About that "GOP cut Ebola research funding" story...

Hey, do you remember that hit piece ad that Democrat supporters ran about how “Republican cuts” to the budget are why everyone is about to turn into Ebola zombies? Here it is again as a refresher. (Warning: Graphic, disturbing images)

Here’s one of the banner ads that went along with it.

Yeah… good stuff. But apparently it was a bit too much even for the Washington Post.

On many levels, this line of attack is absurd.

Obama’s Republican predecessor oversaw big increases in public-health sector spending, and both Democrats and Republicans in recent years have broadly supported efforts to rein in federal spending. Sequestration resulted from a bipartisan agreement. In some years, Congress has allocated more money for NIH and CDC than the Obama administration requested. Meanwhile, contrary to the suggestion of the DCCC ad, there never was a specific vote on funding to prevent Ebola.

There’s no doubt that spending has been cut, or at least failed to keep pace with inflation, but the fingerprints of both parties are on the knives. This blame game earns Four Pinocchios.

I don’t normally hear the WaPo breaking out the “Absurd” descriptor, no matter how far off the beam any of these ads or political speeches get. And while they may be unfortunately effective when they reach the television screen of the low information voter, they are part of a pattern we see each cycle which is equally absurd. But our members of Congress pretty much bring it upon themselves if you think about it. They regularly pass massive omnibus spending bills which include a laundry list of items and which swells to the size where it’s Too Big to Vote Against. Of course, buried inside of there you’ll find any number of nuggets.

If one of the items happens to be 2 million dollars to fund the stress inspection of various rubber gaskets purchased by the government and it gets trimmed to $1.75M during negotiations, they still vote for it, assuming they notice it at all. Then, next thing you know, the space shuttle burns up on reentry and the following October an ad shows up saying, CONGRESSMAN HICKMANHOFFER VOTED TO KILL ASTRONAUTS ON COLUMBIA!

The dance continues. And it’s going to keeping going on every two years for as long as most of us live. Why? Because it works.