Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic Washington Sen. Patty Murray have accused the Trump Administration on Monday with failing to distribute nearly $14 billion of the $25 billion provided by Congress in the fourth pandemic relief bill to increase testing and contact tracing across the nation.
Their letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar demanded that the administration “immediately” release $8 billion of the unused funds that currently do not have any plans for distribution, according to the Washington Post. Schumer stated that the $8 billion should be spent on increasing contact tracing and collecting data on how the virus is affecting racial and ethnic minorities. (RELATED: Senate Approves $484 Billion Coronavirus Phase 3.5 Bill)
President Trump just admitted that he directed officials to slow testing.
And even though there’s a spike in COVID-19 cases in many states:
The Trump administration still hasn’t yet spent nearly $14 billion we fought to provide for testing and tracing!https://t.co/OHN2IxZ7Rz
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) June 21, 2020
People line up in their cars at the drive-thru COVID-19 testing site at the Bergen Community College main campus, in Paramus, New Jersey on May 12, 2020. – New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy today provided details about increased COVID-19 testing and contact tracing. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP) (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)
An additional $2 billion was also appropriated by Congress to provide free testing to uninsured Americans. Top Democrats accused Trump of also failing to distribute the entire sum of this funding, according to the Hill.
In a response to WaPo, the HHS said that it “has distributed $14 billion of the $25 billion pot of money — most of that total to states and localities, as directed in the legislative text.”
Schumer and Murray’s letter called on Trump “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 and able to easily access the $2 billion that Congress appropriated to provide testing for the uninsured.”
Many believe contact tracing is the next step in limiting the virus’ spread, especially as some states experience spikes in cases. While the U.S. has administered over 26 million tests and met a majority of the testing goals Azar laid out in May, Democrats continue to demand a greater response from the president, according to WaPo.
Trump and many Republicans have praised the U.S. efforts in making coronavirus testing more widespread.
“Look, if we didn’t test all the cases that we’re reporting, you wouldn’t know about any of those cases. In many ways, it makes us look bad. The fact that we’re so good at something makes us look bad,” the president said on June 18.