House Overwhelmingly OK's Sandy Relief Over Wingnut Objections

[nodoginnafight]

The House approved the first $9.7 billion in Sandy aid by a surprising 354-67 margin in spite of calls to reject the bill by Club for Growth.

Is the radical right losing it's hold? Does this signal the return of the moderate Republican?

I sure hope so. Solving the problems we are facing is going to be hard enough without the radical fringe from the far right or the far left making things even more difficult.

full story:

Scaled-back Sandy aid bill nears final approval - CNN.com

 

[LogikAndReazon]

a surprising 354-67 margin

Surprising indeed considering all the pork, bribes and prostitution that went into passing the bill.......

 

[DiamondDave]

Pork passes again

This has got to stop

 

[nodoginnafight]

Anyone care to point out the pork that was in this bill?
It's an oft-repeated complaint. But do you know what was in this bill?

 

[nodoginnafight]

that's what I thought.

 

[beretta304]

a surprising 354-67 margin

Surprising indeed considering all the pork, bribes and prostitution that went into passing the bill.......

Naturally nobraininthehead leaves that out.

 

[Freemason9]

a surprising 354-67 margin

Surprising indeed considering all the pork, bribes and prostitution that went into passing the bill.......

That shit is what grew this country.

 

[beretta304]

Anyone care to point out the pork that was in this bill?
It's an oft-repeated complaint. But do you know what was in this bill?

So if there's no pork in "this" bill and the House passed it what's your bitch, whiney? Why the attack?

"Later, closed-door meetings between House Republicans from the Northeast and Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor got the aid package back on track with Friday's vote on flood insurance and a promise to address the rest in coming weeks.

But Ellis said that tempers may flare anew when Congress debates the next portion, including the question of unrelated storm expenses."

 

[LogikAndReazon]

A pork-barrel feast of goodies for federal agencies to fix museum roofs in D.C. and aid fisheries in Alaska, cooked up in the middle of the night, is not the way to aid hurricane victims or run a government.

As if the fallout from agreeing to a bad deal that raises the debt by $4 trillion and accepts a 41-1 ratio in tax hikes to spending cuts weren't enough, Speaker of the House John Boehner has New Jersey's Chris Christie on his case.

"There's only one group to blame," the New Jersey governor said of the Sandy relief bill that was not included in the fiscal cliff deal, "the House Majority and John Boehner."

Christie, the man who hugged President Obama during his post-hurricane photo-op for doing a "good job," can't understand why Boehner, in a brief moment of fiscal sanity, decided the pork-laden Sandy relief bill might need a tad more examination before we rush to fix the roof on the Smithsonian Institution and subsidize fisheries in hurricane-ravaged Alaska.

"The House majority failed the most basic test of leadership," Christie said Wednesday, as the new year dawned, "and they did so with callous disregard to the people of my state."

Except the Sandy bill wasn't just about providing relief to directly impacted areas such as New Jersey and Staten Island.

Democrats had expanded the legislation during a markup to include not only areas affected by Sandy, but also to provide money for all "storm events that occurred in 2012 along the Gulf Coast and Atlantic Coast within the boundaries of the North Atlantic and Mississippi Valley divisions of the Corps that were affected by Hurricanes Sandy and Isaac."

This was done to get red state Republican senators from Alabama, Texas and Mississippi on board, old-fashion vote-buying.

Matt Mayer of the conservative Heritage Foundation slammed the request as an "enormous Christmas gift worth of stuff," and indeed it is. As Heritage reports, the estimate of insured losses from Sandy comes in around $20 billion, only one-third the request.

To start, the relief bill provides some $28 billion for future "disaster-mitigation" projects — spending that at the least is not a middle-of-the-night emergency.

The bill also allocates $100 million for the repair of all 265 Head Start centers around the country. Some Head Start centers in the New York-New Jersey area may have sustained some hurricane damage. But this is, again, a huge cash infusion to the $8 billion a year day-care program that exploits a tragedy.

Then there's more than $8 million to buy cars and equipment for the Homeland Security and Justice departments, $150 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to dole out to fisheries in Alaska and $2 million for the Smithsonian Institution to repair museum roofs in Washington, D.C.

The bill also includes $207 million for the VA Manhattan Medical Center; $41 million to fix up eight military bases along the storm's path, including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; $4 million for repairs at Kennedy Space Center in Florida; $3.3 million for the Plum Island Animal Disease Center of New York; and $1.1 million to repair national cemeteries.

Just which of these is a house-on-fire emergency, Gov. Christie?

Heritage's Patrick Louis Knudsen adds that "there is the truly audacious $17 billion in Community Development Block Grant funds, an embarrassingly transparent slush fund."

So how much do the actual victims of Sandy get to fix homes and rebuild their lives? Not much.

Christie should direct his outrage over the "selfishness and duplicity," not at the GOP House and its leadership, but at the Democrats who loaded it up with an assortment of earmarked pork on the theory that a devastating hurricane is a spending opportunity that should not be wasted.



Read More At IBD: Speaker John Boehner Delays Pork-Laden Superstorm Sandy Relief Bill - Investors.com

 

[PredFan]

The House approved the first $9.7 billion in Sandy aid by a surprising 354-67 margin in spite of calls to reject the bill by Club for Growth.

Is the radical right losing it's hold? Does this signal the return of the moderate Republican?

I sure hope so. Solving the problems we are facing is going to be hard enough without the radical fringe from the far right or the far left making things even more difficult.

full story:

Scaled-back Sandy aid bill nears final approval - CNN.com

So Club for growth is the entirety of the radical right?

You are a partisan hack.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

that's what I thought.

You thought wrong.

Senate’s Hurricane Sandy relief plan | Jamie Dupree Washington Insider

A ten second Google search would have educated you on the issue.

 

[WillowTree]

The House approved the first $9.7 billion in Sandy aid by a surprising 354-67 margin in spite of calls to reject the bill by Club for Growth.

Is the radical right losing it's hold? Does this signal the return of the moderate Republican?

I sure hope so. Solving the problems we are facing is going to be hard enough without the radical fringe from the far right or the far left making things even more difficult.

full story:

Scaled-back Sandy aid bill nears final approval - CNN.com

It's too bad obama and the democrats have pissed away so much money that we're now broke and have to consider every damn dime spent. but you keep up the demogougary.. it's very helpful.

 

[PredFan]

a surprising 354-67 margin

Surprising indeed considering all the pork, bribes and prostitution that went into passing the bill.......

This bill was supposed to be trimmed of the pork.

 

[PredFan]

Pork passes again

This has got to stop

I don't think THIS version had the pork attached.

 

[tjvh]

that's what I thought.

You didn't think... That's where the root of problem lies.

 

[daveman]

That enough pork for you, nodog?

Or do you think "$8 million to buy cars and equipment for the Homeland Security and Justice departments, $150 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to dole out to fisheries in Alaska and $2 million for the Smithsonian Institution to repair museum roofs in Washington, D.C." are VITAL to Sandy relief?

 

[Oddball]

A pork-barrel feast of goodies for federal agencies to fix museum roofs in D.C. and aid fisheries in Alaska, cooked up in the middle of the night, is not the way to aid hurricane victims or run a government.

As if the fallout from agreeing to a bad deal that raises the debt by $4 trillion and accepts a 41-1 ratio in tax hikes to spending cuts weren't enough, Speaker of the House John Boehner has New Jersey's Chris Christie on his case.

"There's only one group to blame," the New Jersey governor said of the Sandy relief bill that was not included in the fiscal cliff deal, "the House Majority and John Boehner."

Christie, the man who hugged President Obama during his post-hurricane photo-op for doing a "good job," can't understand why Boehner, in a brief moment of fiscal sanity, decided the pork-laden Sandy relief bill might need a tad more examination before we rush to fix the roof on the Smithsonian Institution and subsidize fisheries in hurricane-ravaged Alaska.

Jeez.....Never saw that one coming!

 

[beretta304]

that's what I thought.

You didn't think... That's where the root of problem lies.

Don't you love these people who claim to be neutral but can't hide their biases?

nodoginthefight...does it sound like he doesn't have one with all his anti-right rhetoric?

 

[Oddball]

That enough pork for you, nodog?

Or do you think "$8 million to buy cars and equipment for the Homeland Security and Justice departments, $150 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to dole out to fisheries in Alaska and $2 million for the Smithsonian Institution to repair museum roofs in Washington, D.C." are VITAL to Sandy relief?

It's been clear for quite some time that he has numerous dogs in the fight.

 

[martybegan]

Pork passes again

This has got to stop

I don't think THIS version had the pork attached.

Its barebones, just to cover some inital costs.

As far as my opinion of it (disclaimer I am from NYC but suffered no damage except 17 days without cable TV or internet) I can see this as acceptable even from a fiscally conservative/federalist point of view. If you think of it as a form of insurance and cost control, as one area has issues related to disasters, the other areas of the country can pitch in to distribute the cost. Sooner or later the other regions would need the same help, and get help in return.

What had to go was the unrelated items that are added in as goodies. What we need is to ressurect the amendment providing for a line item veto. Hell I would take that even with Obama in the white house now, for the savings it would help later on.