CDC gave $25 million in bonuses while supposedly suffering from budget cuts

CDC gave $25 million in bonuses while supposedly suffering from budget cuts
(Image credit: Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

In the rush to lay blame for a still-nonexistent Ebola epidemic in America, cuts to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) budget have been blamed for limiting the government's response to the disease's potential threat. However, data from transparency website OpenTheBooks.com reveals that money may not have been as tight at the CDC as has been claimed.

The agency gave out $25 million in bonuses between 2007 and 2013, with individual bonuses as high as $62,895, which is more than the median household income in the United States. And despite claims that research was hampered by lack of funding, that highest bonus didn't even go to a scientist; it went to one Donald Shriber, a deputy director of policy and communication who took home $242,595 in 2011.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.