NICK GILLESPIE: A PROBLEM WITH THE DEMOCRATS’ EFFORT TO BLAME REPUBLICANS FOR EBOLA:

The report notes that “Pandemic Preparedness funding through the GHP account totaled $50 million, a decrease of $22.5 million (-31%) below FY14.” Let’s stipulate two things. First, $50 million is both a lot of money and not a lot of money in terms of federal spending. I doubt anyone seriously thinks that spending more in the year to come would have stopped Ebola outbreaks that began in fiscal 2014.

Second, the requested decrease is in President Obama’s budget. Is he a Republican now?

If that’s what it takes to win, sure. Plus:

You can argue that the United States needs to be constantly and massively increasing its spending on everything and that every time spending doesn’t go up in a lockstep fashion (and faster than inflation, as it did throughout the Bush years) that you’re killing people. You can also argue that the topline budget figures for various agencies don’t matter, but then you’re really talking about the ways in which bureaucracies, especially in the budget sector, misallocate resources. The one thing you really can’t do is say that the federal government, which is not actually controlled by the Republicans (just saying), has been slashing its spending on anything.

Indeed. But if I were a House budgeteer, I’d take the CDC/NIH folks at their — conveniently coordinated with Democratic groups — word and shift funding from all the nanny-state diet/obesity/smoking programs over into infectious diseases. And dare them to complain.

And, finally:

If we were living on such thin ice that the difference between sequestration (the president’s idea, just saying) and non-sequestration is the difference between life and death or Ebola and health, we’re screwed anyway.

I can understand why Democrats are trying to turn the Ebola outbreak here and abroad into a campaign issue. But that sort of gambit is more likely to draw attention to the failure and incompetency of public health bureaucrats here and abroad. That’s probably not good for Democrats, given that they run the White House and the agencies in question.

Yeah, its funny that the GOP controls one half of one third of the government, but somehow everything bad is their fault.