White House Ramps Up Zika Funding Fight
6th April 2016
Senior administration officials say they are not walking away from the months-long Zika funding fight with the GOP, even after conceding on a key issue.
The White House said Wednesday it is now forced to dip into a funding pool reserved for the Ebola virus to fight Zika — an approach that the administration had previously dismissed as it pushed Congress to approve new funding.
This exemplifies two structural problems with modern American government: (a) Money ‘earmarked’ for one purpose that may or may not match what is needed for that purpose, and which cannot easily be repurposed when needs change, and (b) the inclination of the current administration to do whatever the fuck they want and to hell with how the government is supposed to work. Both are significant flaws, one structural, the other moral. From what I have seen, Republicans (the only other game in town) don’t seem to have a clue as to how to cope with either.
While announcing plans to move about $500 million toward Zika efforts, Obama’s top health and budget leaders lashed out at Congress for ignoring their $2 billion funding request.
“We should not play with fire here. We should not risk spreading and getting out of control before Congress acts. They need to move immediately,” Shaun Donovan, director of the Office of Management and Budget, told reporters Wednesday.
This illustrates another flaw in the way government is conducted in America, characteristic of ‘progressives’ but indulged in by non-progressives whenever they think that they can get away with it (which is too often, prompted by seeing ‘progressives’ getting away with it more often than not): The impulse to shout loudly THE SKY IS FALLING WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE in hopes of stampeding people whom they see as stupid and obstructionist into Getting With The Program promoted by their Betters. Again, Republicans are like Charlie Brown facing Lucy with the football — they know this usually ends badly, but they can’t think of that else to do.