From the article:
> But about 100 million masks in the stockpile were deployed in 2009 in the fight against the H1N1 flu pandemic, and the government never bothered to replace them.
Would that not make this a bipartisan issue?
The GOP has put the government and every possible group they can brand as "negative" on one side and the white, Christian, pro-life, straight people on the other side and has forced them to choose. It's not an attack, it's a fact and it's plain to see every day.
The Post office is just one example. In the early 1970s, Congress passed legislation that create a half-public half-corporate governing structure forcing it to operate as a business
In 2006, Congress required that the Postal Service pre-fund its health benefit obligations at least fifty years into the future, this rule has created over 90% of the Post Office's losses.
The GOP have been behind all the changes, you can argue that the Postal Service is wasteful and needs to be privatized unless it's losing money hand over first, so the GOP set it up so that's the case.
The only saving grace for the Post Office is that no private business would deliver any mail to the rural areas of the country, because a business could never justify the cost vs the pay back.
It's the same with Internet Service. My sister lives less than 90 miles from NYC and can't get anything other than satellite or dial up service.
I do not think it is fair for you to call one base deluded. And I consider it highly ironic that you would use the phrase "art of obstruction" in this circumstance.
- was there an attempt to replenish or was it forgotten?
- if there was, was funding made available or blocked?
i don't know the answers to these questions, but they are important to determine who should be held accountable.
You can read more about the Department's increasing budget here: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45820.pdf
https://www.propublica.org/article/us-emergency-medical-stoc...