Majority Leader Promises To Block Any Senate Efforts To Significantly Cut CDC’s Budget

The AP (8/11) reports Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) “said Sunday he will work to block a plan that would significantly cut the proposed budget of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warning that such a spending reduction could endanger the public.” Senate Democrats “said the proposal in a House bill includes a reduction of the CDC’s proposed budget by $1.8 billion, or about 22%,” which “would mean a major cut in programs designed to address firearm injuries and opioid overdose prevention.” Schumer “said such a reduction ‘would wreak havoc and chaos on food safety funding mechanisms and tracking operations at a core level,’” pointing “specifically to the CDC’s work on the ongoing listeria food poisoning outbreak linked to Boar’s Head deli meats that has killed at least three people and sickened more than 40 others.”