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Unfortunately, since US President Ronald Reagan’s adminis-
tration, themantrain the US has been that “government is not the
solution to our problem, government is the problem.” Taking that
nostrum seriously is a dead-end road, but Trump has traveled fur-
ther down it than any other US political leader in memory.
At the center of the US response to the COVID-19 crisis is one of
the country’s most venerable scientific institutions, the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, which has traditionally been sta-
ffed with committed, knowledgeable, highly trained professionals.
To Trump, the ultimate know-nothing politician, such experts pose
a serious problem, because they will contradict him whenever he
tries to make up facts to serve his own interests.
Faith may help us cope with the deaths caused by an epide-
mic, but it is no substitute for medical and scientific knowledge.
Willpower and prayers were useless in containing the Black Death
in the Middle Ages. Fortunately, humanity has made remarkable
scientific advances since then. When the COVID-19 strain appea-
red, scientists were quickly able to analyze it, test for it, trace its
mutations, and begin work on a vaccine. While there is still much
more to learn about the new coronavirus and its effects on humans,
without science, we would be completely at its mercy, and panic
would have already ensued.
Scientific research requires resources. But most of the biggest
scientific advances in recent years have cost peanuts compared to
the largesse bestowed on our richest corporations by Trump and
congressional Republicans’ 2017 tax cuts. Indeed, our investments
in science also pale in comparison to the latest epidemic’s likely
costs to the economy, not to mention lost stock-market value.
Nonetheless, as Linda Bilmes of the Harvard Kennedy
Schoolpoints out, the Trump administration has proposed cuts
to the CDC’s funding year after year (10% in 2018, 19% in 2019).
At the start of this year, Trump, demonstrating the worst timing
imaginable, called for a 20% cut in spending on programs to fight

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