Republicans are getting a taste of their own medicine as a liberal group is running an ad in key Senate races blaming Republican budget cuts for Ebola deaths.
Video:
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
The ad by the Agenda Project features top Republicans all saying the word cut in between the facts about the hundreds of billions of dollars that congressional Republicans have slashed from the CDC and NIH budgets.
Democrats and liberals have watched Republicans and conservatives blame President Obama for anything and everything over the last six years. It is heartening to see the tables get turned but unlike what Republicans, usually, do the Agenda Project ad has the truth on its side.
National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins admitted that there would already be an Ebola vaccine ready if Congress would not have slashed the NIH budget, “NIH has been working on Ebola vaccines since 2001. It’s not like we suddenly woke up and thought, ‘Oh my gosh, we should have something ready here…Frankly, if we had not gone through our 10-year slide in research support, we probably would have had a vaccine in time for this that would’ve gone through clinical trials and would have been ready.”
The funding slide was marked by George W. Bush cutting CDC funding in every one of his budgets. The Center For Disease Control (CDC) has had $600 billion cut for their budget since 2010. The NIH has received less funding under congressional Republicans than they had during the Bush years.
The topic of the ad is Ebola, but there is a larger point that Republicans never want to talk about. Budget cuts have consequences. Republicans always sell their budget cuts to the public as cutting the fat, when the truth is that there is very little fat in the federal budget to cut. The majority of the budget each year is already locked in as mandatory spending, so when Republicans cut the budget in areas like public health and research, the cuts will have life and death consequences.
Ebola isn’t going to spread and become a massive public outbreak, but Republican cuts have left the country underprepared for a public health crisis.
The ad closes with a simple message, “Republican cuts kill. Vote.”
Liberals are letting the American people know that there is a high cost to be paid for supporting budget slashing ideologues and that price may be your health or your life.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
