Tag Archives: President Trump

President Invoking DPA to Step Up Swab Production

Image by Ewa Urban from Pixabay

On Sunday US President Donald Trump announced he was going to once again call on companies to massively increase production of essential equipment which will allow testing for COVID-19 to be ramped-up substantially. Ubiquitous testing is an essential component of getting the economy back on track and people back to work, but at the moment testing is falling seriously short of need.

The President announced that he would call on one particular company to increase its production of test swabs to a staggering 20 million each month.

“We are calling in the Defense Production Act,” Mr. Trump said, adding “You’ll have so many swabs you won’t know what to do with them.”

Details about what company would be compelled to step up production, and when he would invoke the DPA were not stated.

“We already have millions coming in,” Trump said. “In all fairness, governors could get them themselves. But we are going to do it. We’ll work with the governors and if they can’t do it, we’ll do it.”

Public health experts have warned that testing will need to increase by double or triple from present rates to even open the economy slightly. Business leaders have in turn explained this to the President at a conference call they held with Trump last week.

As of mid- to late- April about 150,000 diagnostic tests for COVID-19 were done daily in the USA. Harvard researchers estimated that it will not be possible to ease social isolation restrictions and begin the economic recovery until the country can perform closer to 300,000—450,000 daily tests.

President Trump to Present a $1.5 Trillion Infrastructure Plan

Fulfilling one of his campaign promises, US President Donald Trump will uncover his plan for rebuilding the country’s infrastructure this week. The plan will cost US taxpayers $1.5 trillion, but is heavily dependent on state and local funding sources.

The plan will centerpiece a $200 billion pledge from the federal government which will be used to leverage money from cities and state budgets which will earmark them to roads, highways, ports, airports and more.

“Every federal dollar should be leveraged by partnering with state and local governments and — where appropriate — tapping into private sector investment to permanently fix the infrastructure deficit,” Trump said at last month’s State of the Union address.

Trump has said many times that the deteriorating roads and highways are holding the country back from faster expansion of the economy. Some lawmakers and others say that this issue should have been dealt with last year and Trump’s first big push in Congress, instead of the health care issue. Infrastructure is a bipartisan issue that would have helped create a more unified Congress.

The plan was previewed by administration officials as containing two key components: funding for new investments which will help speed up repairs on crumbling roads and airports; and a more efficient way for projects to get the permits they need, so projects can get underway faster. The officials added that the $200 million will come from cuts in other programs.