Zika becomes front line in latest budget battle

WASHINGTON—Health officials warn mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus are quickly approaching American shores, but Congress remains deadlocked on a potential funding package to help prevent an outbreak on U.S. soil.

Last week, the House and Senate each passed their own Zika funding bills, but even combined the two bills fall short of the $1.9 billion in emergency spending President Barack Obama requested three months ago. The Senate legislation allocates $1.1 billion in emergency spending, while the House approved a $622 million measure Obama vowed to veto.

Most lawmakers agree the government needs to spend money to combat Zika. But they can’t agree on how to pay for it. Democrats are willing to add the money to the ballooning federal debt, but conservatives want to pull from unspent funds instead, sticking to budget caps lawmakers previously approved.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said last week 157 pregnant women in the continental United States and another 122 in U.S. territories have tested positive for the Zika virus. The number of patients exploded in the last month because the CDC began listing all women who tested positive, not just those with symptoms. Obama said on Friday this should be a wake-up call for lawmakers to reconcile their differences because health officials say U.S. Zika infections are inevitable.

“We already have Zika in the United States. But it is travel-related,” Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases told ABC yesterday. “The concern is that we will have local transmission; in other words, people who get infected in the United States, get bitten by a mosquito, but who have never left the continental United States.”

All reported U.S. cases of Zika have come from people who traveled abroad or had sex with someone who did. But Fauci said after a rainy spring he fully expects transmissions of the virus inside U.S. borders “within the next month or so.”

The CDC confirmed last month the Zika virus causes women to give birth to babies with microcephaly, a birth defect that prevents a baby’s head from fully developing—severely damaging its brain in utero.

Democrats have been quick to criticize congressional Republicans for pinching pennies on a disease that affects both pregnant women and the babies they are carrying. But several Republicans have urged their colleagues to take action on Zika, calling it a serious threat to American lives.

“It’s a mistake for Congress to try to deal with Zika on the cheap,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said after reviewing the CDC reports. “Knowing that there are at least 279 pregnant women in the U.S. with likely Zika virus infections means we also have at least 279 unborn children at risk of microcephaly, and we should be doing all we can to save these human beings.”

Obama said federal agencies need money to work with states preparing for a possible outbreak this summer. His original $1.9 billion proposal funds researchers developing a vaccine, more testing centers, and a public awareness campaign. It also includes money to expand Medicaid coverage in Puerto Rico, where weather conditions and depleted government resources make it ground zero for an outbreak to spread to the continental U.S.

“This is not something where you can build a wall to prevent,” Obama said on Friday. “Congress needs to get me a bill. It needs to get me a bill that has sufficient funds to do the job.”

Congress is set to begin its Memorial Day recess Thursday, but Obama told reporters lawmakers should not leave until they agree on a spending bill.

As fears of a possible Zika outbreak grow, some lawmakers are wary of being fiscally irresponsible and overfunding efforts, as happened with the Ebola response in 2014.

The House bill, which passed on Republican votes, cuts some ongoing Ebola funding as a way to offset the new Zika spending. Republicans in the House maintain they need to redirect dollars and not add additional debt to deal with Zika.

Both the president and Fauci have said cutting off money to study Ebola is a dangerous route.

The Senate passed a pricier plan on bipartisan grounds, but it also didn’t include any offsets.

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said the Senate could have easily taken unused funds allocated to federal agencies to pay for the extra-budgetary spending. He was one of 29 senators to vote against the bill because it ignores bipartisan budget caps.

“What is the purpose of a budget if we cannot stick to it? No one can say there are budget restraints when the Senate simply declares any new spending an ‘emergency,’” he said. “For weeks, I have spoken about the need to address the Zika virus, but there is absolutely no reason to add a billion dollars in new federal debt when there is unobligated money in the budgets of several agencies that can be used instead. The Senate’s failure to find $1 billion in a $4 trillion total budget is poor governing.”