Good move on vaccines, bad on trimming foreign aid budget
Friday, November 4, 2005 at 1:29PM Bush shows (finally) a proactive side on potential System Perturbations like the avian flu threat. We can't stop it from coming here, but we can manage its spread if we're ready.■"Bush unveils bird flu strategy: $7.1B plan urges vaccine stockpile," by Steve Sternberg and Richard Benedetto, USA Today, 2 November 2005, p. 1A.
■"Public vs. private sector," USA Today Snapshots, USA Today, 2 November 2005, p. 1B.
■"It Was Just a Drill, but the Flu Shots Were Real, and Popular," by Shadi Rahimi, New York Times, 2 November 2005, p. A29.
■"Congress Trims Foreign-Aid Budget," by David Rogers, Wall Street Journal, 2 November 2005, p. A4.
Important for him to look more in command. Public opinion on the ability of the government to manage any post-disaster situation (whether Baghdad or New Orleans) is awfully low (poll says public thinks private companies do better in responding to disasters [64%] than government [34%]).
To repair that impression, government needs to show it cares, plus be innovative. NYC practices for a major outbreak by doing rapid-fire, short-notice free distribution of flu shots. Very popular, very useful, and very good at bolstering public faith. Lesson to be learned there.
But that preventive thinking ends at the water's edge, unfortunately. Congress is trimming the White House request for foreign aid, doing its best (as always) to earmark everything that remains, thus tying the hands of the US Agency for International Development. In reality, the political pork crowd in aid is just as bad as it is in defense.
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