An Olympia Snow job in fact.  Too bad.

Five Stars for Phake being able to blame everything on the Republicans!

Before this is over the KosKids will come up with how it's Bush's fault!

As Janet the dips*** says it must be them darn right wing terrorists who want to stop the flow of illegal alliens, oh sorry, undocumented workers, that are the REAL danger to our socialist utopia.

Besides what a few health concernes when weighed against millions of new dem voters?

Politics anyone?

AZ Democrats assail Republicans over flu

Howard Fischer, Tribune

House Democrats are trying to make political hay out of the swine flu outbreak, saying Republican budget cuts have left Arizonans more at risk.

The three top Democrats in the chamber on Wednesday criticized the modifications made to the state budget by Republicans three months ago to deal with the $1.6 billion deficit. One of those changes was to eliminate the state’s Health Crisis Fund which had $500,000 in the account.

“What we’ve done effectively is tie the hands of the Department of Health Services and limit their ability to respond effectively to a health crisis,” said Minority Whip Chad Campbell. He said that cut, coupled with other mid-year funding reductions for the Department of Health Services, “are now seriously impacting our abilities as a state to respond to crises such as the swine flu.”

But Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix, acknowledged that when House Democrats unveiled their own proposed budget for next year several weeks ago, they did not consider the Health Crisis Fund to be such a major priority as to make it part of their plan.

It did include further cuts to the health department, though much smaller than a plan crafted by Republican legislative leaders. Sinema said the Democrats plan would give the agency more flexibility to deal with unexpected situations.

The Democrats’ criticism of wiping out the fund also ignores the fact that Gov. Janet Napolitano used the “crisis” cash not only to deal with things like an outbreak of measles but also for items like educating gay men about being tested for sexually transmitted diseases.

Napolitano, a Democrat, could make those expenditures because of the way the law was until three months ago: Anything the governor decided to spend was automatically replenished each year.

Paul Senseman, press aide to Gov. Jan Brewer, called the Democrats’ complaints “ridiculous.”

He said Will Humble, the acting state health director, has assured the governor they have the ability to deal effectively with the situation. And Brewer herself said if the need arises, she has access to other emergency funds.

Sinema said her party’s decision to make an issue of the funds was not a partisan issue. She said one reason for the press conference was to urge Brewer to use some of the $185 million she has in “flexible” federal stimulus dollars at her disposal to restore the fund.

That, however, is only part of the issue. The Democrats also want to put back $489,700 that Republicans took from another fund, this one to fund the state’s 2-1-1 program, a state-run web site and phone bank where people could get answers to questions about issues — including the swine flu.

Last budget year, Napolitano took $400,000 from the Health Crisis Fund to fight a measles outbreak. The cash was earmarked to buy 10,000 doses of vaccine, pay nurses to administer it and cover lab testing.

Napolitano also gave the health department $100,000, largely for an education campaign for the gay male community. Humble said at the time that included putting things like brochures in gay bars encouraging men to get tested.

The governor said the use of the crisis fund was justified because, at least in Maricopa County, there was an epidemic of syphilis. She said the rate of cases for the first six months of 2007 was 25 times higher than it was seven years earlier.

You're doin a heckuva job Janet!

What exactly is your point Postman?

IndieTool

My point is Janet Napolitano is an incompetent dolt and if she were a Bush appointee trolls like you would be calling for her head!

Phake writes
"The bigger story is that there was a big boost for pandemic containment funding in the stimulus bill BUT... wait for it... of course the Republicans demanded it cut from the bill! Cuz we can't have all that money going to science-ey crap."

But Scmucky said..........................

“All those little porky things that the House put in, the money for the [National] Mall or the sexually transmitted diseases or the flu pandemic, they’re all out,” Schumer said.

oops