Democrat lawmakers: White House needs to release remaining $14 billion coronavirus funds

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Top Democrat senators Chuck Schumer and Patty Murray said on Wednesday that the Trump administration has been holding nearly $14 billion COVID-19 funds that Congress passed for mass testing and contact tracing.
• The senators emphasized that the administration must immediately dispense the funds and utilize the allocated budget to fight the effects of the pandemic. 
• Meanwhile, last Saturday during his campaign rally in Tulsa, President Donald Trump expressed his intention to “slow down” the testing since it would mean more cases.

According to Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer and Patty Murray, the Trump administration has been keeping almost $14 billion from the $25 billion COVID-19 funds that Congress passed in April — $8 billion for mass testing and contact tracing; $4 billion for surveillance, and contact for state and local levels and tribal territories; and $2 billion testing fund for uninsured Americans.

The senators pointed out that the administration must quickly distribute the funds and utilize the resources mainly on contact tracing and data gathering on racial and ethnic disparities.

Schumer and Murray said in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Wednesday that the $8 billion proportion, which Congress allocated to mass testing and contact tracing, is still under the care of the Trump administration.

They added that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has not yet handed out the $4 billion budget for surveillance and contact to state and local levels and tribal territories.

Also, only very little of the $2 billion funds for free testing among the uninsured residents has been released. 

“While it has been months since these funds were first appropriated, the Administration has failed to disburse significant amounts of this funding, leaving communities without the resources they need to address the significant challenges presented by the virus,” the lawmakers wrote.

Schumer and Murray further said that the current administration will put the country “at grave risk if it tries to declare an early victory” and won’t use the allocated budget.

“We call on you to immediately disburse the remainder of the $25 billion in funds to ramp up testing and contact tracing capacity, as well as to make sure providers are aware of and able to easily access the $2 billion that Congress appropriated to provide testing for the uninsured,” they said.

On one hand, President Donald Trump said on Saturday, during his campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that he wanted to slow down the COVID-19 testing.

“Testing is a double-edged sword,” Trump said, as he boasted that the country has already conducted 25 million tests. “When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people, you’re going to find more cases, so I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please.”

Source: AOL.com