Pobody's nerfect

Remember the thoroughly adult stimulus bill debate our elected betters in Congress had? You know the one. Where a bunch of hacks decided that cutting out stimulative sections of the bill because the "numbers sounded high" and knocking good ideas out of the bill in some vain quest to achieve a total dollar sum they picked at random in an attempt to appear bipartisan and look like they were doing something. Remember? Boy I sure hope none of the stuff they knocked out has grossly dangerous implications for battling global flu pandemics.

Indeed, like Rove, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) was apparently unwilling to be seen as endorsing such "funny" sounding priorities as flu "preparedness" in an economic recovery package. Perhaps in an attempt to prove her fiscal conservative bona fides, Collins repeatedly insisted that Obey's pandemic preparedness funding did not belong in the bill:

COLLINS: There's funding to help improve our preparedness for a pandemic flu. There is funding to help improve cyber security. What does that have to do with an economic stimulus package? [CNN, 1/31/09]

COLLINS: I think everybody in the room is concerned about a pandemic flu. But does it belong in this bill? Should we have $870 million in this bill? No. We should not. [MSNBC, 2/5/09]

After the funding was stripped, another moderate Republican attempting to appear tough on "unnecessary" spending in the recovery package, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), endorsed Collins' crusade against the pandemic preparedness funding

Whoops! It turns out that chortling at stuff that sounds funny, using it as a basis for governing, listening to Karl Rove, and randomly hacking things out of the stimulus package all didn't seem like such smart things to do in hindsight. And the logic seemed so airtight too. Apparently Collins' "it sounds funny, cut it" is a better argument than David Obey's (who put the provision in) "a pandemic hitting in the midst of an economic downturn could turn a recession into something far worse" argument. And why not, they're both rational arguments made by serious people. Well, one is.

So in case you were wondering why, despite years of warning that we're all going to be killed by some superflu pandemic, we haven't spent money on pandemic flu preparations....well, we were, but the name sounded funny. Perhaps if it was called the "Extra Freedomy Way to Protect America First From Mucousy Flu Death Plan For America. Freedom!" plan it might have had a chance. But don't worry, now that the problem is already here, I'm sure they'll get right on it. Because prevention is always a shortsighted waste of money, but shutting the barn door after the animals get out is serious and responsible leadership.