[TheRealThing]

Another example of politicizing a natural disaster----

On September 16, the Senate Committees on Appropriations and Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions held a hearing to discuss the resources needed to address the outbreak. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) asked NIH representative Anthony Fauci about sequestration's effect on the efforts.

"If even modest investments had been made…the current Ebola epidemic could have been detected earlier, and it could have been identified and contained."

"I have to tell you honestly it's been a significant impact on us," said Fauci. "It has both in an acute and a chronic, insidious way eroded our ability to respond in the way that I and my colleagues would like to see us be able to respond to these emerging threats. And in my institute particularly, that's responsible for responding on the dime to an emerging infectious disease threat, this is particularly damaging." Sequestration required the NIH to cut its budget by 5 percent


Who really believes that 5% really made that much difference? In the very next paragraph, a CDC official confirms that the cuts made in 2013 have been largely offset by increases in appropriations in 2014 and 2015.