Earlier this year, President Obama called on Congress to allocate $1.9 billion in emergency funding to fight the invasion of Zika, which is spread by mosquitoes and sex.
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President Barack Obama and Senate Democrat oppose that idea.
“If you care about children ― and that’s the argument a lot of our conservative friends are making about dealing with Planned Parenthood ― if you care about them, wake up, man!”
In the absence of a funding bill, the White House has been redirecting funds earmarked to fight Ebola, cancer and other diseases.
And a new mother brought her baby to Democratic press conferences, to describe how she was vacationing in the Bahamas and received a call from her parents about the threat of Zika.
Instead of doing the right thing and putting forward a clean bill to combat this serious problem, Republicans offered legislation that took aim at Planned Parenthood funding, ended pesticide regulation, and would have allowed the Confederate Flag to be flown at military cemeteries. There’s some people that want the display in some areas. And yet, the day after they failed to pass Zika funding, Democratic senators repeated the same false claim: The bill as written, they insisted, would have robbed funds directly from the women’s health provider.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who is seeking re-election with Zika as a main campaign issue, said the Senate should again approve its original Zika bill. “Let’s stop these political games.
This issue is about human beings, not political chess pieces, and we have a duty to solve it”, said Sen”.
Senate Republican John Cornyn of Texas told Politico in an interview that a standoff over Planned Parenthood is “not the goal”. Three-quarters of Americans say increased federal research funding is necessary to prevent Zika’s continued spread, according to the poll by the March of Dimes and NORC at the University of Chicago.
“Battle lines are forming, we’ll see how much of a battle it proves to be”, said South Carolina Rep. Mark Sanford.
On Tuesday, Florida health officials said seven more home-grown cases of Zika, six of them part of an outbreak in Miami Beach, were found. Florida has documented 56 locally transmitted cases of Zika infection.
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Because of the Senate standoff, the Zika funding likely will be included in a fiscal year-end stop-gap measure meant to keep the federal government operating until Congress returns after the November 8 election or longer.
