There is little money for the agencies tasked with helping stop the
virus due to the repugicans' precious sequester the repugican House cannot
possibly blame on anyone but themselves (oh, but they will)…
Consequences happen as a result of a particular
action or set of conditions, and heading into the midterm elections, it
is certain politicians will be reminding Americans that elections have
consequences in the coming weeks. Often, the results of an election may
not bear fruit immediately, and although the consequence of teabagger/repugicans taking control of the House and the nation’s purse-strings
in the 2010 midterms were immediately evident, they are still and will
continue wreaking havoc on the nation for several more years.
After the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention confirmed that a case of the Ebola virus was positively
diagnosed this week, the outbreak of the virus took on an added air of
urgency now that it is in America. Although there have been no
fatalities in America, the virus has killed over 3,000 and sickened over
6,500 in Africa. America’s government pledged to send aid to West
Africa to help stop Ebola from spreading even more, but there is a minor
problem going forward that is a direct consequence of the 2010 midterm
elections. There is little money for the agencies tasked with helping
stop the virus due to the repugicans’ precious sequester the repugican House
cannot possibly blame on anyone but their sick austerity economics.
Two weeks ago in the Senate, committees on Appropriations and Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions convened a
hearing
to “discuss” what kind of resources are necessary to address, and stop
the virus from spreading. According to the director of the CDC National
Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Dr. Beth Bell, the
epidemic could have been stopped if more had been done sooner to build
global health security.
Bell asserted that if the repugican sequester had
not cut aid budgets and global health programs indiscriminately by $411
million, and USAID by $289 million, the epidemic could been reduced to a
manageable situation if not stopped altogether. Bell said, “If even
modest investments had been made to build a public health
infrastructure in West Africa previously, the current Ebola epidemic
could have been detected earlier, and it could have been identified and
contained. This Ebola epidemic shows that any vulnerability could have
widespread impact if not stopped at the source.” Now it has the possibility of impacting Americans.
Despite warnings from economic experts and myriad
agencies across the government, repugicans parlayed their
fear-mongering about deficits, debt, and “foolish, wasteful, out-of-control, and unnecessary spending”
into a devastating sequester that put a major dent in the CDC’s budget
that is bearing exactly the fruit experts warned repugicans about. NIH
representative Anthony Fauci reiterated Bell’s conclusion and told the
committees, “honestly it’s (the sequester) been a
significant impact on us. It has both in an acute and a chronic,
insidious way eroded our ability to respond in the way that I and my
colleagues would like to see us be able to respond to these emerging
threats. And in my institute particularly, that’s responsible for
responding on the dime to an emerging infectious disease threat, this is
particularly damaging.”
The repugicans’ precious sequester required the NIH
to cut its budget by $1.55 billion in 2013 across the board that had
the desired result of affecting every area of medical research within
the agency. Bell agreed with Fauci that her department is leading the
U.S. intervention in West Africa, but complained the agency is being
hamstrung by a $13 million sequester cut that a minuscule increase in
2014 and 2015 is not going to make up in time to effectively stop the
virus’s inevitable spread.
In spite of the daunting, and woefully underfunded, task of stopping “
the Ebola virus dead in its tracks,” the CDC and NIH have pledged to everything in their power to get it under control. The CDC Director
said
a month ago that “We know how to stop this outbreak. There is a window
of opportunity to tamp this down-the challenge is to scale up the
massive response needed.” That was weeks ago and the consequence of not
having funding to “tamp this down with a massive response” is that Ebola
spread and made its appearance in America. If the various agencies had
not had their funding slashed by the Republicans’ sequester, the
outbreak may have been contained to a small area of West Africa and
stopped it in its tracks.
This is not the first negative consequence of repugicans’ austerity and sequester cuts. Last week the head of the
Secret Service, Julia Pierson, said cuts due to the sequester had hurt staffing and had the agency “down 500 employees.” The repugicans claimed the cuts were necessary to rein in spending across
the board and subsequently have now affected Veterans, the EPA, IRS,
Secret Service, and all national health agencies responsible for
stopping real threats like an infectious disease running rampant
throughout the population.
However, repugicans certainly know how to find
money to spend on their “high priorities” such as corporate tax cuts,
oil and pharmaceutical subsidies, and weapons systems the Pentagon does
not want, but for something as critical as embassy security, it was
prudent to rein in spending and make drastic cuts. Remember, early in
2011 then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton begged House repugicans
for increased funding for embassy security that led repugicans to
promptly make $112 and then $331 million in cuts.
Utah repugican Jason Chavitz boasted
that repugicans made the right choice even after the attacks on an
outpost in Benghazi and said, “
When you’re in tough economic times, you have to make difficult choices. You have to prioritize things.” The repugicans opted for the difficult choice of giving billions in oil
subsidies, corporate tax cuts, and shrub-era tax cuts for the rich and
cut funding for embassy security that likely cost four American diplomats their lives.
It is important for Americans to remember that the repugicans rejected any proposal to restructure the sequester to
prevent devastating cuts to agencies like the Veterans Administration,
NIH, Secret Service, and the CDC, but they did not and the negative
consequences were felt immediately at the White House and continue today
with a dangerous Ebola virus outbreak that could have “been stopped in
its tracks” if funding had not been slashed.
The repugicans, and their teabagger cohort came into
the House in 2011 with no measured approach to rein in the deficit and
just wanted to slash and burn spending. Americans have not yet seen the
end of the sequester damage because this is only the second year of a
ten year austerity disaster repugicans have no intent of stopping
regardless the consequences.
Sadly, it is far too late to reverse the negative
austerity effects that are already in place, and repugicans have
already promised they will go after everything in the federal government
if they win a majority in the Senate. Tragically, even if Democrats
maintain the Senate, repugicans will still control the House, and the
nation’s purse strings, and they have indicated they have no intent, and
are in no mood, to change their austerity habit regardless of the
imminent danger to the American people, and according to John
Boehner, repugicans have a plan for more drastic cuts in 2015.
Elections have consequences and Americans will experience the negative
impacts of the 2010 midterms for at least a decade if not a generation.
