Grassley reacts to Zika funding vote

Congress is set to return to Capitol Hill after a seven week break.

This bloc of conservatives, along with several outside advocacy groups on the right are arguing that Congress should pass a funding bill that lasts through the spring.

More Florida cases were announced Tuesday.

With zero chance of completing all 12 spending bills by then, the key questions are how many weeks a temporary spending package will last – and whether the GOP can garner enough votes for such a measure without triggering a government shutdown sure to enrage voters. “Let’s do what the Senate did three months ago when it passed bipartisan by 69 votes”, Nelson said.

“It’s hard to explain why – despite their own calls for funding – Senate Democrats chose to block a bill that could help keep pregnant women and babies safer from Zika”, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said on the floor.

What we’re reading, September 7, 2016: Allergan vows to limit drug price hikes; Senate votes again to block Zika funding bill; and CMS will institute a new process to screen people signing up for Obamacare coverage during special enrollment periods. Senate Democrats say the Zika bill has provisions that would prevent money going to Planned Parenthood in Puerto Rico, where the virus is running rampant. The legislation also would ease, over the objections of environmentalists, permitting requirements for pesticide spraying to kill the mosquitoes that can spread the virus.

A new survey from Public Policy Polling found 50 percent of Floridians said Congress was to blame for the lack of funding to combat Zika. President Obama in February asked Congress to approve $1.9 billion in emergency Zika money. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said he opposed the strategy of including a Planned Parenthood poison pill, which prompted Democrats to reject the bill.

An aedes aegypti mosquitoes that carries the Zika virus is seen at a laboratory of the National Center for the Control of Tropical Diseases (CENCET) in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

This is the third time Senate Democrats have voted against the bill, and the Veteran’s Administration Spending Bill accompanying it. “There is no reason that can not be taken up, passed and be the bill that goes to the president”.

Republicans are performing their own political stunts, according to Iowa Democratic Party Chairwoman Andy McGuire.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers has said he supports a similar approach as McConnell’s – a bill through some time in December – and said that there are some discussions about attaching Zika money to the must-pass bill, although no decisions have been made.