Feb. 10, 2020 at 1:38 p.m. PST
President Trump once again is asking Congress to make major cuts to the budgets of science and health agencies while favoring research deemed essential to national security.
The 2021 budget request delivered Monday to Congress includes a nearly 10 percent cut to Health and Human Services and a 26 percent cut to the Environmental Protection Agency.
It asks for increases in funding for research on quantum computing and artificial intelligence, areas in which the United States competes with China. Trump also wants to grant NASA a multibillion-dollar boost to help the space agency put astronauts back on the moon.
We already know that he cut the pandemic response team from the White House two years ago.
Going back to the moon is essential to national security? But protecting the population from pollution, climate change and global pandemics is unimportant? Ok.
President Donald Trump reportedly tried to recruit German scientists working on a cure for the coronavirus and offered large sums of money to secure exclusive rights to their work for the US, according to a report which was confirmed by the German government.
Prominent German newspaper WELT am Sonntag reported that Trump had offered large sums of money to lure the Germany-based company CureVac to the United States and to secure exclusive rights to a vaccine.
This story has been confirmed. The Germans aren’t interested because they believe any breakthrough should be available to the whole world.
Trump thinks anyone can be bought because he can be bought.
And by the way, this really makes you wonder if the reason the US refused to use the WHO test is that Trump wanted to only use a test for which the US had “exclusive rights.”
The man believes everything in the world can be dealt with like a licensing deal for cheap ties and bad cologne.