They accuse Republicans of sabotaging the Zika funding measure negotiated earlier this year by including a backdoor way to cut money for an Obamacare program and Planned Parenthood affiliates in Puerto Rico, among other objections.
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The US Senate has failed to pass a funding bill to help fight the Zika virus for a third time.
The potential Senate Zika measure could advance as part of a broader legislative effort to temporarily keep federal agencies operating in the 2017 fiscal year that begins October 1. These efforts were made all the more hard when you took a reasonable Zika funding compromise and somehow turned it into yet another fight over Planned Parenthood.
It remains to be seen whether or not House Republicans will support compromise of the bill.
Last week, health officials reported that where there’s a Zika outbreak, there will likely be an accompanying increase in cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome.
A divided Senate on Tuesday again rejected a funding bill to fight the Zika virus, proving that Congress’s months-old stalemate went resolved over its lengthy summer recess.
“Republicans were more interested in attacking Planned Parenthood and flying the Confederate flag”.
Republicans and Democrats huddled separately in closed meetings in both the Senate and House to see if they could reach a compromise during a 19-day work session this month, before lawmakers break for a recess in the weeks before the November 8 USA election.
“I’m hopeful they understand the predicament they’ve created”, the Nevada Democrat said.
Now, as then, Democrats in Congress are either ignorant of the actual content of the “poisoned” proposal or they’re intentionally misleading the public in order to make political hay of a public health crisis and point the finger at Republicans. If no new spending legislation is passed, the current funding for the government will run out at the end of September.
With more than 50 cases of locally transmitted Zika in the Miami area, US health officials are urging women who are pregnant or thinking of becoming pregnant to take health precautions. The disease is spread by mosquitos.
“We already passed it in the Senate – clean – without the political riders”, he told reporters when asked about Zika as a wedge issue in the upcoming election.
Minutes later, Reid lambasted the GOP for adding in language targeting Planned Parenthood, along with other partisan measures that he described as “strange, weird stuff”.
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said 80 pregnant women in his state have Zika. Democrats have vowed to block any bill that extends into 2017, beyond President Barack Obama’s tenure.
“Let’s stop this monkey business”, said Sen.
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However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) dismissed such claims that Republicans had ulterior motives by ensuring the bill contained language to restrict efforts by Planned Parenthood.
