By Jason Doyle Oden
Rep. Richard Morrissette is taking the opportunity to promote an upcoming legislative interim study to blast Republicans in Congress for the failure of Zika funding. While the Oklahoma City Democrat used a patchwork of issues, many Congressional Republicans didn’t vote for the measure because it would add to the national debt when unspent money was available.
Morrissette claims Republicans in the House and Senate rejected Zika funding because they wanted cuts to the Affordable Care Act and Planned Parenthood, to allow federal funds to be used to fly Confederate flags at veterans’ cemeteries, and provide less funding than President Obama requested.
“Aside from the obvious selfish act of denying states the funding they need for public health, I am trying to understand how, at this extremely sensitive time, with racial tensions high in our nation, when we are in such great need of rebuilding trust to build bridges between cultures to restore the fabric of America, that the Senate Republicans would raise this issue of the Confederate flag,” said Morrissette. “And, I guess it is extra troubling to me because the subject isn’t even being brought up within a dignified structured conversation to respect all of those involved, especially our African American citizens,” the Oklahoma City Democrat said.
“It’s being bandied about within the context of some political maneuver, a swap-out that from the beginning cheapens the entire debate with little true regard for our Civil War veterans.”
While it has become the norm for both sides to add amendments to appropriations bills which have little to do with the actual bill, the Zika funding bill didn’t gain the support of fiscal conservative Republicans because funding was already available without expanding the debt. Senator James Lankford has been vocal about using money which was already on the table for public health, but left unspent. In fact, he offered an amendment clearing the way to do just that. However, the amendment wasn’t attached.
Lankford also contends in an op-ed published earlier this year that the Obama Administration used funds in the State Department accounts meant to help curb public health threats like Zika. However, Lankford said that the $500 million was given to the United Nation’s Green Climate Fund.
“Congress refused to allocate funding for the U.N. Climate Change Fund last year, so the president used this account designated for international infectious diseases to pay for his priority,” the senator wrote.
Recently, the Zika virus struck in Texas. A woman was confirmed to have given birth to a baby with Zika related microcephaly.
Morrissette also pointed out that Oklahoma and other poverty-stricken Southern states have cut public health funding by an average of 25 percent since 2008. Mosquito surveillance has also dropped on the state and federal levels due to funding cuts.
“Budget debates that involve the very lives of Oklahomans should be carried out with respect for the fact that we hold those lives in our hands as legislators and we have a supreme responsibility to humbly honor such a sacred responsibility,” said Morrissette.
Morrissette is the author of a report for the upcoming interim study, “The Spread of Zika – Oklahoma Now at Moderate Risk among Southern States.” The House Public Health Committee will hold the study sometime this fall.
Check your facts counselor. Senate dems voted it down