New York and New Jersey Republicans wrote a Wednesday letter to President Trump citing points with probationary job cuts to the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC), which have impacted the workforce and a program supporting 9/11 first responder survivors.
New York GOP Reps. Andrew Garbarino, Mike Lawler, Nick LaLota, Claudia Tenney, Nicole Malliotakis and Nick Langworthy, and New Jersey GOP Reps. Chris Smith and Tom Kean Jr. rebuked the president’s actions in an unusual public transfer.
“While we commend your effort to hold our government’s workforce to a higher standard of conduct, we implore you to ensure that any overall workforce reduction at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is done in a targeted manner so as to not impact the vital functions of the [World Trade Center (WTC) Health] Program,” the group wrote.
“This staff reduction will only make it more difficult for the Program to supervise its contracts and to care for its members who are comprised of the brave men and women who ran towards danger and helped in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.”
The affected program served greater than 100,000 survivors and responders and supported analysis that will assist hyperlink victims’ well being situations to the 9/11 terrorist assault.
Republicans pleaded with the president to reverse course.
“We urge you, as a native New Yorker who lived in New York City as it recovered from the 9/11 terrorist attacks, to reverse these actions by rehiring the terminated probationary staff, restoring the canceled FDNY research grant contract, and fencing off the WTC Health Program, which was authorized in statute as mandatory spending, from any further staff and funding reductions,” lawmakers wrote.
Senate Democrats wrote the same letter Wednesday to the newly minted Secretary of Well being and Human Providers Robert F. Kennedy Jr. requesting that he reinstate the trimmed workforce to make sure stability.
