By: Raney South
Health workers on the front line of the Ebola crisis have asked Congress for help and the Obama administration has requested $6.2 billion in emergency aid to fight Ebola. Obama claims that it is to prevent Ebola from spreading in the United States. This idea might appear noble, but the government does not have the money, nor the right, to spend this much on a virus that will most likely never spread in the United States of America.
Ebola is a rare but admittedly deadly disease caused by infection with a strain of Ebola virus. Its rarity is due in large part to the means by which it can be contracted. It is not spread through the air, water, food or mosquitos. Instead, Ebola is spread through direct contact with blood and body fluids of a person infected by and already showing symptoms. Clearly, the risk of rapid contagion across the globe is rather minimal. In fact, the only “risk” seen thus far in the U.S. was in isolated cases in Texas. Since those cases there has been no American epidemic of Ebola.
Further, two studies of a U.S.-developed vaccine will begin in Liberia and Sierra Leone by January and if they go well, “we could know by the middle of 2015 whether or not we have an effective vaccine,” as Dr. Anthony Fauci, infectious disease chief at the National Institutes of Health, told the Senate Appropriations Committee. Clearly the United States already has a potential vaccine for Ebola, and the chances of Ebola spreading in America is low. So why does Obama want to spend $6.2 billion?
The United States National debt, as of November 14, 2014, is $17,940,553,143,695.42. Compared to this, $6.2 billion does not seem so much, but the government should be trying to cut back on spending. Instead, the Obama administration wants to add to the national debt by spending taxpayers’ money on fighting a disease that is no longer present in America. If Ebola spreads through direct contact of blood and bodily fluids of an infected person, rendering the chances of Ebola becoming rampant in the United States virtually nonexistent, what is the purpose of this enormous appropriation of funds?
I agree that the government should be getting prepared for this disease on the off chance it really comes to America, but I do not agree that we need to send $6.2 billion dollars to West Africa. It is not the United States’ duty to save the world. Instead, the government should focus on our country, whether that be fighting Ebola here or cutting back unnecessary spending.
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