The House Republican Extremists And Ebola

Tea Party extremist Frank Guinta voted to cut the Center for Disease Control budget-- and now he's whining about inadequate response to ebola

On February 19, 2011 the Republican Party decided to cut funding for the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in 2011. Although Ron Paul didn't vote that day, only 3 Republicans recognized the folly of what the House Republicans were doing: John Campbell (R-CA), Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Walter Jones (R-NC). Although every single Democrat-- even the most corrupt reactionary Blue Dogs and New Dems-- voted NO, the bill passed 235-189.

When asked what the biggest challenge facing the CDC was 4 months later, Thomas Frieden, who had been director for exactly two years, went right to the point: "CDC’s budget was cut by $740 million between fiscal ’10 and fiscal ’11. That’s an 11 percent reduction in our budget authority and the lowest budget authority CDC has had since fiscal 2003. We’ve had to make very difficult and painful choices that are resulting in program reductions and eliminations, reduction in the number of staff working on projects, reductions in dollars going out to state governments for prevention, for preparedness, for lead poisoning prevention, for asthma management. State and local governments have had to cut about 45,000 public health jobs in the past two years, and the CDC budget cuts may require them to reduce staffing by another 1,000 staff. So this, to me, is the biggest challenge."

Now Republicans like House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (MI-06) and House Education and Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (MN-02) are trying to use the fear of an Ebola epidemic against their Democratic opponents. But neither Paul Clements nor Mike Obermueller voted to cut funding for the CDC. Upton and Kline did. Clements and Obermueller both opposed the cuts. Upton used the ebola crisis as an excuse to cancel the one debate with Clements he agreed to, knowing full well that Clements would remind Michigan voters that Upton was key to cutting the CDC budget.

Votes like cutting the CDC budget went into the decision New Hampshire voters made in 2012 to fire crackpot extremist Frank Guinta, who favored the cuts and voted for them. NH-01 voters turned out for Carol Shea-Porter against Guinta, 171,650 to 158,659 in a red-leaning R+1 district. At a debate Tuesday evening, Shea-Porter reminded the audience that Guinta, who was whining about the CDC's response to Ebola, voted to drastically cut their budget: "I feel very comfortable saying the president and the administration should have done more, faster. I think that Frank Guinta should feel comfortable saying yeah, that he screwed up by cutting the funding there."

Republican scare-mongers have been going on TV and falsely telling voters that doctors are wrong on Ebola and that the virus is airborne. Republicans all say they aren't scientists when it comes to Climate Change but when it comes to ebola, they are doing everything they can to stoke fear and panic and the undercut health care professionals and experts. If you'd like to help replace Upton and Kline with Clements and Obermueller, (as well as replacing Ebola-enablers Paul Ryan and Sean Duffy in Wisconsin with Rob Zerban and Kelly Westlund) you can contribute here. And to keep Guinta from getting back into Congress, you can help Carol Shea-Porter here.