Blunt: Ebola fears based on ‘long list’ of government failures

The public’s concern about Ebola is largely due to their mistrust in the government due to its mishandling on scores of other fronts, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said on Sunday.

Blunt said many Americans had lost their trust in the government, because it has proven incapable of dealing with other crises.  

{mosads}“I’d be careful about overdoing this, but I also understand that if, it were one incident where people thought the government wasn’t doing what people thought the government was supposed to do, it’d be much less of a reaction that we see now,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Now, people see a “long list of the government being one step behind, whether it’s the border, the IRS, the Secret Service,” he said.

“Now this health concern is more real than it would be if there wasn’t a sense that the government is just not being managed in a way that we would want it to be managed.”

One demand from many lawmakers is for the Obama administration to ban travel from the West African countries worst hit by Ebola.

Blunt said travelers visas from those countries should be temporarily suspended to prevent people infected with Ebola from coming into the U.S.

“I’d suspend those visas until we have this under better control and have a sense that the carriers they are using are monitoring this in a better way than they have been up till now.”

The White House has resisted that step thus far, arguing that the ban would do little good and could make it more difficult to send American aid overseas.