Ebola and the Truth About Budget Cuts

The next time someone tells you that Republican funding cuts are at fault for our anemic response to Ebola, please tell them they are either liars or the unthinking dupes of liars. 

Here are some hard facts:

(1)  In 2000, at the beginning of the Bush administration, the CDC budget was $26 billion.  By 2006 it was $30 billion.  In the last gasp of the Bush administration, it allocated an extra $10 billion that went into effect in 2009.

(2) The Obama administration has consistently requested cuts in CDC funding, specifically as late as the 2013 and 2014 budgets. 

(3) In January, the Republican-controlled House passed legislation that increased CDC spending for 2014 by $567 million which is $300 million more than was requested by President Obama. 

(4) Since the passage of Obamacare, the CDC has received a dedicated stream of $3 billion/year from the Affordable Care Act as additional funds.  They have chosen to spend less than 6 cents of every dollar on research into infectious diseases, labs capacity or epidemiology.  So what is the CDC spending money on?

(5)  The rest of the money went into a slush fund that went for streetlights, improving sidewalks and promoting breastfeeding—all good things but not relevant to an organization called, “Centers for Disease Control.”

(6)  In the mean time, the National Institute of Health spent $1.5 million on why lesbians are overweight but gay men are not; $688 million on why people watch Seinfeld reruns, and $355 million on how quickly men and women calm down after fights.  [By the way, the answers to these pressing questions have got to be because they eat too much, because there is nothing funnier on, and it depends on their attitude toward make-up sex.  I offer this for free.  But, I digress.]

(7) The National Institute for Health has also used their money in the last few years to build a new visitor’s center, a $200,000 fitness center and a $30,000 spa. 

(8) During the Obama administration the CDC has spent $2.6 billion on programs on HIV and AIDS that they, themselves, describe as, “having no objective.”  But, it isn’t politically correct to cut funding for these programs.  The truth is that until Ebola came to our shores, it was way down the list of diseases getting attention from our health organizations.  Evidently gay entertainers have more pull than dying Africans. 

  Ebola is a viral disease. Politics does not cause Ebola.  But politics effects how we plan for, attack and talk about this disease.  Ebola was first a distant humanitarian concern, then an equally humanitarian treatment on our soil, then a free-ranging patient in Texas and now two nurses, both of whom have been moving about the general population while ill.  During this entire time what we have not seen is a cogent, measured response from people in leadership positions.  Our government has failed to act decisively (for ideological reasons); they have failed in oversight of the NIH and CDC (for political reasons); they have failed to develop plans for dealing with any pandemic (for tactical reasons). 

Even the very liberal Washington Post gives the Democrat ads blaming Republicans for this Ebola outbreak blanket condemnation for misleading and outrageous claims.  The fact is, despite my hopes six years ago, this administration has been the least engaged, most lethargic, least far-sighted, most bigoted and self-serving White House I have seen in my lifetime.  They may be the most disingenuous since Nixon, and are certainly the most incompetent since Grant. 

Give me strength to keep the faith.