[Insert Snarky "Pork" Puns Here]
Y'all remember that whole Economic Stimulus thing that got butchered by Republicans and then got no votes from them in the House?
HuffPo: GOP Stripped Flu Pandemic Preparedness From Stimulus
Jason Linkins
Remember way back in the day, President Obama delivered his Not Really The State Of The Union address, and the GOP trotted out Future Of The Republican Party Supra-Genius Bobbly Jindal to provide a rebuttal? Well, we all had some laughs, didn't we? Mainly because Jindal was all: "They want to spend stimulus money on volcano monitoring? Why everyone knows that the Hill Witch keeps tabs on our volcanoes by floating chicken bones in her own intestinal ichor!" And then Alaska's Mount Redoubt erupted, suggesting there might be something to this "let's monitor volcanoes with government-funded science" idea.
Well, as it turns out, volcano monitoring wasn't the only worthwhile public safety program that was deemed extravagant in the stimulus package, funding for pandemic preparation was axed as well. And playing a critical role was Susan Collins -- for whom the necessity of obtaining her vote is in inverse proportion to the intelligence she shows in policy making:
Famously, Maine Senator Collins, the supposedly moderate Republican who demanded cuts in health care spending in exchange for her support of a watered-down version of the stimulus, fumed about the pandemic funding: "Does it belong in this bill? Should we have $870 million in this bill No, we should not."
Even now, Collins continues to use her official website to highlight the fact that she led the fight to strip the pandemic preparedness money out of the Senate's version of the stimulus measure.
Naturally, it's tough to keep an economy stimulated if productivity gets diminished by a pandemic. And, hey, it turns out that the lack of a stable and well-funded public health infrastructure may not be so good for economic recovery as a whole:
On Monday, the question began to be answered, as Associated Press reported -- under the headline: "World Markets Struck By Swine Flu Fears" -- that: "World stock markets fell Monday as investors worried that a deadly outbreak of swine flu in Mexico could go global and derail any global economic recovery."
Before U.S. markets opened, the Wall Street Journal reported: "U.S. stock futures fell sharply Monday as the outbreak of deadly swine flu stoked fears that a possible recovery in the global economy could be derailed."
All of this is playing out at a time when HHS nominee sits on the sidelines, her nomination held up at the behest of pro-life organizations who want to paint her as the "Abortion Queen." The hold up is pointless - merely delaying the inevitable for "another week." Maybe the swine flu would be good enough to wait!
Not to mention...
RawStory: Rove mocked spending on flu preparedness
Bush’s Brain doesn’t appear to be quite so prescient in the face of a potential global flu epidemic.
Writing in a column in the Wall Street Journal in February, Rove attacked Democrats for what he dubbed as reckless spending - stimulus money being doled out to industries “that added jobs last year.”
Among them? Education and healthcare.
What nefarious programs were Democrats trying to insert? Among other things, Rove cited $900 million for “pandemic flu preparations.”
“There’s also $4 billion for health programs like obesity control and smoking cessation, $2 billion for the National Institutes of Health, $462 million for the Centers for Disease Control, and $900 million for pandemic flu preparations,” Rove wrote.
“It is not surprising that the stimulus package is laden with new spending programs,” the former Deputy White House chief of staff continued. “Much of it is spending Democrats couldn’t get approved in the normal course of affairs… Putting budgets of political allies above the budgets of struggling families is apparently the new Democratic trickle-down economics.”
The $900 million Rove rebuked was killed when House and Senate negotiators met to iron out differences of the stimulus package between the two chambers. The Senate nixed the provision, while the House had voted for it.
To be fair, President Bush requested $7.1 billion for pandemic preparedness in 2005, and the $900 million dropped from the stimulus package was the final installment. Some legislators said they wanted to see the money approved as part of the regular budgeting process, not in the stimulus bill.
Dr. Paul Jarris, executive director of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, told the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy earlier this year he was concerned that the provision’s deletion from the stimulus package might mean that resources would never arrive for flu preparedness.
“We are extremely concerned about the diminishing funding for state and local preparedness as well as the removal of all funding for pandemic flu, and the decrease in funding for hospital preparedness.” Jarris said. “Along with the state budget cuts, this is a matter of losing the infrastructure created over the past several years.”
“We will pursue everything we possibly can, but there are no guarantees,” he added. “I wouldn’t say there are any promising leads we’re following right now. It seems that Congress is turning a blind eye to state and local health preparedness.”
HuffPo: GOP Stripped Flu Pandemic Preparedness From Stimulus
Jason Linkins
Remember way back in the day, President Obama delivered his Not Really The State Of The Union address, and the GOP trotted out Future Of The Republican Party Supra-Genius Bobbly Jindal to provide a rebuttal? Well, we all had some laughs, didn't we? Mainly because Jindal was all: "They want to spend stimulus money on volcano monitoring? Why everyone knows that the Hill Witch keeps tabs on our volcanoes by floating chicken bones in her own intestinal ichor!" And then Alaska's Mount Redoubt erupted, suggesting there might be something to this "let's monitor volcanoes with government-funded science" idea.
Well, as it turns out, volcano monitoring wasn't the only worthwhile public safety program that was deemed extravagant in the stimulus package, funding for pandemic preparation was axed as well. And playing a critical role was Susan Collins -- for whom the necessity of obtaining her vote is in inverse proportion to the intelligence she shows in policy making:
Famously, Maine Senator Collins, the supposedly moderate Republican who demanded cuts in health care spending in exchange for her support of a watered-down version of the stimulus, fumed about the pandemic funding: "Does it belong in this bill? Should we have $870 million in this bill No, we should not."
Even now, Collins continues to use her official website to highlight the fact that she led the fight to strip the pandemic preparedness money out of the Senate's version of the stimulus measure.
Naturally, it's tough to keep an economy stimulated if productivity gets diminished by a pandemic. And, hey, it turns out that the lack of a stable and well-funded public health infrastructure may not be so good for economic recovery as a whole:
On Monday, the question began to be answered, as Associated Press reported -- under the headline: "World Markets Struck By Swine Flu Fears" -- that: "World stock markets fell Monday as investors worried that a deadly outbreak of swine flu in Mexico could go global and derail any global economic recovery."
Before U.S. markets opened, the Wall Street Journal reported: "U.S. stock futures fell sharply Monday as the outbreak of deadly swine flu stoked fears that a possible recovery in the global economy could be derailed."
All of this is playing out at a time when HHS nominee sits on the sidelines, her nomination held up at the behest of pro-life organizations who want to paint her as the "Abortion Queen." The hold up is pointless - merely delaying the inevitable for "another week." Maybe the swine flu would be good enough to wait!
Not to mention...
RawStory: Rove mocked spending on flu preparedness
Bush’s Brain doesn’t appear to be quite so prescient in the face of a potential global flu epidemic.
Writing in a column in the Wall Street Journal in February, Rove attacked Democrats for what he dubbed as reckless spending - stimulus money being doled out to industries “that added jobs last year.”
Among them? Education and healthcare.
What nefarious programs were Democrats trying to insert? Among other things, Rove cited $900 million for “pandemic flu preparations.”
“There’s also $4 billion for health programs like obesity control and smoking cessation, $2 billion for the National Institutes of Health, $462 million for the Centers for Disease Control, and $900 million for pandemic flu preparations,” Rove wrote.
“It is not surprising that the stimulus package is laden with new spending programs,” the former Deputy White House chief of staff continued. “Much of it is spending Democrats couldn’t get approved in the normal course of affairs… Putting budgets of political allies above the budgets of struggling families is apparently the new Democratic trickle-down economics.”
The $900 million Rove rebuked was killed when House and Senate negotiators met to iron out differences of the stimulus package between the two chambers. The Senate nixed the provision, while the House had voted for it.
To be fair, President Bush requested $7.1 billion for pandemic preparedness in 2005, and the $900 million dropped from the stimulus package was the final installment. Some legislators said they wanted to see the money approved as part of the regular budgeting process, not in the stimulus bill.
Dr. Paul Jarris, executive director of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, told the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy earlier this year he was concerned that the provision’s deletion from the stimulus package might mean that resources would never arrive for flu preparedness.
“We are extremely concerned about the diminishing funding for state and local preparedness as well as the removal of all funding for pandemic flu, and the decrease in funding for hospital preparedness.” Jarris said. “Along with the state budget cuts, this is a matter of losing the infrastructure created over the past several years.”
“We will pursue everything we possibly can, but there are no guarantees,” he added. “I wouldn’t say there are any promising leads we’re following right now. It seems that Congress is turning a blind eye to state and local health preparedness.”