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News & Analysis | REG•WATCH Blog | Press Room
Thursday, November 03, 2005
How Safe Will the Feds Keep Us from Bird Flu?
Not very, at least according to the latest public opinion polls. The CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll reports 47% responding that they are "not too confident" or "not confident at all" that the federal government can handle an outbreak of avian flu, and the Fox News/Opinion Dynamic poll reports 55% responding that the federal government is "not very prepared" or "not prepared at all" to deal with an outbreak.
Meanwhile, some in Congress are asking the same questions about our preparedness. The Bush administration avian flu plan is being criticized for forcing the states to cough up 75% of the cost of antivirals and would offer the states $100 million for their own avian flu planning -- while still taking away $130 million from state and local government first responders.
Money aside, there's still a significant management problem. As Larry Wilkerson recently observed in a speech he delivered at the New America Foundation,
Generally with regard to domestic crises like Katrina, Rita -- and I could go on back -- we haven't done very well on anything like that in a long time. And if something comes along that is truly serious, truly serious, something like a nuclear weapon going off in a major American city, or something like a major pandemic, you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that will take you back to the Declaration of Independence. . . . Read in there what they say about the necessity of the people to throw off tyranny or to throw off ineptitude or to throw off that which is not doing what the people want it to do. And you're talking about the potential for, I think, real dangerous times if we don't get our act together.
The people have a right to expect that their government will act in their interests. The fundamental problem is that this administration is far more interested in serving corporate special interests than in protecting the public. You just can't deliver good government service when you start from an anti-government mindset.
Posted by Robert Shull
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