Still repeating that lie exactly as programmed.
Rand Paul Isn't a Hypocrite on Disaster Relief
The senator's opposition to past disaster relief bills has always been on the grounds that congressional budgets should mean something.
The two major examples cited to prove Paul's hypocrisy involve his opposition to supplemental appropriation bills in to provide aid in the wake of 2012's Hurricane Sandy and the hurricanes and wildfires that occurred in 2017.
It's important to understand that the bills Paul was opposing were
supplemental disaster appropriation bills that spent money well above the funds that Congress had already provided for disaster relief.
In both cases, Paul proposed amending these bills so that they offset these supplemental appropriations—which ended up being
$51 billion for Hurricane Sandy and a whopping
$136 billion for 2017's disasters—with spending cuts elsewhere in the budget.
Paul's position in both cases is entirely sensible and basically boils down to the idea that if Congress establishes how much it's going to spend in a year, that should actually mean something. Critics seem to believe that congressional budgets should in fact be a fiction that are enlarged whenever a new spending item pops up.
The federal aid that Paul has endorsed thus far for disasters in Kentucky will come from the federal government's Disaster Relief Fund, which as of early December had
$45 billion in it. It's projected to close out fiscal year 2022 with $10 billion in reserves.
As of yet, no one has proposed additional unbudgeted disaster spending to respond to the tornados that hit Kentucky and other states. If they do, and Paul supports it without demanding offsetting spending cuts,
that would be hypocritical.
So, thus far, everything he's asked for is already paid for.
thelibertydaily.com
