Let Them Be Sick And Stupid -- NOT

In Loss for G.O.P., House Rejects Spending Plan - New York Times:

In rebelling against the spending measure, Democrats and some Republicans said it fell woefully short of fulfilling federal commitments.

They pointed, for example, to $900 million in health care cuts that took a toll on the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and on rural health care. They opposed the elimination of $8 billion to prepare for a potential flu pandemic. And they pointed to a provision that would strip money from a variety of popular education programs and leave Pell Grants to college students frozen, as part of the first reduction in education spending in a decade.

This is the problem with trying to get Conservatives to prepare for disasters; until they happen, there is always the chance they won't, so why spend the money to prepare? Until the odds are irresistably compelling, budgets will always be too tight to do what's needed. It all goes under the heading of "acceptable losses." Our personal welfare is not a priority, as long as the system, and the constituency, is preserved.