House approves $9.7 billion in Sandy aid, with some Republican dissent

Washington Post ^ | 01/04/2013 | By Rosalind S. Helderman

[demshateGod]

207 million? That should build a new hospital, a very nice new hospital.

[CharlesWayneCT]

Welcome to the new normal. Unfortunately, you couldn’t get 100 votes in the house to cancel disaster assistance.

So, what do you do in that case? Well, the purists argue that you simply vote against every case of trying to do disaster assistance.

Unfortunately, that means that the purists have absolutely NO SAY in what happens in these bills — because they won’t vote for it no matter what. Three cheers for the purists, they are pure, and they are principled, and they are “correct”.

Except, of course, that the bills will pass anyway. And as much as Boehner would love to have bills passed by republicans, he can’t stop 218 members from signing a discharge petition. Now, the other republicans really do want to be the majority, and would be happy to drive a relatively hard bargain in the process, if it would get them the 218 votes.

But as we have learned with “Plan B” and other votes, the purists aren’t playing. Because they are pure, and principled, and correct.

So, we’ll end up with a pork-ladened bill, which will be what the democrats want, and will vote for, since we can’t pass the bill with just republican votes, and there aren’t even 100 votes to say NO.

This is the difficulty with purism. If you will never compromise, but your positions can’t even get 100 votes, much less 218, you will be ignored. The only reason to ever bargain with someone is if there is a compromise that will get them to vote for something that will pass.

So far as I can tell, the purists, and the purist supporters, should cheer the passage of pork-ladened bills, since that is the direct result of applying the purist principles that it is better to hold true to your principles than to influence more positive outcomes.

[CharlesWayneCT]

Remember, this is just the short version of the pork list. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, says a bill that focused solely on Hurricane Sandy relief would be less than half of $60 billion.

That’s just the bill Congress should pass – with matching cuts in existing federal spending to keep down the deficit. That’s just the bill Congress would pass – were it run by responsible adults who could do sixth-grade math and who didn’t want to bequeath their children and grandchildren with crushing government debt.

But you can't pass that bill, because no democrats will vote for it, and apparently enough conservatives will reject it on principle that you can't get to 218 votes.

[capydick]

This is a perfect example of how bad the Republican communications team is - alls they need to do is get everyone on the same page and repeat this list every time they are in front of a camera or a microphone.

I live along the coast of NJ, 2 miles from the ocean and my town was hit bad. But - I would rather see that the time be taken to properly allocate what is needed rather than see a pork laden bill get pushed thru Congress just so they can feel good about themselves.

This is so easy, why cant they communicate this properly?

[houeto]

Congress wants to be Looterman now.

Congress has been Looterman since Looterman's grandpa was knee-high to a tadpole!

[deport]

Well that is your choice and good luck to you an yours. I hope you never take a dime if you are ever in a catastrophic situation in which you, your neighbors and community have no control over.

[American in Israel]

[cripplecreek]

See how easy it is to justify taking from others.

Its different when we do it. LOL

[deport]

The best to you and yours.