Hurricane Sandy devastated the east coast at the end of October. A bill to send relief to those in the storm’s path still hasn’t passed Congress. The relief bill got loaded up with porkbarrel spending in the Senate, and then stalled. The Republicans really could have done a better job of naming and shaming the senators who larded up the Sandy relief bill. They released this list back in mid-December, but otherwise, the bill just sort of hung out there until Speaker Boehner decided to table it until the next congress gets sworn in. Even though that happens tomorrow, and a better relief bill may move quickly thereafter, Rep. Pete King and NJ Gov. Chris Christie are throwing a fit today — not at the Democrats, though, who larded up the bill. They’re mad at the Republicans for trying to be responsible with taxpayer money. Here’s some of the spending that King and Christie are defending.
•$2 million to repair damage to the roofs of museums in Washington, D.C., while many in Hurricane Sandy’s path still have no roof over their own heads.
•$150 million for fisheries as far away from the storm’s path as Alaska.
•$125 million for the Department of Agriculture’s Emergency Watershed Protection program, which helps restore watersheds damaged by wildfires and drought.
•$20 million for a nationwide Water Resources Priorities Study.
•$15 million for NASA facilities, though NASA itself has called its damage from the hurricane ‘minimal.’
•$50 million in subsidies for tree planting on private properties.
•$336 million for taxpayer-supported AMTRAK without any detailed plan for how the money will be spent.
•$5.3 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers – more than the Corps’ annual budget – with no statement of priorities about how to spend the money.
•$12.9 billion for future disaster mitigation activities and studies, without identifying a single way to pay for it.
“All told, 64 percent of the $60.4 billion in ‘emergency’ spending in this legislation will not be spent for nearly two years.”
That’s according to Sens. John McCain and Tom Coburn, who released the list on December 17. To put that last number in some perspective, it’s larger than the total spending cuts that ended up in the fiscal cliff deal that just passed the House last night.
This relief bill is among the million or so things that make covering Washington politics maddening and tedious to cover. Politicians always do this. They load up necessary legislation with their pet projects. Others object. Knives are drawn, denunciations pour fourth, but curiously, the Democrats never get divided by their own antics. It’s always Republicans who draw themselves up into circular firing squads and start pulling triggers. Isn’t the pork in the Sandy bill ultimately Harry Reid’s fault? It’s a product of his Senate. Why aren’t King and Christie focusing their fire on Reid rather than on Boehner?
Right, because Republicans remain the stupid party, and many within the party are not really conservative at all.
What better proof that Christie is really a RINO instead of a true conservative. Sure, he fights well, and he apparently did cutting in New Jersey that was needed. But he had little choice – he couldn’t print more money. As President what do you think he would do?
THIS.
Christie hugging Obama was all I needed to know about his conservtive credentials.
I think that a lot of Republicans try to prove their Conservative credentials by criticizing their own party members. Democrats love to see this.
No, it is not about the budget which everyone knows Republicans only care about if it is going to pay for medicine for women or for taking guns away.
I heard on the news that Republicans deny that there is such a thing as “climate” which is changing and producing things like this terrible hurricaine. Republicans are “deniers” because they do not believe in hurricaines and other forms of “climate”. They think that the New Yorkers, who all vote for Democrats and want to ban everything fun, are just making up this “Sandy”.
The climate warms and cools on a regular cycle, on account of variations in solar output. Even you should not be so arrogant and prideful to think human beings can influence that.
Hurricanes in the Northeast are nothing new. They happen a few times each century. A hurricane of the same size and strength will do more damage now than it would have in the past, because there is more man-made infrastructure on the scene that is in harm’s way. And wherever there are man-made assets, the owners of those assets need to insure themselves against whatever hazards might come their way.
Abortifacients are not medicine for women, but rather, poisons.
Boy,I thought Rep. King was a stand up guy. Why does he not see this? Just to get help for our friends hit by Sandy he allows this to go through is just incomprehensible.
Don’t pin this one on Christie.
There are huge problems with the bill, but the GOP never bothered to tell anyone that. Not even FOX went with it. FOX anchors asked “why?” and got no response. Republicans in Congress should have been screaming “PORK” from the roof of the capitol, so loud even CBS would hear, instead, only a handful of people know this.
So, what, a hundred, or a thousand Americans know “GOP blocks Pork-laden bill”. Every other American will perceive “GOP Congress blocks disaster aid”. Yeah, like that will help in the next election cycle.
I’m tired of loosing every fight for perception, because the GOP is too stupid and/or lazy to frame the message and put it out there. Let’s face it, if they are too lazy to get the message even to Fox…