http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Just two weeks before the midterm elections, there are no signs of a de-escalation in the ongoing political tangle over the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and its emergence in the United States.
On Monday, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee released a statement attacking Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) for supporting budget cuts to federal agencies that are at the forefront of the Ebola response.
“At a time when our nation is focused on detecting, isolating, and treating, Ebola patients in the United States, Coloradans deserve to know about Congressman Cory Gardner’s inexcusable record that would have harmed our response to Ebola,” said DSCC Communications Director Justin Barasky of Gardner, who is running in a close race against Democratic Sen. Mark Udall.
“The Ebola virus cases in the United States and in Western Africa are a terrible tragedy and a reminder of just how critical it is to invest and fund the agencies that respond to public health crises like Ebola," Barasky's statement continued. "Congressman Cory Gardner has proven for years that protecting tax breaks for millionaires is a higher priority than ensuring we have the resources to respond to Ebola.”
The DSCC has, until now, been quiet on the matter of Republicans' support for budget cuts that have impacted Ebola preparedness. However, the committee's attack echoes earlier attempts by other Democratic groups to direct some of the public’s fear over the Ebola outbreak toward the GOP. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and an outside group called the Agenda Project have both gone after Republican candidates for supporting bills and budgets that would slash funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.
The complication with this line of attack is that Democrats aren’t entirely innocent when it comes to funding. President Barack Obama has also introduced budgets that call for a reduction in funding for the CDC. In addition, he, along with a large majority of congressional Democrats, signed off on sequestration, which facilitated major reductions of domestic discretionary spending and dramatically hindered the NIH.
The DSCC’s attack on Gardner notably avoids any mention of sequestration, and instead highlights two of Gardner's votes. The first is a January 2014 omnibus spending bill that passed the House of Representatives, but which Gardner voted against. That bill included $1.3 billion for the CDC’s Center for Public Health Preparedness – a $91 million increase from its previous funding level. The second vote is a February 2011 continuing resolution that cut the CDC’s budget by $755 million. Gardner supported the resolution, which passed the House largely along party lines.
The DSCC also makes note of Gardner’s support for Republican Study Committee budgets. The RSC, which is composed of some of the House’s most ardent conservatives, has proposed slashing domestic spending across the board, including more than a billion dollars from the CDC. - Huffington Post, 10/20/14
Udall recently attacked Gardner about this in the most recent debate:
http://www.denverpost.com/...
The candidates were asked how they would evaluate the federal response to the Ebola crisis.
"We ought to listen to the doctors and the health-care professionals," Udall said. "If they believe we ought to close our borders, we ought to restrict flights to and from West Africa. Let's listen to them.
"But senators and congressmen shouldn't be making those decisions. We should be supporting the resources that are necessary to meet the Ebola challenge."
Gardner called for an immediate traffic ban on all travel fromWest African countries where the Ebola virus is spreading. He will be in Washington Thursday to attend an Ebola hearing as a member of the oversight panel of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
"If the president's not willing to put into a place a travel ban, then we should have 100 percent screening of the people who are coming from those affected areas," Gardner said.
The two tangled over cuts to the Center for Disease Control, with Udall saying the congressman cut funds that would have helped the agency and Gardner saying he opposed tax dollars going to programs such as Jazzercise. - Denver Post, 10/15/14
Only problem is Gardner's claim is completely false:
http://www.politifact.com/...
Does Gardner’s focus accurately describe what the fund does?
No, it’s pretty misleading.
Here’s a flavor of how CDC plans to spend money from the Prevention and Public Health Fund in fiscal year 2014. (CDC is only one of several federal agencies that’s able to spend money from the fund, though we’ll limit our analysis to CDC because of how Gardner framed his claim.)
• Immunization: $160 million;
• Smoking prevention: $105 million;
• Cancer prevention and control: $104 million;
• Heart disease and stroke prevention: $77 million;
• Diabetes prevention: $73 million;
• Epidemiology and laboratory capacity: $40 million;
• Nutrition, physical activity, and obesity: $39 million;
• Racial and ethnic approaches to community health: $30 million;
• Lead poisoning prevention: $13 million;
• Infection prevention in health care facilities: $12 million;
• Workplace wellness: $10 million;
• Breastfeeding promotion and support: $8 million;
• Miscellaneous prevention efforts: $160 million;
The total for all these activities: $831 million.
More than half went for categories that would be irrelevant for the items Gardner cites. And even within the $300 million-plus spent on items such as preventing obesity, diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer, experts are certain that items such as jazzercise represent a tiny fraction of what CDC is spending.
The plan’s critics have chosen the silliest-sounding items -- an effective rhetorical tactic, but not a very honest one. (As for the Wall Street Journal editorial’s complaint that CDC has abandoned its traditional role in "combating communicable diseases," we’ll note that the single biggest spending item from the fund is for immunizations.) - PolitiFact, 10/20/14
We can beat this extremist clown, we just have to make sure the base comes out to vote for Udall. Click here to donate and get involved with his campaign:
http://markudall.com/