Red States Most Impacted By Trump Cuts To CDC Grants
At this point, I think we can safely say that the Republican Party is a death cult. In the event you need more evidence for that thesis, don’t worry, I’ve got you. Earlier this year, the Trump administration terminated several CDC grants intended to upgrade healthcare systems, reduce demographic disparities in healthcare outcomes, and hire community healthcare workers. As the year has gone on, data shows that states that voted for Trump were most impacted by the CDC’s grant terminations.
According to NBC News, red states were most affected by the cuts because state leadership didn’t do anything to fight back against them. When the CDC initially terminated the grants, the impact was evenly spread out across red and blue states. While leadership in red states refused to stand up for their constituents, several governors and attorneys general in blue states immediately got to work and filed injunctions against the grant terminations in federal courts. As a result of those injunctions, blue states only make up 16% of the CDC grant terminations, with red states now making up 77% of the terminations.
From NBC News:
Federal CDC funding accounts for more than half of state and local health department budgets, according to KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News. States that President Donald Trump won in the 2024 election received a higher share of the $15 billion the CDC allocated in fiscal 2023 than those that Democrat Kamala Harris won, according to KFF.
The Trump administration’s nationwide CDC grant terminations reflect this. More than half were in states that Trump won in 2024, totaling at least 370 terminations before the court action, according to KFF Health News’ analysis.
The Columbus, Ohio, health department had received $6.2 million in CDC grants, but roughly half of it — $3 million — disappeared with the Trump cuts. The city laid off 11 people who worked on investigating infectious disease outbreaks in such places as schools and nursing homes, Columbus Health Commissioner Mysheika Roberts said.
Now, it’s easy to feel a sense of schadenfreude at Trump supporters getting exactly what they voted for, but I’d pump the brakes on that line of thinking. While yes, many Republican voters ostensibly shot themselves in the foot, the red states most affected by these cuts boast significant Black populations. Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma, and Ohio were the four states that had the highest number of CDC grant terminations.
There are 3.5 million Black people who live in Georgia, making up roughly 32% of the state’s population. Texas has the highest population of Black people in the U.S., with 4,334,313, making up 13.4% of the state’s population.
Last year, Georgia ranked first in the country for HIV transmission, with Black people disproportionately making up the majority of new HIV diagnoses in the state. Despite HIV transmission clearly being a problem in a state that went for Trump in 2024, the Trump administration axed several grants intended for HIV research and issued an executive order withholding CDC grants from nonprofits focused on LGBTQ sexual health due to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) concerns.
The Trump administration’s approach to public health feels like they sat around in a room and asked each other, “What if we went from DEI to just letting people DIE?”
The funding cuts in Texas came as the state faced the country’s worst measles outbreak in three decades. The outbreak began in West Texas before spreading nationwide, resulting in 1431 people getting infected with the disease and three people dying.
HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon defended the cuts in a statement sent to NBC News, saying the agency “is committed to protecting the health of every American, regardless of politics or geography. These funds were provided in response to the COVID pandemic, which is long over. We will continue working with states to strengthen public health infrastructure and ensure communities have the tools they need to respond to outbreaks and keep people safe.”
Public health experts push back against the notion that the terminated CDC grants were exclusively for COVID response. “It really supported infrastructure across the board, particularly in how states respond to public health threats,” Susan Kansagra, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, told NBC News.
While it’s easy to say that people in red states should just vote in their best interest, there’s a strong chance many people already are, but their votes are being increasingly marginalized through gerrymandered electoral maps. I wish I could be surprised by all this, but there’s nothing more American than disenfranchising Black people and using legislative power to actively kill us.
SEE ALSO:
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FDA Approves Updated COVID Vaccines, Restricts Access
Judge Blocks Trump EO Pulling Funds From LGBTQ Health Nonprofits
