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Sandy Disaster Relief Disaster

Sandy Disaster Relief Disaster

The Senate passed a pork-laden Sandy Relief bill:

Hurricane Sandy relief bill “pork” complaints is reportedly a sticking point fiscally conservative lawmakers. The $27 billion relief legislation crafted to offer Super Storm Sandy disaster aid will reportedly be stalled until after the Congressional session, which ends on Wednesday, resumes.

Republican Representative Darrell Issa had this to say about the spending initiatives in the Hurricane Sandy relief bill:

“Your two senators packed this with pork. They had the opportunity to have a $27 to $30 billion dollar legit relief packages, packed it with pork, then dared us not to vote for it.”

Representative Issa was referring to New York Senators Kristen Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer. Some of the disputed items in the Super Storm Sandy disaster aid bill include a $150 million in funding for Alaskan fisheries. The bill would also have reportedly increased spending to the national flood insurance program, which is expected to max out its borrowing limit next week. If the flood insurance program cannot borrow more money, it will reportedly only be able to pay 12,000 of the estimated 139,000 of the Hurricane Sandy related claims, according to The Atlantic Wire.

The Bennington Banner notes multiple “pet projects” which have caused angst among Republican lawmakers who likely want to help Hurricane Sandy victims. Some of the disputed hurricane relief bill pork measures in $336 million in Amtrak expenses and $2 million in taxpayer funds to repair a room on one of the Smithsonian buildings in Washington D.C.

The publication also reports that the Super Storm Sandy relief legislation also includes $8 million to purchase new vehicles for federal agencies. A total of $4 million for repairs to the Kennedy Space Center were also added to the disaster relief bill.

True to form, the House managed to take a good thing — stripping out the pork — and turn it into a PR disaster:


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Comments

Is there anything that these bozos can’t screw up?

Time for Boehner to go. (See the period?)

Dan Foster has a good piece at NRO. From that article:

Until then there’s a bit of time to think about some of the stuff Senate Democrats thought should be included in the bill, stuff like:

•$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.

MaggotAtBroadAndWall | January 2, 2013 at 1:19 pm

King should have been begging Andrew Cuomo and the New York state legislature for money the past couple of months. I suspect that if New York state taxpayers were on the hook, they would not be using a disaster as an excuse to fund frivolous spending like fish farms in Alaska.

Off topic, but …

Obama’s picture is hanging in a gun store with the caption, “Salesman of the Year”.

http://news.yahoo.com/record-gun-sales-december-2012-175231843–abc-news-politics.html

With Bozos like Boehner, who on the left needs Pelosi?

Reps will cave. They always do.

Where is that third party?

I hope the House strips the pork or doesn’t pass the bill. The Obama-flunkies-MSM were going to give the GOP House bad press on this no matter what. Until a Conservative(s) buy some of the MSM outlets and balance the message we are never going to get positive coverage on anything.

    jacksonjay in reply to jimzinsocal. | January 2, 2013 at 3:09 pm

    Looks like it’s gonna be Rubio in 2016! Paul Ryan voted with Obama and Chris Christie is begging for pork!

    On second thought, will the Party of Lincoln be around in ’16?

    jimzinsocal in reply to jimzinsocal. | January 2, 2013 at 3:41 pm

    Due to his vacation in Hawaii…Obama couldnt join in a photo op with Christie and share their displeasure.

The Senate only passed the bill last Friday. The timing suggests the GOP was set up. If so, they walked right into it.

Rhetorical question, sorta but not completely: Why hadn’t the House passed its own, pork-free relief bill to contrast with the Senate bill?

    gs in reply to gs. | January 2, 2013 at 4:41 pm

    Earlier today I claimed, to the displeasure of Real Conservatives™, that the criticism of Boehner’s cliff deal is overdone. However, it’s hard to view the situation with the Sandy bill as anything but a screw-up by our House leadership.

The fiscal cliff bill was also stuffed with pork according to Drudge’s headlines last night:

“HOLLYWOOD GETS BREAK…AFTER RECORD BOXOFFICE YEAR
NASCAR PARTY FAVORS BURIED IN BILL…
MILLIONS FOR RUM PRODUCERS…
$59 million for algae growers…
Breakout: Cantor makes his move.”

…and I just learned that RINO Christie is hugely upset ’cause his calls to the Speaker were ignored that dealt with this pork laden proposal.

Whatta POS he’s turned out to be…

I cannot stand christie, what a moron. I don’t blame boehner, he is trying to unpork this senate bill, and peter king is an idiot as well.

Both morons are posturing for re-election for next year. Seriously, have they even looked at the bills sent over from the senate!>?!?! How much of that money will even go to sandy victims??? why the hell aren’t they more mad about that!

    Midwest Rhino in reply to alex. | January 2, 2013 at 11:05 pm

    yeah, King screaming about “these politicians come here for money, now they won’t give us our pork”. Of course he didn’t say pork, he said it was a stripped down bill (yeah right). He mentioned the $27 billion, but said something like they were going to get that anyway.

    Sounds like Obama … “what do I get for the $800 billion?” Obama says “you get nothing, I get that for free.”

    That’s King … of course we get $27 billion, but we want an extra $33 billion to spread around to the boyz, ya know .. lotta goons to keep happy. No debate .. shut up and give it up or we will make you pay in the media.

Judging from the photo at the link provided, it isn’t at all clear to me that we should be paying to restore that kind of damage. I’ve always wanted a little house on Topsail Drive down in Surf City, NC, but thought that it was too foolish to build there.

As long as the rest of us are willing to pick up the tab for storm damage, perhaps it was foolish not to build there.

Midwest Rhino | January 2, 2013 at 10:59 pm

Greta had Susan Ferrechio on just now … saying Boehner was going to take this up in a form that would make it so everyone would vote for it, without any look at how it was all being spent. Lots of special deals to buy support.

She covered how even outside groups like Goldman Sachs get big money, then they throw in support for the deal. Same with Hollywood, big money to buy their support. So we throw at least an extra $30 billion in pork at them for PR, and they still blast Republicans. No wonder they all hate the Tea Party so much … how dare anyone fight making the middle class slave to the super rich.

Never let a crisis go to waste …
Terrorist attack in Benghazi … use it to attack American free speech via that video.

Mass murders (always) in gun free zones … confiscate guns.

Big Hurricane … $15 billion for victims, $45 billion to spread around to the boys.