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Yesterday, @USATODAY posted an item rating as "TRUE" the Trumpist talking point that it's the Obama administration's fault that the national emergency stockpile was depleted. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/03/fact-check-did-obama-administration-deplete-n-95-mask-stockpile/5114319002/
USA Today does a lot of excellent reporting. This isn't it, and for 2 reasons
USA Today does a lot of excellent reporting. This isn't it, and for 2 reasons
1) The first and lesser problem with the "correction" is timeline. Obama left office January 2017. Medical supplies are not aircraft carriers, they don't require years of planning. Trump had three years to stockpile that could be bought in weeks. He chose not to. It's on him.
2) The second and greater problem with the @USATODAY "correction" is that it seems entirely unaware that stockpiling requires a congressional appropriation.
The post-2010 Tea Party Congresses refused to appropriate funds for stockpile despite frequent and urgent Obama requests
The post-2010 Tea Party Congresses refused to appropriate funds for stockpile despite frequent and urgent Obama requests
EG about 90 minutes before @USATODAY posted its dodgy correction, @propublica posted this detailed story about how the overseeing subcommitee of the House Appropriations Committee again & again refused stockpiling requests https://www.propublica.org/article/us-emergency-medical-stockpile-funding-unprepared-coronavirus
Key line from @propublica story: " 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 ... " https://www.propublica.org/article/us-emergency-medical-stockpile-funding-unprepared-coronavirus
Proof of the essentially partisan nature of the starving of the stockpile by House Republicans 2011-2016: the moment they got a Republican president again, the imperative of budget restraint vanished - and House started funding the stockpile ABOVE Trump administration requests
The @propublica report is available to anyone who wants to understand what happened. https://www.propublica.org/article/us-emergency-medical-stockpile-funding-unprepared-coronavirus Unfortunately, there are many in government and media who actively wish to PREVENT understanding. @USATODAY has unfortunately helped with that understanding-prevention
