There has been no shortage of finger-pointing on the response to the emerging Ebola crisis, but Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Monday labeled one ad — titled “Republican cuts kill” — as desperation from an “idiotic” group.
In the spot from the tax-exempt Agenda Project, quick clips of various Republicans saying “cut” are overlayed with commentary from health officials, and the screen closes with the words “Republican cuts kill. VOTE.”
“Obviously, this is just desperation on the part of this idiotic group that also, as you note, did the ad of Paul Ryan throwing granny off the cliff,” Mr. Priebus said on “Fox and Friends.” “I mean, it is an earned media type hit, and obviously they’re walking this dangerous path of trying to point out blame on Ebola.”
“In fact, if you look at the president’s record on anything, as you know, from ISIS to the Secret Service to the CDC to Syria to the border — I mean, you name it, for whatever reason, every single thing the administration as well these Democrats running for office touches — you know, it’s not turning to gold, I can tell you that, it’s turning to something else,” Mr. Priebus continued.
Statistics show that the budget for the branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that Ebola falls under has grown over the past several years.
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Dr. Francis Collins, head of the National Institutes of Health, also told the Huffington Post his agency “probably would have had a vaccine” developed by now if not for a 10-year slide in NIH funding. But the NIH’s division that handles infectious diseases has seen its funding jump from less than $1.8 billion in 2000 to $4.8 billion in 2010, though it slipped to $4.4 billion in 2014.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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