, the answers you seek are literally a google away.

I want to know what the CDC did in China that is relevant to coronavirus.

Correlation. Is Not. Causation.

Quote:Just peruse the CDC's website on the Center for Global Health to figure out what it does:

Quote:CDC, through CGH, monitors disease outbreaks 24/7 around the world to prevent regional and global health crises that affect health, security, and economic stability abroad and at home.

CGH coordinates global health activities across CDC. CGH has four divisions – Division of Global Health Protection (DGHP), Division of Global HIV & TB (DGHT), Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria (DPDM), and Global Immunization Division (GID). Each division has a specific focus, but all aim to protect the health of Americans at home and to save lives overseas.

The CDC Division of Global Health Protection website has links to 2017 and 2018 reports detailing what these programs did in those years.

The DGHP notes that in 2017 it:

• Trained more than 2,100 new disease detectives, who are critical to countries’ abilities to quickly find and stop disease outbreaks, through DGHP’s Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP).
• Mobilized “rapid response teams” of CDC experts over 240 times to support emergency response in 50+ countries across the globe.
• Provided technical expertise for 25 of 39 WHO Joint External Evaluations (JEEs) that offer clear and independent assessments of each nation’s health security capabilities and identify critical actions for improvement.
• Monitored and stopped dangerous health threats, tracking nearly 340 events of public health importance through surveillance systems that operate 24/7.
• Conducted new research to look at the dynamics of transmission and reservoirs for Zika virus in 4,726 amphibians, birds, reptiles, and mammals and 27,216 mosquitos in Peru, Brazil, and Colombia.
  

This is what they have done world wide, and mostly focused on Zika and Ebola. What did they do IN CHINA and how would it have mattered to the coronavirus spread?

(02-28-2020 12:02 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  

(02-28-2020 11:56 AM)mrbig Wrote:  Surely you are just trolling us? I mean, the answers you seek are literally a google away.

I want to know what the CDC did in China that is relevant to coronavirus.

Correlation. Is Not. Causation.

Then ... do some research? I don't think you want to know what the CDC did or you would do the research like I am doing. You want to ask a question that you don't think will get answered to try to pretend like the CDC - CGH cuts in 2018 didn't have any negative impact on detection and prevention.

But here is a link to the CDC China Fact sheet, published in December 2019 (pre-outbreak):

Quote:In China,CDC is the primary technical partner for the Chinese FETP. Using classroom andhands-on experience, this program has graduated 279 epidemiologists who conducted more than 2,000 outbreak investigations as part of their training. Specialized training tracks are now being established in non-communicable diseases and tuberculosis. With technical guidance from CDC, 71 graduates completed training for the new Western FETP that supports 13 under-served provinces of China–remote areas more vulnerable to novel infections and with increasing transport corridors.

Quote:CDC has supported China CDC’s national influenza laboratory for more than 20 years. CDC works in close partnership with the China CDC’s National Influenza Epidemiology, Virology, and Pandemic Preparedness Centers, China’s provincial and local CDCs, hospitals, and academic institutions. CDC supports Chinese partners in monitoring seasonal and novel influenza viruses, as well as enhancing efforts to detect and respond to seasonal, avian, and other novel influenza viruses with pandemic potential.

Reminder that the coronavirus looks like the flu, even though it isn't the flu.

Quote:Enhancing China’s ability to contain infectious disease outbreaks before they spread globally is a shared priority of the U.S. and China. CDC collaborates with China CDC to improve its ability to detect and respond to emerging infectious diseases, including through surveillance sites in health care facilities. Increased collaboration with human and animal health sectors has furthered the “one health” concept of recognizing that the health of people is connected to the health of animals and the environment, this approach aims to reduce human disease burden due to rabies, brucellosis, and other zoonotic diseases.

Found the 2017 CDC China Fact Sheet. Changes that I notice between the July 2017 and December 2019 fact sheets include a reduction in the number of CDC employees assigned to China from 8 to 3 and a reduction in the number of locally-employed CDC staff from 39 to 11.

You are smart. Obviously no one can prove that, but for these reductions, the US CDC would have helped contain this coronavirus outbreak. But the programs that were reduced or cut were obviously intended to help do exactly that, and for exactly this types of disease.

(02-28-2020 12:21 PM)mrbig Wrote:  Found the 2017 CDC China Fact Sheet. Changes that I notice between the July 2017 and December 2019 fact sheets include a reduction in the number of CDC employees assigned to China from 8 to 3 and a reduction in the number of locally-employed CDC staff from 39 to 11.

You are smart. Obviously no one can prove that but for these reductions, the US CDC would have helped contain this coronavirus outbreak. But the programs that were reduced or cut were obviously intended to help do exactly that, and for exactly this types of disease.

Your Googling skills are much better than mine.

But c'mon Big, what does this really show - surely 11 people can do the work of 39. The government only employs hacks who slack off. No chance in hell that reducing the number of employees reduces the governments ability to respond or act effectively.

(02-28-2020 12:29 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(02-28-2020 12:21 PM)mrbig Wrote:  Found the 2017 CDC China Fact Sheet. Changes that I notice between the July 2017 and December 2019 fact sheets include a reduction in the number of CDC employees assigned to China from 8 to 3 and a reduction in the number of locally-employed CDC staff from 39 to 11.

You are smart. Obviously no one can prove that but for these reductions, the US CDC would have helped contain this coronavirus outbreak. But the programs that were reduced or cut were obviously intended to help do exactly that, and for exactly this types of disease.

Your Googling skills are much better than mine.

But c'mon Big, what does this really show - surely 11 people can do the work of 39. The government only employs hacks who slack off. No chance in hell that reducing the number of employees reduces the governments ability to respond or act effectively.

In defense of our conservative friends, I spent the last hour (or more) researching this instead of doing my own work. So I guess in some ways I am proving their point about government hacks who slack off...

I also found the April 2014 CDC China Fact Sheet, though I don't think it adds much to the discussion. Just including the link for completeness. 8 CDC US Assignees to China and 41 locally employed staff.

(02-28-2020 12:29 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(02-28-2020 12:21 PM)mrbig Wrote:  Found the 2017 CDC China Fact Sheet. Changes that I notice between the July 2017 and December 2019 fact sheets include a reduction in the number of CDC employees assigned to China from 8 to 3 and a reduction in the number of locally-employed CDC staff from 39 to 11.
You are smart. Obviously no one can prove that but for these reductions, the US CDC would have helped contain this coronavirus outbreak. But the programs that were reduced or cut were obviously intended to help do exactly that, and for exactly this types of disease.

Your Googling skills are much better than mine.
But c'mon Big, what does this really show - surely 11 people can do the work of 39. The government only employs hacks who slack off. No chance in hell that reducing the number of employees reduces the governments ability to respond or act effectively.

So we had a net reduction in headcount of 33, from 47 to 14. Are you going to try to tell me that between DC and Atlanta, there weren't 33 fat-cat bureaucrats that we could have fired and saved a lot more money, with zero impact on our ability to respond in China (or our ability to do anything else but file more reports, for that matter)?

And the reason why staffing was cut in China rather than DC/Atlanta is probably because the people who made that decision are the 33 bureaucrats we should have fired instead.

Top-heavy bureaucracies with worthless bureaucrats are an epidemic in DC. We have more people in the Pentagon today than it took to win WWII. That is patently absurd, and the same problem exists in every other federal agency.

(02-28-2020 12:41 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(02-28-2020 12:29 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(02-28-2020 12:21 PM)mrbig Wrote:  Found the 2017 CDC China Fact Sheet. Changes that I notice between the July 2017 and December 2019 fact sheets include a reduction in the number of CDC employees assigned to China from 8 to 3 and a reduction in the number of locally-employed CDC staff from 39 to 11.
You are smart. Obviously no one can prove that but for these reductions, the US CDC would have helped contain this coronavirus outbreak. But the programs that were reduced or cut were obviously intended to help do exactly that, and for exactly this types of disease.

Your Googling skills are much better than mine.
But c'mon Big, what does this really show - surely 11 people can do the work of 39. The government only employs hacks who slack off. No chance in hell that reducing the number of employees reduces the governments ability to respond or act effectively.

So we had a net reduction in headcount of 33, from 47 to 14. Are you going to try to tell me that between DC and Atlanta, there weren't 33 fat-cat bureaucrats that we could have fired and saved a lot more money, with zero impact on our ability to respond in China (or our ability to do anything else but file more reports, for that matter)?

And the reason why staffing was cut in China rather than DC/Atlanta is probably because the people who made that decision are the 33 bureaucrats we should have fired instead.

Top-heavy bureaucracies with worthless bureaucrats are an epidemic in DC. We have more people in the Pentagon today than it took to win WWII. That is patently absurd, and the same problem exists in every other federal agency.

First of all, do we really think anyone employed by the CDC is a "fat cat"? And is the CDC actually top heavy?

Second, we could have cut funding from elsewhere, but the Trump admin didn't do it, and that is on them.

The justification provided for the cuts was that the CDC wanted to focus on 10 specific countries - which China was excluded from. So if we want to focus on other areas, it makes sense to pull people out of the areas we are not focusing on.

If you're going to advocate for cutting programs, be prepared to accept the potential consequences of those cuts. It's the same thing with military spending and why you believe we shouldn't cut spending (from my recollection). The goal is to be well funded enough to be proactive and respond.

(02-28-2020 12:41 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  So we had a net reduction in headcount of 33, from 47 to 14. Are you going to try to tell me that between DC and Atlanta, there weren't 33 fat-cat bureaucrats that we could have fired and saved a lot more money, with zero impact on our ability to respond in China (or our ability to do anything else but file more reports, for that matter)?

And the reason why staffing was cut in China rather than DC/Atlanta is probably because the people who made that decision are the 33 bureaucrats we should have fired instead.

Top-heavy bureaucracies with worthless bureaucrats are an epidemic in DC. We have more people in the Pentagon today than it took to win WWII. That is patently absurd, and the same problem exists in every other federal agency.

I can't tell whether you are saying that the Trump Administration decision to reduce the CDC's China presence from 47 employees to 14 (70% cut in China-dedicated employees) is a good thing or a bad thing.

I get that you are making a total separate complaint (I'm not an idiot). But that doesn't have anything to do with the facts I am posting. And why didn't Trump direct that the fat cat bureaucrats (if they exist in a science-based organization) get cut instead of the in-the-field folk? It isn't like he is shy about such decisions.

If you want to meet the fat cat bureaucrat in charge of the CDC's Center for Global Health that had the 80% cut, here she is:

Quote:Rebecca Martin, PhD, is the Director of the Center for Global Health (CGH) at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Dr Martin has worked both domestically and internationally in immunization, HIV, and health system strengthening and now leads CDC’s global efforts to protect and improve health globally through science, policy, partnership, and evidence-based public health action.

Dr. Martin has over 18 years of experience working in international health. Since 1991, Dr. Martin has worked in the global health arena and has had CDC assignments in Kenya, Tanzania, and Denmark (2002-2011). She was detailed to the WHO African Regional Office from 2002-2006, based in Kenya as a senior epidemiologist in the inter-country immunization program office for eight east African countries. From 2006-2008, Dr. Martin served as Program Director for Strategic Information and Human Resources for Health with the CDC Country Office in Tanzania. She led and implemented studies, in partnership with the ministry of health, to measure and evaluate the HIV/AIDS epidemic and strengthen national capacity to respond.

Between 2008 and 2011, Dr. Martin was detailed to the WHO European Regional Office as the Regional Advisor for Immunization where she spearheaded regional efforts to strengthen immunization and surveillance systems, provide evidence for the introduction of new vaccines, achieve the goal of measles and rubella elimination, and maintain the region’s polio-free status. Most recently from 2012 to 2016, Dr. Martin served as the Director of the CGH Global Immunization Division, which leads CDC’s global polio eradication efforts, accelerated disease control for vaccine-preventable diseases, introduction of new and underutilized vaccines, and the strengthening of immunization systems.

Dr. Martin began her career with CDC in 1997 in the National Immunization Program, Epidemiology and Surveillance Division. Prior to joining CDC, she worked at the Maryland Department of Hygiene and Mental Health in Baltimore Maryland as the immunization program epidemiologist leading efforts to increase vaccination coverage, conducting outbreak investigations, coordinating the development and introduction of Maryland’s immunization registry, and supporting the state’s Vaccines for Children Program.

Dr. Martin received her Doctorate of Philosophy from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in international health with a focus in infectious disease epidemiology. Over the past 15 years, she has collaborated with multilateral organizations and development partners and has worked closely with ministries of health and non-governmental organizations. She has co-authored manuscripts and developed strategic plans, normative guidance and guidelines on immunization strategies, vaccine-preventable diseases and surveillance methods for both immunization and HIV.

Fat cat bureaucrat that is the Deputy Director of the CDC's CGH:

Quote:Mr. Pestorius has been with CDC since 1990 and has served as management officer for the National Center for Preparedness, Detection, and Control of Infectious Diseases, deputy director for management for CDC’s Division of Viral and Rickettsial Diseases (DVRD), and acting associate director for management and operations at CDC’s National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Preventions (NCHSTP). He also has served as deputy associate director for management and operations/chief, Financial and Administrative Services Office at NCHSTP; deputy chief, Prevention Support Office at NCHSTP/OD; project officer for the Program Development and Support Branch, Division of STD Prevention/NCHSTP; and project officer, Community Assistance, for the Planning and National Partners Branch, Division of HIV Prevention/NCHSTP.

Mr. Pestorius served a 3-month detail in 2002 for the Global AIDS Program in Ethiopia, where he served as the acting deputy chief of party. In 2010, he began serving a 3-month detail in Ghana fighting polio and other vaccine-preventable diseases.

Another fat cat bureaucrat Deputy Director:

Quote:Previously, Ms. Vinter served as the Associate Director for Policy for the Center for Global Health and was responsible for developing and maintaining executive and legislative relations, leading strategic planning, directing the annual global health budget submission, managing executive-level visits on behalf of the agency, and developing and sustaining partnerships. Ms. Vinter is fluent in Spanish and, before coming to CDC in 2010, she worked as a reporter for diverse media outlets, including Dow Jones Newswires and Voice of America in Argentina.

Ms. Vinter has a Master of Health Sciences from The Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Davidson College.

(02-28-2020 12:50 PM)mrbig Wrote:  

(02-28-2020 12:41 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  So we had a net reduction in headcount of 33, from 47 to 14. Are you going to try to tell me that between DC and Atlanta, there weren't 33 fat-cat bureaucrats that we could have fired and saved a lot more money, with zero impact on our ability to respond in China (or our ability to do anything else but file more reports, for that matter)?
And the reason why staffing was cut in China rather than DC/Atlanta is probably because the people who made that decision are the 33 bureaucrats we should have fired instead.
Top-heavy bureaucracies with worthless bureaucrats are an epidemic in DC. We have more people in the Pentagon today than it took to win WWII. That is patently absurd, and the same problem exists in every other federal agency.

I can't tell whether you are saying that the Trump Administration decision to reduce the CDC's China presence from 47 employees to 14 (70% cut in China-dedicated employees) is a good thing or a bad thing.
I get that you are making a total separate complaint (I'm not an idiot). But that doesn't have anything to do with the facts I am posting. And why didn't Trump direct that the fat cat bureaucrats (if they exist in a science-based organization) get cut instead of the in-the-field folk? It isn't like he is shy about such decisions.

I am saying that it was the Trump administration's decision to cut funding for CDC. The details of how that cut got applied would have been made by the fat cat bureaucrats in charge. CDC may very well be (and probably is) a science-based organization at the field level. But the folks at the top are largely people who joined up to do good, and figured out how to do well. Trump didn't dictate a 70% across the board at the agency. His team dictated a cut of X% that was probably justified. The folks at CDC are the ones who decided that a 70% cut in China was the way to get there.

It's the old bureaucrat trick. You get a budget cut, and you apply it precisely where it will do the most harm. The harm happens, and that's the last time anybody is going to go cutting your budget.

Take the guy who headed the FBI Phoenix office in 2001. GWB and Vicente Fox were making all sorts of noises about improving border conditions with Mexico. That would very likely mean a reduction in illegal crossings and a reduction in staffing and budgets for law enforcement in the area. He finds out about some foreigners doing weird things at a flying school in the area. Pass it along, and maybe 9/11 gets prevented. But sit on it, and something happens, and we need Homeland Security, so his agency is growing instead of getting funding cuts. So sit on it. That's a hypothetical. I don't know whether he thought that way or not. But that's the way career bureaucrats tend to think.

(02-28-2020 11:23 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  And it isn't a non-sequitur to comment that the reduction in funding of EPIDEMIC PREVENTION of all things, in the country where this virus originated could have been a net negative. I'm not sure what their exact activities were, but I'm guessing they dealt with preventing epidemics to attempt to keep them from become pandemics. But I guess the CDC could have completed misrepresented what their action groups did...

Lad... pretend for a minute that you were in charge of the CDC and the President told Congress (who sets spending) to cut your budget by 10%.... How far down your priority list would 'pandemic prevention in the nation that is the source of or at least a major player in, most of the last half dozen or so instances'?

Your 'fear' presumes that Trump somehow convinced Republican Senators and the Democratic House to specifically cut Pandemic Prevention in China... as opposed to perhaps something far less innocuous... and then when a pandemic comes, to now DOUBLE DOWN on that decision by taking half a billion dollars from Ebola?? Your assumption would be that we're taking money specifically from prevention and treatment of Ebola in the Congo.

Isn't the far more likely scenario one where someone like you in charge of the CDC was told to cut their budgets... and they chose where to make cuts? And that vital programs would be the LAST thing they'd cut?

(02-28-2020 10:52 AM)mrbig Wrote:  

(02-28-2020 08:27 AM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  The word of an Obama appointee that the expenditures he oversaw and that have since been cut weren't a waste of money, and no corroborating evidence that cancelling the spending has actually had any adverse consequences. This article is basically an editorial presented as news, not that I would expect any better of CNN.

EDIT: Just caught the fact that this article is from two years ago.

(02-28-2020 09:15 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  It would also be instructive to know what were the 39 countries where it was cut and what where the 10 that were kept. Unless China was one of the 39 cut (and I doubt very seriously that it was, because I doubt that we were ever in there in the first place) it is difficult to imagine any correlation, let alone causation, relating to Corona.

And, like Frizzy, I find self-serving statements to be very uncompellng.

I quoted the same part of the same CNN article in the 5th post in this thread. I also quoted the same Washington Post article noting that China was one of the countries on the cut list. I also noted the dates in both articles (February 2018) to point out that this wasn't some retrospective self-serving statement by former Obama officials, but rather a warning that detection and prevention efforts were being undermined by the budget cuts.

(02-28-2020 09:40 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Oh, dear, he cut a bloated bureaucracy. No wonder the Democrats hate him. Their motto is No government worker left behind, except ICE.

This is your criticism? Mid-pandemic for a program that was started in response to the ebola outbreak and where the country of origin for the pandemic was one of the countries where funding was cut? I don't get it.

Interested in ruowls' thoughts on the CDC funding cuts back in February 2018.

My criticism was to the kneejerk reaction on the left to cutting jobs in bureaucracies. No proof here jobs would have made an iota’s difference. Just the assumption that reducing bureaucracy is bad, and if Trump did it, triple bad. From the guy in favor of efficiency.

(02-28-2020 01:15 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  My criticism was to the kneejerk reaction on the left to cutting jobs in bureaucracies. No proof here jobs would have made an iota’s difference. Just the assumption that reducing bureaucracy is bad, and if Trump did it, triple bad. From the guy in favor of efficiency.

And my comments are addressed somewhat differently, although I think you will agree.

Reducing the bureaucracy is almost never bad. But the bureaucrats will make sure that any reduction cuts steel and not fat. That's Bureaucrat Survival 101.

Until I see evidence otherwise, I will presume that is what happened here.

(02-28-2020 01:04 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  It's the old bureaucrat trick. You get a budget cut, and you apply it precisely where it will do the most harm. The harm happens, and that's the last time anybody is going to go cutting your budget.
...
But that's the way career bureaucrats tend to think.

I have provided a lot of evidence over my past handful of posts. You have any evidence for this? You ever been a career bureaucrat? Somehow, I just don't think Dr. Martin with her Doctorate from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in international health with a focus in infectious disease epidemiology thinks this way.

Thank you for reminding me why I had somewhat disengaged from the quad. You are all right. Trump had nothing to do with the 80% reduction in the budget for preventing epidemics or the 70% reduction in CDC employees focused on China. It was all the fat cat bureaucrats. Trump's decision was a genius move to cut out the bureaucrats and the fat cats instead kept their own jobs sitting on their butts in Atlanta and DC and fired all the field staff. The fat cats don't care at all about global health or disease detection and prevention. They are just bureaucrats. Who are fat. And who are cats. Which is why they would be good at killing bats. Like the ones that introduced this coronavirus to humans. Which is why the fat cats are really to blame for the whole not-quite pandemic.

(02-28-2020 01:26 PM)mrbig Wrote:  

(02-28-2020 01:04 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  It's the old bureaucrat trick. You get a budget cut, and you apply it precisely where it will do the most harm. The harm happens, and that's the last time anybody is going to go cutting your budget.
...
But that's the way career bureaucrats tend to think.

I have provided a lot of evidence over my past handful of posts. You have any evidence for this? You ever been a career bureaucrat? Somehow, I just don't think Dr. Martin with her Doctorate from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in international health with a focus in infectious disease epidemiology thinks this way.

I haven't been one, and frankly have no interest in being one. But I've worked with a bunch of them, both military and civilian. And the ones I've worked with think that way.

I think the people at the field level are primarily good people with good hearts and good intentions. I wouldn't know Dr. Martin, so I can't comment on how she feels. But I'm willing to bet that there are plenty at CDC who think that way.

(02-28-2020 01:14 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(02-28-2020 11:23 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  And it isn't a non-sequitur to comment that the reduction in funding of EPIDEMIC PREVENTION of all things, in the country where this virus originated could have been a net negative. I'm not sure what their exact activities were, but I'm guessing they dealt with preventing epidemics to attempt to keep them from become pandemics. But I guess the CDC could have completed misrepresented what their action groups did...

Lad... pretend for a minute that you were in charge of the CDC and the President told Congress (who sets spending) to cut your budget by 10%.... How far down your priority list would 'pandemic prevention in the nation that is the source of or at least a major player in, most of the last half dozen or so instances'?

Your 'fear' presumes that Trump somehow convinced Republican Senators and the Democratic House to specifically cut Pandemic Prevention in China... as opposed to perhaps something far less innocuous... and then when a pandemic comes, to now DOUBLE DOWN on that decision by taking half a billion dollars from Ebola?? Your assumption would be that we're taking money specifically from prevention and treatment of Ebola in the Congo.

Isn't the far more likely scenario one where someone like you in charge of the CDC was told to cut their budgets... and they chose where to make cuts? And that vital programs would be the LAST thing they'd cut?

You're jumpy to conclusions about what I am presuming.

I am presuming that Trump made budget cuts, and in the process, this program was affected. The only presumption I'm making is that, if there wasn't a reduction in budget, that the program wouldn't have been reduced. I've got no idea who had the final say in what programs were cut, but the buck stops with the head honcho.

And I feel like China, which has a history of epidemics like H1N1, would be an important area to stay very active within (especially given its size).