Posted on 01/16/2013 7:32:09 AM PST by SeekAndFind
I remember some consternation in the media a few weeks ago after Boehner split the original $60 billion relief package into two smaller bills that this meant the GOP was going to gut part of it. Absurd. Did anyone seriously believe Boehner et al. would risk more bad press by stripping out the pork after Chris Christie threw a big tantrum about how evil his own party was for even delaying the initial vote?
I hereby retract my skepticism that the GOP leadership collectively has no balls.
Lawmakers in the House of Representatives approved measures Tuesday to send more than $50 billion in aid to the Northeastern states ravaged by Superstorm Sandy last fall, though some conservatives in the House were pushing for spending cuts that would offset the cost of the recovery package…
One of those voted upon – introduced by Rep. Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina – called for all of the Sandy aid funding to be completely counterbalanced by equivalent spending cuts. Previously, emergency aid packages, including several measures funding relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina that hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, have been passed in Congress without matching spending reductions.
The Mulvaney amendment, however, failed to pass the House Tuesday afternoon.
Seventy-one Republicans voted against Mulvaney’s amendment, which was more than enough to bury it with heavy Democratic support. The final bill passed 241-180, with 179 Republicans — nearly four-fifths of the caucus — voting no. There was a lot of chatter last year before the fiscal-cliff vote that Boehner wouldn’t bring bills to the floor that didn’t have the support of a majority of his own caucus (the so-called “Hastert Rule”). Fast-forward a few weeks and he’s now allowing votes on bills that face supermajority opposition from the GOP. Looks like he’s feeling awfully good about his leverage after being reelected Speaker. Presumably tonight’s vote was his way of signaling to the tea partiers in the caucus that, if push comes to shove, he’ll let Democrats pass a debt-ceiling hike with help from Republican centrists too. There’s not much conservative members could do to punish him for that; he already has the worst job in Washington. The cruelest thing they could do to him is elect him to another term.
Update: Among those 49 yes votes, by the way: Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy.
Mulvaney is one of the good guys.
Wish we had more like him.
Good, my congressman was a no.
Plan to join a union if you have any desire to work in NJ on the sandy recovery. And why would you want to work in bruce and jon’s home state anyway? No doubt portions of NJ are beautiful but the mind set of too many is ugly. Did christie actually go along with the exclusion of non-union workers? How is that even possible? Mr. tell the teachers union to pound sand. Looking for some of that omama stash I guess.
Molon labe.
WTF !!!! 50 BILLION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The US bought Alaska for 7.2 Million
*sigh*
these crooks are robbing the treasury blind!
RE: The US bought Alaska for 7.2 Million
According to this inflation calculator:
http://www.westegg.com/inflation/
What cost $7,200,000 in 1867 would cost $114,095,560.09 in 2011.
“Even more outrageous: The total Sandy relief is $59 billion: $9 billion in flood insurance relief already passed and the $50 billion today. But of that $50 billion today only $17 billion is for Sandy related matters...”
The real issue was the amendment not the final vote. Boehner split out the 51 billion between 17 of emergency aid and 34 of longer term aid and pork. Thirty eight Republicans voted for the amendment that put the pork and long term stuff back into the bill. WTF? Once added to the bill, 49 Republicans agreed to vote yes
Looks like Boehner is finding democrats useful to the Rino Republican agenda. Way to go RINO f•ckheads-
It just doesn’t make any sense!
Why does New York and New Jersey need 50 billion because of a tropical storm? surely the vast majority of the property damaged was covered by insurance.
By comparison Tarp was 700 billion.
This just stinks to high heaven to me. It looks like a backdoor way of getting TARP 3 money, but then focusing it all on New York and New Jersey as political payback.
55-60% of that bill is pork.
Yup. Boehner is now leader of a coalition of dems and rinos. The Senate could pass a lot of Republican bills, but Reid doesn’t let them come to the floor. Boehner letting these pass, and the fiscal cliff deal, without Republican support, show he is not a Republican. When are they going to get rid of this sob sister?
oh a few billion here and there and purty soon we’ll be talkin real money!
Anyone from his district that could run against him? Republican or TeaParty member? We have to start now to get someone new.
This man needs to go!
His district would never get rid of him. Can you imagine the pork he must bring home? The only one we ever got rid of was Foley, and he had some serious scandals that helped. Nowadays, no one even cares about scandals, but back then, it mattered. No, they need a behind the scenes uprising, like the one that got rid of Gingrich. It was these guys, Boehner, et al. who did that, by the way, because Gingrich wouldn’t let them legislate pork.
Is it possible to seal the doors of Congress and make it a jail for these miscreants and thieves? Stop stealing our money, you cretins!
Where’s Everett Dirksen when we really need him?
$114,095,560.00 / 366,039,040 acres $.31 per acre
Still a good deal.
"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."-- James Madison, 4 Annals of congress 179 (1794)
"I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity. [To approve the measure] would be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded."
-- President Franklin Pierce, 1854 veto of a measure to help the mentally ill
Both parties are saturated with hard core communists that have no interest in saving America. Maybe we need the third party now. Must be some communists Democrats that might change their ignorance and join the save America bunch.
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