Stevenson’s army, March 18

NYT has details of HHS’s plan for the pandemic. It envisions 18 months and multiple waves of infections and urges invocation of the Defense Production Act to obtain needed medical supplies. Here’s the link to the 100+ page plan.
OMB wants $48 billion more than the $8 billion emergency supplemental approved last week. Here are the details.
The bidding war is on, both for a stimulus package and especially direct payments to Americans. Schumer started at $750 Billion, McConnell urged $850 Billion. Trump yesterday, because he sad he likes round numbers, called for $1 trillion — and this morning’s reports say the administration wants $1.2 trillion. Various Senators have proposed $1000 checks to people, $2000, or regular $1000 for several months. It appears that McConnell wants to take the lead in developing a Senate package this week.
In other news, David Ignatius warns of acting DNI’s effort to cut NCTC.
A pilot in the Bin Laden raid tells his story.

My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).