Posted on 09/26/2011 9:57:44 AM PDT by Bigtigermike
Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain — fresh off a surprise victory in the Florida straw poll that has re-energized his campaign — broke with House Republicans on Monday and urged Congress to fund the Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster-relief program now, regardless of whether they can tie budget offsets to the bill.
"I would make sure that FEMA got the money it needed, and if I had to go find the offsets later, go find it later. Stop playing with people's tragedies — these are real people we’re talking about," Cain said on CNN.
Cain argued that keeping the disaster programs funded now was more important than finding the immediate cuts, and suggested an agreement that would keep the program from becoming a "political football."
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
TWC sucks.
September 12, 2008, 1:07 pm NBC Now Owns The Weather Channel
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
The Virginian-Pilot reports: “Landmark Communications Inc. announced today that it has closed on the sale of The Weather Channel Cos. to NBC Universal and two private equity firms, The Blackstone Group and Bain Capital.”
.
IMHO... Cain just screwed up.
Personally, I think his tax plan is nuts. And this is already the second dumb tax plan he’s had in one campaign. But whatever. I just think it’s amazing to watch this stuff. We are all RINOs now!
I view this as a misstep by Cain. It is the Democrats who are demanding disaster relief money. Eva in post #32 points out that FEMA has announced that they have enough money. If Mr. Cain would be a wise man, the first step would be to DEEPLY distrust the Democrats, and somewhat deeply distrust the Republican House leadership. This would have been a moment to say nothing until the facts were all out.
Is FEMA going to hand out debit cards, is FEMA still paying 600,000 for that lease to house 11,000 unused trailers that cost 367 million dollars?
FEMA is so efficient with tax dollars...
He is saying you need to pick your battle field before you start the fight.
Cain should know better.
That's right. And the catchphrase "Stop playing with people's tragedies -- these are real people we're talking about" is the major excuse for the Nanny State: it could apply equally well to Rick Perry's Gardasil decision; Social Security; Medicare/Medicaid; ObamaCare; a "guaranteed minimum income" scheme; etc. Real people everywhere have problems and tragedies. That doesn't mean that they should "externalize the costs" of these tragedies by not adequately preparing for them and then having everyone else pay for them when they occur. That's not the function or role of a federal government.
I understand that one of the most effective first-responders during Katrina in New Orleans came from the private sector: Wal-Mart, which was able to stock and supply lots of bottles of fresh water to victims of the storm. FEMA was basically useless.
Unfortunately there is no 'later'. The House has no leverage except a crisis such as the current one with the Continuing Resolution bill. 'Later' can only happen when we get to the next Continuing Resolution bill and there will surely be some crisis element to that one as well.
Not that it matters. The GOP will fold on this one and all the rest until sometime in early 2013.
“I would make sure that FEMA got the money it needed, and if I had to go find the offsets later, go find it later.”
Yeah, that’ll work Mr. Cain. /s
Something about Mr. Cain not seen in him before needs to be recognized here.
Basically Mr. Cain is saying give in and trust that the Dems will cut the spending they initiated before the elections of 2010.
If he is so ready to sell out the fiscal conservatives in Congress, then how exactly is Mr. Cain different from old-line Republicans moderates?
“There is no real compromise with people who want to enslave you. Compromise simply means they’ll enslave you piecemeal. Progress in the growth of their power is the only real advancement that “Progressives” have sought. It has been accomplished by accumulating every niggling bit of power that they could beg, borrow, steal or wrest from individuals and vested it in their collective.”
House Rule XXI (PDF version at link).
HiTech RedNeck wrote:
What keeps FEMA from being treated as a stand alone bill with nothing else riding on it?
Specifically, it says:
Note the dates. This was Pelosi's doing. When the Dem majority took over in 2007, they wanted the "PayGo" rules reinstated and strengthened.
10. It shall not be in order to consider any bill, joint resolution, amendment, or conference report if the provisions of such measure affecting direct spending and revenues have the net effect of increasing the deficit or reducing the surplus for either the period comprising the current fiscal year and the five fiscal years beginning with the fiscal year that ends in the following calendar year or the period comprising the current fiscal year and the ten fiscal years beginning with the fiscal year that ends in the following calendar year. The effect of such measure on the deficit or surplus shall be determined on the basis of estimates made by the Committee on the Budget relative to--
(a) the most recent baseline estimates supplied by the Congressional Budget Office consistent with section 257 of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 used in considering a concurrent resolution on the budget; or
(b) after the beginning of a new calendar year and before consideration of a concurrent resolution on the budget, the most recent baseline estimates supplied by the Congressional Budget Office consistent with section 257 of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.
This clause was added in the 110th Congress (sec. 405, H. Res. 6, Jan. 4, 2007, p. ---- (adopted Jan. 5, 2007)).
Yeah, but he didn’t attend a madrassa growing up in Indonesia or work as a community organizer...
Thank you for posting, hadn’t read up on Mr. Cain yet.
House Republicans better hurry up and pass this or they just may be considered....heartless.
‘Hurry up and pass this bill’ has brought us trouble in the past.
Okay folks, is Herman the newest person to be labeled a RINO?
Think about it this way: The FAA told the airlines it was just dandy to disarm pilots and install cheesy cockpit doors in order to get another first class seat. Three airplanes were highjacked and flown to their destruction and the Bush administration "rewards" the idiot executives who made that stupid business decision with $12 billion in taxpayer dollars. If we want the environment to work that way, the results will be catastrophic. That's why I wrote a book showing how free enterprise system truly can address these intangible issues.
Thanks, I hadn’t realized NBC bought them JUST IN TIME for the election.
Stupid Hussein Head morons occasionally talk about the weather during their morning worship.
Absolutely. It is totally ridiculous to think the federal govt could actually reduce any spending whatsoever. It is bare bones now-- not a penny of waste. Totally heartless to even think of a reduction to offset billions in brand new spending. Just tax the rich. They don't pay anything now. Go Cain Go.
Interesting thoughts. However, I would disagree on an important point: the STATED purpose of the EPA -- i.e., the intention, from the point of view of government might be to deal with unfairly externalized costs imposed on the rest of us by industry (mainly in the way of air/water pollution, but including other things as well). But that isn't what it, in fact, does. What it actually does is to increase overall costs on everyone by hamstringing industry, adopting one-size-fits-all regulation (such as the issue on air pollution from eastern coal vs cleaner western coal, and the idiotic requirement that all plants, irrespective of the kind of coal they burn, install "scrubbers").
I haven't read your book yet, but I take a Coasian approach: the best way to internalize costs that are now externalized is to expand the institution of private property rights.
Take a break and see just what the republicans recommended for the offset - the same boondoggle program that wasted a half billion dollars on Solynone (sp), with something like 60 billion that hasn’t been spent/wasted.
Common sense has to go with this as well - we’ve done tooooooo much of spend it now - off set later, except the “later” has turned into “never”.
Red, Red, Red, Obama’s NOT cunning. His handlers are. :(
(Not to detract from your point of him being evil, etc.)
It’s not what I would do, but I can see his reasoning. In short order, the GOP is going to start looking past this President and this Senate and start planning for Jan 2013.
I think thats premature, but I don’t think its un-Conservative.
As a political move, I don’t think the positives outweigh the negatives, but I don’t think its a misstep so much as I just dont agree on an issue where there is room for disagreement.
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