Penny Wise and Pound Foolish

As John Nichols observes in The Nation, Republicans resisted including $900 million for pandemic preparedness in the economic stimulus package earlier this year.

As the outbreak of swine flu shows, that resistance was foolish.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins spearheaded the opposition in Congress, following the lead of former White House political czar Karl Rove — ostensibly to save money but chiefly for partisan political reasons.

There was no connection, they argued, between economic recovery and pandemic preparedness. Rove even argued that the health sector added jobs in 2008, which (he claimed) made stimulus funding even less necessary.

Oh, really?

Collins was one of three Senate Republicans who voted for the watered–down version of the stimulus package in spite of threats from members of her party to oppose any Republican who supported it. It bewildered me then — and it bewilders me now — why Collins should be sensitive to such threats. She was just re–elected last November and won't have to face the voters again until 2014.

Besides, Maine is no longer the Republican stronghold it once was. Working with Democrats makes sense for a moderate Republican like Collins.

In the wake of reports of an outbreak of deadly swine flu south of the border — and further reports of cases in the United States — efforts to cut the stimulus package by eliminating pandemic preparedness funds seem to be a clear case of being penny wise and pound foolish.

The swine flu outbreak may be something that can be contained, but Nichols quotes one person who is skeptical about that:

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Dr. Anne Schuchat, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's interim deputy director for Science and Public Health Program, explained to reporters on Saturday that, because the cases that have been discovered so far are so widely spread (in California, Kansas, New York, Ohio and Texas), the outbreak is already "beyond containment."

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Nichols rightly points out that "a pandemic hitting in the midst of an economic downturn could turn a recession into something far worse — with workers ordered to remain in their homes, workplaces shuttered to avoid the spread of disease, transportation systems grinding to a halt and demand for emergency services and public health interventions skyrocketing."

To me, this is a reminder of how intertwined everything is — and how tenuous and fragile those connections are.

I know I'm using the word "foolish" a lot in this post, but, frankly, I can think of no better word to describe Republican efforts to save dollars by eliminating funds intended to save lives by preventing the spread of an epidemic — especially when we are not that far removed from the public hysteria brought on by outbreaks of SARS and avian flu in other parts of the world, not to mention concerns about viruses growing resistant to existing antibiotics.

Drawing the Party Lines

The U.S. Senate approved the compromise version of the economic stimulus package. Now the House and Senate have to hammer out their differences and approve the same bill before it goes on to Barack Obama's desk.

Obama has said he expects to see it on his desk by Monday.

But Scott Wheeler, executive director of The National Republican Trust PAC, is playing rough. He's threatening to actively support any Republican who runs against a Republican senator who votes for the final version of the package. Three Republicans — Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins from Maine and Arlen Specter from Pennsylvania — supported the compromise bill, but all three have said they might not support the final version.

Specter might be vulnerable to Wheeler's brand of browbeating. He struggled to win re-election in 2004, and he will face the voters again in 2010. But Specter may feel somewhat torn — he was, after all, a guest at the White House on Super Bowl Sunday, where he was treated to Obama's hospitality and, presumably, his political charm.

Obama did win Pennsylvania, but his share of the vote there — less than 55% — lagged behind others outside the South.

Like Maine, for example.

In Maine, Obama got nearly 58% — a share of the vote that pales compared to Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut, where Obama received 60% plus, but you have to keep in mind that two Republicans represent Maine in the Senate — the only state northeast of Kentucky and north of South Carolina in which that is so.

Snowe should not feel much political pressure. She was re-elected with nearly 74% in the Democratic year of 2006. Her seat won't come up again until 2012.

Collins also should feel comfortable but for different reasons. She was just re-elected in 2008 so she won't face the voters again until 2014. but her share of the vote was much lower than Snowe's had been two years earlier. Collins received slightly more than 61% of the vote, but she outpolled Obama in Maine, anyway, in spite of the fact that it was not a good year for Republicans.

If the Democrats only lose Specter's vote the next time, they should still have enough votes to succeed. But if they lose Specter and either of the Maine senators, they have a problem.

That should be the strategy — keeping Snowe and Collins happy. How do you accomplish that? That is where the leadership talents of the president and the legislative talents of the majority leader come into play.

This is the kind of test that tends to determine whether a president really is destined for greatness — or mediocrity.