GOP Stripped Flu Pandemic Preparedness From StimulusWhen House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who has long championed investment in pandemic preparation, included roughly $900 million for that purpose in this year's emergency stimulus bill, he was ridiculed by conservative operatives and congressional Republicans.
Obey and other advocates for the spending argued, correctly, that a pandemic hitting in the midst of an economic downturn could turn a recession into something far worse -- with workers ordered to remain in their homes, workplaces shuttered to avoid the spread of disease, transportation systems grinding to a halt and demand for emergency services and public health interventions skyrocketing. Indeed, they suggested, pandemic preparation was essential to any responsible plan for renewing the U.S. economy.
But former White House political czar Karl Rove and key congressional Republicans -- led by Maine Senator Susan Collins -- aggressively attacked the notion that there was a connection between pandemic preparation and economic recovery.
Now, as the World Health Organization says a deadly swine flu outbreak that apparently began in Mexico but has spread to the United States has the potential to develop into a pandemic, Obey's attempt to secure the money seems eerily prescient.
And partisan attacks on his efforts seem not just creepy, but dangerously short-sighted.
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On Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that a national "public health emergency" had been declared. Notably, the second question at the White House press conference on the emergency had to do with the potential impact on the economic recovery.
On Monday, the question began to be answered, as Associated Press reported -- under the headline: "World Markets Struck By Swine Flu Fears" -- that: "World stock markets fell Monday as investors worried that a deadly outbreak of swine flu in Mexico could go global and derail any global economic recovery."
Before U.S. markets opened, the Wall Street Journal reported: "U.S. stock futures fell sharply Monday as the outbreak of deadly swine flu stoked fears that a possible recovery in the global economy could be derailed."
The Dow, after several weeks of surging, finished the day down 51 points, with the Journal headlining a late-day report: "US Stocks Down On Continued Swine Flu Fears."
That's unsettling.
To a great many Americans, the latest developments on the public health and economic fronts are genuinely scary.
Not faked-up, politically self-serving scary, like the arguments Rove advanced in February to frame opposition to the stimulus package Obey crafted in the House.
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Rove specifically complained that Obey's proposal included "$462 million for the Centers for Disease Control, and $900 million for pandemic flu preparations."
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Famously, Maine Senator Collins, the supposedly moderate Republican who demanded cuts in health care spending in exchange for her support of a watered-down version of the stimulus, fumed about the pandemic funding: "Does it belong in this bill? Should we have $870 million in this bill? No, we should not."
As late as Sunday, Collins was still using her official website to highlight the fact that she led the fight to strip the pandemic preparedness money out of the Senate's version of the stimulus measure. On Monday, after her machinations with regard to the stimulus bill were revealed, Collins attempted to defend herself, dispatching a spokesman to declare that, "There is no evidence that federal efforts to address the swine flu outbreak have been hampered by a lack of funds."
But, as The Washington Post notes: "Collins and the others who led the fight to axe the flu money three months ago can only hope that doesn't change."
That's because the Republicans essentially succeeded. The Senate version of the stimulus plan included no money whatsoever for pandemic preparedness.
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And it is important to point out that no serious player in Washington could have been unaware of the threat that a pandemic -- or even the fear of one -- would pose to economic renewal. Every discussion about a pandemic begins with the public health component but moves quickly to an acknowledgement that an outbreak, and the ensuing quarantines, would bring economic activity to a virtual standstill.
So Rove, Collins and those who echoed their know-nothing appeals understood that they were wrong.
But they bet that they would be able to score their political points without any consequences.
Now that fears of a pandemic have been raised, however, it is appropriate to ask whether individuals who are so manifestly irresponsible and partisan should be taken seriously.
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Collins played politics with public health, and the economic recovery. That makes her about as bad a player as you will find in a town full of bad players.
But Senate Democrats bent to her demands. That makes them, at the very least, complicit in the weakening of what needed to be a muscular plan.
The bottom line is that there were no heroes in either party on the Senate side of the ugly process that ridiculed and then eliminated pandemic preparedness funding.
There is, however, a hero on the House side. Throughout the process, David Obey battled to get Congress to recognize that a pandemic would threaten not just public health but a fragile economic recovery.
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