Obama steals Zika funds

[Manonthestreet]

No wonder they were whining so loud that not enough had been done....they knew they were going to steal a good portion of it.
Senator: Obama Steals From Zika Victims To Fund UN Climate Programs
The Obama administration has taken $500 million appropriated by Congress to fight the Zika virus to fund the United Nations Green Climate Fund, which gives foreign countries money for green energy projects.

 

[TheOldSchool]

We have a law that prevents the government from giving money to the U.N. because a portion of its members recognize Palestine as a state? Wtf is that?

 

[tyroneweaver]

Remember what Capt. Kirk said to McCoy about Spock in The Voyage Home. "It's just his way."

 

[Old Rocks]

“The administration has still not provided full accounting and justification for its request for Zika funds,” Mr. Rogers said. “Given this lack of complete information and the need to act quickly, independent determinations on necessary funding levels and federal activities to fight Zika in the current fiscal year were made.”

The package would be fully paid for by using $352 million in left over funds from the fight against Ebola in West Africa and $270 million in “unused administrative funding” at the Health and Human Services Department.

Mr. Rogers said the House can free up additional money, as needed, as part of the fiscal 2017 spending process.

The White House blasted the House proposal, arguing the administration fully detailed its plans in February.

House GOP offers Zika proposal, funds only a third of Obama’s request

“Here we are almost three months later, and we hear that some House Republican have gotten around to considering a piece of legislation that is only about a third of what our public health professionals say is fully necessary to protect the American people,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recorded more than 500 travel-related cases of Zika virus in the states and D.C., including a handful through sexual transmission, and officials warn it could puncture the mainland further once temperatures climb and mosquito populations flourish.

Democrats say the GOP is playing Russian roulette with a major health scare by failing to pony up the $1.9 billion that administration health officials say they need to combat Zika and backfill nearly $600 million it shifted from other accounts, including $510 million from Ebola efforts, to gird for the latest health scare.

Senators will stake out their positions through a series of amendment votes later this week.

One amendment would fully fund Mr. Obama’s request for $1.9 billion in emergency spending that is not offset, while a bipartisan compromise measure would a little more than half — $1.1 billion — of what the president wants, though top Democrats have balked at that level.

“That simply is not enough,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, said.

Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, offered a third plan that posts $1.1 billion by taking money from Obamacare’s preventive health fund

Sounds like the GOP is simply continuing it's policy of opposing anything that the President suggests no matter how much their opposition is against the public interest.

 

[Old Rocks]

No wonder they were whining so loud that not enough had been done....they knew they were going to steal a good portion of it.
Senator: Obama Steals From Zika Victims To Fund UN Climate Programs
The Obama administration has taken $500 million appropriated by Congress to fight the Zika virus to fund the United Nations Green Climate Fund, which gives foreign countries money for green energy projects.

Do you have a more credible source?

 

[waltky]

Deadlock on Capitol Hill for zika funds...

U.S. lawmakers deadlock on Zika virus funds
June 28, 2016WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers deadlocked over funding to fight the Zika virus on Tuesday, as Senate Democrats blocked a Republican proposal they said fell short of the challenge posed by the mosquito-borne virus and hurt other health priorities.

Amid political recriminations by both parties, the Republican plan to provide $1.1 billion in funding to combat Zika, which had already passed the House of Representatives, failed to get the 60 votes needed in the Senate to clear a procedural hurdle. The vote was 52 in favor and 48 against on a mostly party-line vote. It was unclear when Congress would revisit the issue. Democrats urged bipartisan talks, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, said lawmakers would address the matter again sometime after the July 4 national holiday next week.

Both sides warned the other that there could be a political price to pay in an election year for stalling on Zika funding, with the summer mosquito season under way and with it the threat of the virus spreading. "Here we are, in an utterly absurd position, playing political games as this public health crisis mounts here in our country," McConnell said. The Zika virus, which has swept through the Americas and Caribbean since last fall, has been linked to thousands of cases of microcephaly, a rare birth defect, in Brazil, as well as to neurological disorders. It has been declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organization.

There have not yet been any cases reported of local transmission of the Zika virus in the continental United States, but there have been 820 cases that were acquired from travel to areas with active Zika outbreaks, or through sexual transmission. There have been more than 1,800 cases of Zika infection reported in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory in the Caribbean. Health experts expect local transmission to occur in the continental United States with warmer weather. Democrats have been urging Republicans for months to agree to Zika funding. The Republican plan would have funded mosquito control efforts by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, as well as vaccine research by the National Institutes of Health, and money for community health centers in areas that are experiencing the highest rates of Zika transmission.

But Democrats complained that Republicans locked them out of drafting the $1.1 billion funding plan, which would have made $750 million in budget cuts elsewhere. The Republican plan, rushed through the House last week, would have taken money from battling the Ebola virus as well as from funds set aside for implementing the Obamacare health insurance program in U.S. territories. The Senate last month agreed to a bipartisan bill allocating the same amount - $1.1 billion - to fight Zika, but without cutting any other programs.

DISPUTE OVER PLANNED PARENTHOOD