CDC set to testify on Capitol Hill on its budget, as it responds to COVID-19 – Marketplace

Leaders from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are set to testify on Capitol Hill Tuesday morning. The hearing itself is officially about the presidents 2021 budget request for the agency. But in the month or so since President Donald Trump sent that budget to Congress, the COVID-19 outbreak has completely changed the public health landscape.

The budget proposal for the CDC cut funding to the agency by about 16%. Now with an $8 billion funding package that was just signed into law, Jay Shambaugh at the Brookings Institution says youre seeing continued activity to try to make sure anything that needs to be funded from a public health standpoint is funded.

Right now, thanks to low interest rates, the government can borrow money cheaply, according to Desmond Lachman at the American Enterprise Institute.

It takes time to spend that kind of money efficiently, Lachman said. So I wouldnt expect an increase in the very near future.

Shambaugh said the money is good in the short term, but the conversation is different now.

But now theres a much broader conversation in Congress about an appropriate kind of fiscal response that stretches beyond the immediate funding the public health agencies as well, he said.

Such responses include tax cuts or paid sick leave that may address other consequences of the outbreak.

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CDC set to testify on Capitol Hill on its budget, as it responds to COVID-19 - Marketplace