The speed of political social media is such that extraordinarily silly and dishonest claims are subject to an efficient round of public shaming almost immediately. That is currently taking place with regard to the desperate attempt by the left to blame Republicans for everything terrible that’s ever happened, and thus also the spread of Ebola in Texas. With Democrats in control of the executive branch, you might wonder just how such a masterful feat of duplicity could even be attempted. The answer is illuminating.

Government bureaucracy depends on taxpayer dollars and rejects transparency, proper oversight, and–most importantly–accountability. So when it can be blamed for something under its purview going wrong, it will immediately turn on the American public. Federal bureaucracy is an obese creature for which your money is the main source of sustenance. Feed it, or it will come looking for you. And now that Ebola has been contracted on American soil, the head of the National Institutes of Health needs a scapegoat. And that scapegoat is you, America:

As the federal government frantically works to combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and as it responds to a second diagnosis of the disease at home, one of the country’s top health officials says a vaccine likely would have already been discovered were it not for budget cuts.

Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health, said that a decade of stagnant spending has “slowed down” research on all items, including vaccinations for infectious diseases. As a result, he said, the international community has been left playing catch-up on a potentially avoidable humanitarian catastrophe.

“NIH has been working on Ebola vaccines since 2001. It’s not like we suddenly woke up and thought, ‘Oh my gosh, we should have something ready here,'” Collins told The Huffington Post on Friday. “Frankly, if we had not gone through our 10-year slide in research support, we probably would have had a vaccine in time for this that would’ve gone through clinical trials and would have been ready.”

How convenient. For future reference keep that quote in mind. Bureaucrats simply sub in the appropriate word, depending on what it is they want money for. It’s a great trick: whatever the crisis, it can always be deployed. If only you had given me your money, [enter crisis here] would never have happened in the first place. It’s the Mad Libs of governmental blame deflection.

As National Review’s Jim Geraghty notes, the (tax-exempt) group Agenda Project is out with an ad blaming Republicans for budget cuts and Ebola death, and accompanied it with a press release that included the following thoughtful, not at all psychotic message:

Today the Agenda Project Action Fund launched “Republican Cuts Kill,” a multi-pronged blitzkrieg attack that lays blame for the Ebola crisis exactly where it belongs– at the feet of the Republican lawmakers. Like rabid dogs in a butcher shop, Republicans have indiscriminately shredded everything in their path, including critical programs that could have dealt with the Ebola crisis before it reached our country. Yesterday, a health worker tested positive for the virus– now, the effects of the GOP’s fanatical hatred for our government may finally be exposed.

Now, conservatives might be tempted to be offended by that acid trip. But really, it’s Democrats who deserve the sympathy here: imagine having to treat the above as a serious, legitimate policy analysis. Leftists who aren’t off their rocker might feel some obligation to pretend that press release isn’t completely bonkers. And that can’t possibly be easy.

Over at Reason, Nick Gillespie does a good job debunking the idea behind the “Republican Cuts Kill” ad, and points out that President Obama requested funding cuts, so it’s not exactly an evil Republican death budget, or whatever is plastered on Democrats’ sandwich boards today.

But debating the numbers is only part of the story. The more important lesson here is twofold. First, I mentioned earlier the ridicule this argument is getting online. One way to see that is by checking in on the #TookMoneyFromEbolaResearch hashtag on Twitter, which is among the ways conservatives are drawing attention to the various money wasters in the budgets of the federal health agencies. (And seriously, Collins didn’t see that coming a mile away?)

In this way, the NIH blundered, because it becomes a familiar story of how federal bureaucracies waste money in such large sums and in so many ways as to redirect the criticism. If funding for Ebola prevention is the problem, then the NIH itself ought to take the blame, because the money was there. It wasn’t the American public that lit a pile of taxpayer money on fire instead of devoting it to infectious disease prevention.

The other important aspect of federal intervention here is the existence of layers upon layers of red tape on the road to getting treatments and vaccines to market and maintaining their availability. No doubt a fair portion of health regulations are useful in weeding out harmful medicines. But the cost and time necessary to get lifesaving medical breakthroughs to market clearly in many cases act as a hindrance to public health.

So it’s risible to blame budget cuts when what we’re really looking at is the irresponsible management of taxpayer money, bureaucratic waste, and miles of red tape. Government physician, heal thyself.