Today, Sen Tim Kaine said he was pleased that the Senate passed a bipartisan, $8 billion emergency spending bill to deal with the coronavirus. But he also criticized the administration for cutting public health funds “at the worst possible time.”
In a conference call with reporters, Kaine said the president’s budget contains cuts to programs that are badly needed.
Listing programs and cuts, Kaine said, "Cutting World Health Organization by 52%, cutting funding to HHS by 10%. Cutting Funding to the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health between five and ten percent."
He also criticized proposed cuts to Medicaid expansion, which impact “people who have just obtained insurance for the first time in their lives.” Kaine added, "I don’t know if there is a good time to take a scalpel or a meat axe to the public health infrastructure, [but] certainly not in the middle of an epidemic."
