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As the pandemic continues to claim lives across the country, new information continues to emerge about how the Trump administration is making it difficult for Americans to protect themselves.
We now know that early in the pandemic, the U.S. Postal Service had planned to provide five masks to every American household. Mask-wearing could have been widespread earlier and potentially saved many lives. But the White House abandoned the idea.
We also now know that the Trump administration took $1 billion in stimulus funds that were supposed to be used to produce masks and other pandemic protection equipment and gave much of it to weapons manufacturers.
The funds are part of the $10.6 billion allotted to the Pentagon in the CAIR bill, a staggering amount, especially considering that the bloated military budget already requires Congress to take 53 cents of every discretionary federal dollar.
CAIR’s Pentagon funding was supposed to help military personnel and their families get through the pandemic.
The $1 billion was awarded under a special law that allows the Pentagon to require companies to produce much-needed goods during a national emergency. This time the goal is to ensure that companies do everything they can to produce personal protective equipment (PPE) such as N-95 masks, ventilators, etc.
But most of that money wasn’t used to make personal protective equipment at all. Trump’s Department of Defense gave it to companies that make jet engines, drone flight controllers and military uniforms. Two-thirds of it was allocated in large contracts worth more than $5 million each.
The military says the “health” of the defense industry is vital to national security. Note that the CARES Act funds are specifically intended to protect the health of the country’s people, not to companies that make weapons.
The Washington Post reported that “major defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman have remained in good financial shape and continue to pay dividends to investors despite some pandemic-related disruptions.”
An extra billion dollars could have a significant impact on the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. Researchers at the Institute for Policy Studies found that $1 billion could fund nearly 28 million coronavirus tests or purchase more than 294 million N-95 masks.
But what makes us safer in this pandemic: getting more tests and more masks, or helping military corporations and their executives make tax profits?
* Director of New International Programs at the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. Writer and analyst on the Middle East (Foreign Policy Focus)
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