The GOP, specifically Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, insisted that nearly $900 million in funding for national pandemic preparation be stripped from President Obama’s stimulus package before she would vote for it.
Collins wasn’t the only Republican who thought preparing for a national flu pandemic was a bad idea, according to the Raw Story political Web site. Karl Rove, in a February article in the Wall Street Journal, mocked the proposal as “reckless spending.” We won’t go into the question of how a higher-up in the Bush administration can criticize someone else for “reckless spending” without having a laughing fit, but another interesting sidelight to this issue is that the awful, awful Obama proposal for pandemic preparation was actually just the final “installment” in a $7.1 billion program launched by George W. Bush.
And keep in mind that the current swine flu outbreak is taking place at a time when the United States doesn’t have a Secretary of Health and Human Services because the GOP is blocking the nomination of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sibelius due to her support for women’s reproductive rights. That’s right, folks — as always, conservative Republicans are out there, looking out for you and your family and your health.
This article appears in Apr 21-28, 2009.
