Posted on 08/29/2017 5:19:49 PM PDT by Hojczyk
That accusation leaves out critical context which will undoubtedly arise in any effort to appropriate money for emergency recovery efforts. The Hurricane Sandy bill appropriated $60 billion, but a significant amount of the bill didn’t have anything to do with emergency recovery efforts. Billions of dollars within the bill didn’t go to the New York and New Jersey areas affected by the hurricane. among other items, $2 billion for highway upgrades across the country, $150 million for fisheries in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, a boost to Amtrak subsidies, and $16 billion in block grants to 47 states and territories.
Republicans didn’t oppose emergency spending for hurricane-stricken areas. They opposed the use of emergency funds for non-emergency spending, an effort that conveniently bypassed some of the self-imposed spending limits Congress had placed on itself earlier. Rather than take up these spending priorities as part of normal budgeting, legislators took advantage of the crisis to lard up the bill with self-serving pork — and then painted critics as heartless and cruel when they objected.
The pork trap isn’t the only potential issue.
However, history also cuts in the other direction. In 2005 after Hurricane Katrina hit, some Republicans demanded cuts in federal spending to offset the emergency funds for the Gulf disaster zone. Vice President Mike Pence, then a congressman from Indiana, told ABC News that “we simply cannot break the bank of the federal budget,” and that spending on “big-ticket items” had to be curtailed to fund Katrina relief. That also put the normal budgeting process ahead of the emergency. If offsets were needed, Congress had plenty of time to address that in later budget talks, just as 47 states could argue for their $16 billion in development block grants from long-past disasters during normal budgeting after Sandy relief.
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
They always Do!
PRynoHitler will find a way to screw this up too.
This is Texas and Trump voters...the democrats could care less..
The GOP might pass this and then no time for tax cuts
The stupid people should have a fund for such occasions
Put Five billion a year in each year...these happen about every ten years
There could be an earthquake anytime
If Obama’s leftover bureaucrats are still in charge...”you betcha” they will EFFF..it up.
Well that was then, when the RINOs could get away with being the party of the fake opposition. Now is now, and now what's to stop them larding the bill with Republican style pork (and Democratic pork - fair is fair after all, and it shut's up the opposition).
The greatest thieves in all history were not the Nazis during WWII,it is the American government who will steal anything that it can and cover it up as slick as can be. It’s Billion upon Billions to be sure and I also consider the Trillions in debt as generational theft. We will never know because the “books” are cooked,cash is taken right out of the treasury and there is no such thing as a budget as we print money as we please.
It is important to note that if you build below sea level and you dont buy federal flood insurance and carefully pay the premiums you don’t get free money from the rest of us if you suffer a loss. Nobody gave me free money to build my house. I had to pay for every nail.
What you do get is a LOAN!! with a second mortgage that you must dutifully pay back or your house is foreclosed and sold to recoup the loss for the tax payers. This maudlin drivel that somehow we just hand out money is insane. We are totally broke and I want my tax cuts!! not billions in hand outs to people that live below sea level.
Trump needs to let congress know out of the gate he will VETO anything that is NOT a freestanding bill!!! Let’s see these bastards vote against funding for FEMA NO PORK!!!
You have to ask? Those pubbies know better than to let a crisis go to waste. This is the $h!t that Rahm Emanuel loved as much as any DC legislator.
Our only hope is that Trump sends it back and tells the scum to send him a clean bill. I think he has the leverage to do it, but not sure if he has the will.
If the GOP manages (somehow??) to get a clean “Hurricane Harvey Emergency Appropriation” bill, with spending offsets for it elsewhere, and McConnell will not pull a Harry Reid and rely on a simple 51 votes to get it done - everyone in the GOP outside of Washington D.C. should demand he resign, or we leave the GOP.
Big words I know, and that’s not even covering how hard it is going to be to get a “clean” bill out of the House.
Sandy was a $60 billion bill and nearly a third of it had nothing to do with Sandy. Yet, among the idiots on the Left, it is a meme - seen on Facebook this morning - that many Texas GOP House members voted against the Sandy relief bill, and “what will they do now”.
OF COURSE you and I know their no voted had nothing to do with aid for Sandy. But the Left depends on its agenda and the sheeple’s ignorance to sell there memes.
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