House Democrats’ Zika Hypocrisy

House Democrats are putting their hypocrisy on full display this morning, as they hold a press conference to call for a vote on funding to combat Zika, seven weeks after their conference voted against a House bill to provide $1.1 billion in funding to combat Zika.

• In June, House Republicans passed a bill which provides $1.1 billion in Zika funding over the objections of House Democrats.
  • House Democrats opposed this vital legislation by a vote of 6-169.
• The House Zika bill was then blocked in a political move by Senate Democrats.
• As Democrats call Zika funding an emergency need, the Obama administration has acted on its own to allocate $1.7 billion in payments to Iran.

NRCC COMMENT: “Seven weeks ago, over the objections of House Democrats, House Republicans approved $1.1 billion to combat Zika. House Democrats’ dishonest hypocrisy in blaming Republicans for not passing a bill that Nancy Pelosi and her allies voted against, and Senate Democrats continue to block for purely political reasons, would be comical if they weren’t putting the health of Americans at risk.” – NRCC Spokesman Bob Salera

Background:

H.R. 2577 – Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2017

Roll Call 342 – H.R. 2577

Zika Bill Is Blocked by Senate Democrats Upset Over Provisions. “Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked a federal spending bill that would have provided $1.1 billion to fight the mosquito-borne Zika virus, saying Republicans had sabotaged the legislation with politically charged provisions. The move raised the possibility that no new money would be available soon to fight the disease as Southern states brace for a summer outbreak.” (David M. Herszenhorn, The New York Times, 6/28/16)

U.S. Sent Cash to Iran as Americans Were Freed. “The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward… The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.” (Jay Solomon and Carol E. Lee, The Wall Street Journal, 8/3/16)