Hurricane Sandy Bill Loaded With Pork

[gator996]

Originally Posted by gatorman_07732

You are in la la land, what do you think he just did? You understand that the Senate hauled ass home for the holidays as soon as they passed the porkulus bill right? You need to give up, because I nailed you every which way you bobbed and weaved on this issue. You used up whatever credibility you had.

The actions of the Senate have nothing to do with Boehner & the house voting on their own bill.

Heed the words of rpm...seriously.

[DaveFla]

Originally Posted by gator996

The actions of the Senate have nothing to do with Boehner & the house voting on their own bill.

Heed the words of rpm...seriously.

Funny. I thought rpm's words were aimed at you...

[gator996]

Funny, rpm's words seem quite appropriate for you....

[gatorman_07732]

Come on 996, you've been embarrassed enough. Move on for your own sanity

[wargunfan]

The Democrats got caught with their hands in the cookie jar on this one. Boehner separated the bill into two parts (took a couple of days to get that done). He sent the pure Sandy relief part (nine billion) back to the Senate. The remaining pork will remain in the House for debate. When Chuckie Schumer says the bill is all disaster relief he is including all the pork from other states (Alaska, California, Hawaii etc.) who want their pet projects funded and tried to sneak them through in the Sandy relief bill. Kudos to Boehner and the House for doing the right thing. The federally funded (LOL) flood insurance program deserves its own thread. That's the program where the rest of us subsidize people who live in high risk flood areas.

[oragator1]

Originally Posted by wargunfan

The Democrats got caught with their hands in the cookie jar on this one. Boehner separated the bill into two parts (took a couple of days to get that done). He sent the pure Sandy relief part (nine billion) back to the Senate. The remaining pork will remain in the House for debate. When Chuckie Schumer says the bill is all disaster relief he is including all the pork from other states (Alaska, California, Hawaii etc.) who want their pet projects funded and tried to sneak them through in the Sandy relief bill. Kudos to Boehner and the House for doing the right thing. The federally funded (LOL) flood insurance program deserves its own thread. That's the program where the rest of us subsidize people who live in high risk flood areas.

Some of it, like the Alaska piece point out the problem. It is actually legitimately for storm damage from a major storm they had, but because they got no press at the time and only have a few people in congress they got nothing. They think it's fair that if NY and NJ are being made whole they should be too. And by the demented logic of the current bill, they have a legitimate point.

[gator996]

Originally Posted by wargunfan

The Democrats got caught with their hands in the cookie jar on this one. Boehner separated the bill into two parts (took a couple of days to get that done). He sent the pure Sandy relief part (nine billion) back to the Senate. The remaining pork will remain in the House for debate. When Chuckie Schumer says the bill is all disaster relief he is including all the pork from other states (Alaska, California, Hawaii etc.) who want their pet projects funded and tried to sneak them through in the Sandy relief bill. Kudos to Boehner and the House for doing the right thing. The federally funded (LOL) flood insurance program deserves its own thread. That's the program where the rest of us subsidize people who live in high risk flood areas.

King, Christie, Grimm, etc. are Democrats with their hands in the cookie jar?

The plan to seperate the bill was in the works the moment the Senate passed the $60B bill...


House might split Sandy aid for votes
By Erik Wasson - 12/31/12 05:44 PM ET

The House might vote Tuesday on two bills that would provide emergency spending to aid victims of Hurricane Sandy, GOP lawmakers said.

The Senate last week passed a $60.4 billion Sandy relief package, but many Republicans consider the bill bloated even though the governors of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut asked for $80 billion.

Members said that the House is looking at splitting the Senate bill into components for votes on New Year's Day. Senior GOP aides cautioned that the plan is not final.

There would be a vote on a $27 billion package of essential spending to meet immediate needs, and a vote on a separate, $33 billion bill, appropriator Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio) told reporters.

"This allows us to see how much support there is for the rest of the package," another lawmaker said.

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) is whipping Republicans to support the $33 billion bill, members said.



But as usual, the dysfunctional side of the house couldn't even agree on that split and eventually authorized even less aide....


http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8BR0N120121229

By Doug Palmer and David Lawder
WASHINGTON | Fri Dec 28, 2012 9:19pm EST


HOUSE ACTION UNCLEAR

Senator Dan Coats, an Indiana Republican, offered an alternative that would have provided $23.8 billion in funding to help victims of the storm through the end of March and give Congress time to determine additional needs.

"Let me just say, we simply are allowing three months for the Congress of the United States, the representatives of the taxpayers' dollars, to assess, document and justify additional expenditures that go beyond emergency needs," Coats said just before his amendment was defeated.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers, a Republican from Kentucky, would still prefer to pass a stop-gap bill to meet immediate needs and wait to do another package after better estimates come in, a committee aide said.

The Senate bill is considerably less than the $82 billion in aid requested by New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, the states that bore the brunt of damage from the storm.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican, was in Washington this month, lobbying lawmakers for the larger amount.

The damage to New York and New Jersey coastal areas was on a scale not seen since Hurricane Katrina slammed the Gulf Coast and flooded New Orleans in 2005. Two weeks after that storm hit, Congress approved $62.3 billion in emergency appropriations.

Lawmakers passed numerous subsequent emergency funding requests over several years to cover damages from Katrina, which topped $100 billion. A number of Gulf State Republicans supported the Sandy relief bill.



Sandy was the 2nd most expensive disaster ever...only Katrina was worse.
2 months after the storm we can't even get a floor vote called in the house?

Odds are the estimates will under-forecast and all the congress will have accomplished is prolonging the suffering for the people affected.


Oh yeah, for all of those who care about small business....

What happens when the small business owners affected go under because rebuild aid didn't arrive for 6 months or a year?

[wargunfan]

Chuckie Schumer says it's a Democrat crafted bill. I guess he would know.

Let's have floor debate in the House and see who is willing to defend the pork.

[gator996]

Originally Posted by wargunfan

Chuckie Schumer says it's a Democrat crafted bill. I guess he would know.

Let's have floor debate in the House and see who is willing to defend the pork.

Have no problem with that but it shouldn't have taken 3 months for it to occur.


Don't know where the Schumer comment came from. (link please)

But I direct you to this article and you can tell me who's defending the so-called "pork"...


http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefi...dy-relief-bill

NY Republicans reject Issa claim Sandy bill laden with ‘pork’
By Alicia M. Cohn - 01/03/13 08:46 AM ET


Reps. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) and Pete King (R-N.Y.) rejected those charges and said extra "pork" measures were stripped from the House bill.

"That's just not accurate," Grimm said on CNN's "Starting Point" of Issa's claims. "There will be no pork in this bill."

"He is 1,000 percent wrong," King said of the California lawmaker, in a separate interview, also on CNN. King said the disaster-relief requests include only what the governors of the states affected by Sandy requested.

"If he wants to take it up with somebody, call Gov. [Chris] Christie," he added, referring to New Jersey's Republican governor.

Issa told Fox News on Wednesday that the Senate added unneeded funding requests to the bill. He defended Boehner for delaying the House vote because the Senate had already left town.

Boehner on Tuesday night canceled plans to hold votes on the Sandy bill, angering lawmakers from the affected states. King was so furious at the delay that he suggested early Wednesday that he might not support Boehner as Speaker.

Boehner decided to schedule two votes, with the House taking up a measure for $9 billion to shore up the National Flood Insurance Program on Friday and another $51 billion Sandy spending package on Jan. 15.

Grimm and King on Thursday said they are content with Boehner's response.

"I got his commitment and his word as a man and I feel pretty comfortable with that," Grimm said.

But New Jersey Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. told CNN that Boehner's actions were "not enough."

“I really think that the Speaker doesn't care about New York and New Jersey," Pallone told "Early Start" on Thursday. "In other words, we're blue states. The fact of the matter is that he was afraid to bring this up yesterday, in my opinion, because the Tea Party and the right wing did not want to vote for the spending bill for New York or primarily for New York and New Jersey.”

[gator996]

Think its democrats making accusations of regional red state/ blue state politics delaying aid to those suffering?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article....html#comments

Callous Conservatives: Gulf State Republicans’ Sandy Shame
by John Avlon Jan 5, 2013 10:45 AM EST

Twelve of the scarlet 67 voted for Hurricane Katrina relief—which passed ten days after that devastating Gulf Coast storm—but against Hurricane Sandy relief 69 days after its landfall in the Northeast. Their names: Trent Franks (AZ), Ed Royce (CA), Sam Graves (MO), Steve Pearce (NM), Steve Chabot (OH), Jimmy Duncan (TN), Kenny Marchant (TX), Randy Neugebauer (TX), Mac Thornberry (TX), Bob Goodlatte (VA), Tom Petri (WI), and Paul Ryan (WI).


These congressmen are content to use New York City and the tri-state area as an ATM when they are looking for campaign funds, yet they willfully turn a blind eye when hundreds of thousands of homes and small businesses are damaged or destroyed and more than 100 Americans are dead.


Note the name of last year’s vice presidential nominee and potential 2016 presidential candidate Paul Ryan on this list. Donors would do well to ask him about this vote. The Texas delegation likewise asked for federal funds when hurricanes have devastated their state, yet are ignoring suffering in the Northeast. But then conservatives often become liberal when an issue affects them personally. Just two years ago, Missouri Congressman Sam Graves begged President Obama for an emergency declaration to deal with flooding in his district—now he is afflicted with convenient amnesia.

The full list of the 67 “nos” is tilted toward the conservative Gulf Coast states and the congressmen—many elected after Katrina—whose constituents often feel the brunt of natural disasters.

Congressman Paul Broun—who when Obama was elected in 2008 called the president-elect a “Marxist” and compared him to Hitler, who denounced evolution as a “lie from the pit of hell” despite serving on the Science Committee—had no trouble asking for FEMA funds when his district was flooded in 2009. And Alabama’s Mo Brooks was equally eager for federal funds when tornados devastated his district in 2011.

The larger point, of course, is that massive disaster relief is a role for the federal government. There are times when we are 50 individual states and times when we need to unite and act as one country. Hurricane relief should be a no-brainer.

But Club for Growth and other conservative activist groups decided to make Hurricane Sandy relief a litmus test for their annual scorecards, and conservative congressmen started running scared.

[texigator]

The scale of government fraud continues to grow as both parties now only use the government as a conduit to funnel our money to themselves and their friends. Thousands of dollars have become millions, millions have become billions and billions have become trillions.

[wargunfan]

The Senate approved a $60.4 billion recovery package on Friday intended to help the states affected by Hurricane Sandy in November.

Appearing on “Cavuto” on Friday night, American Majority Action spokesman Ron Meyer said the bill was also packed with tons of “pork” spending, some of which won’t even occur until after 2013.

Some of the pork spending reportedly goes towards projects that have nothing to do with Hurricane Sandy or the victims, including millions of dollars for tree planting in areas untouched by Sandy and a new roof for the Smithsonian Museum.

When an elected representative appropriates government spending for local projects to help his or her district, it is known as “pork barrel” spending.

“Why was this in the emergency bill for Sandy? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Only $1 out of every $6 — $9 billion of the $60 billion will be spent in 2013. That means 85 percent doesn’t come until 2014 and beyond. That’s not immediate relief. What this bill is fundamentally is a pork bill.”

Instead, Meyer suggested the Senate should’ve passed a $9 billion “loan” to the states affected by Sandy instead of sneaking in all the wasteful spending before the end of the year.

“It’s disgraceful to load a bill like this that has good motives, that has good intentions that is going to help people, with pork,” he added.

“Why are you putting your own projects in it. It’s disgraceful. It’s typical of Washington.”

In an email to TheBlaze, Meyer explained that $1 out of every $20 spent in the Sandy bill will go to “non-relief-related pork.”

____________________

How Obama’s $60.4billion Hurricane Sandy aid bill is stuffed with pork for NASA, museums, Alaska fisheries and more

President Obama’s proposed $60.4 billion federal aid for victims of Hurricane Sandy has been revealed stuffed with millions in spending for museums and NASA with portions sent as far from the Northeast’s destruction as Alaska.


Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker of the House John Boehner – no friendship here.



Now dubbed the ‘Sandy scam’ by its critics, only a portion of the federal funding goes directly to states and victims hardest hit by superstorm Sandy in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut.

Instead $150 million is slated to benefit Alaskan fisheries, $8 million to homeland security and the justice departments for new cars, office equipment, furniture and ‘mobile X-Ray machines,’ and $41 million for eight military bases including Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the New York Post reports.

A whopping $13 billion will go to preventing future storm damage, including soil erosion and tree planting said to ‘help reduce flood effects, protect water sources, decrease soil erosion and improve wildlife habitat.’

Here are some of the examples of ‘Pork’:

Preparation against future storms - $13 billion to ‘mitigation’ projects that prepare for future storms
VA Manhattan Medical Center - $207 million
Alaskan fisheries through NOAA - $150 million
Military bases: Eight along the storm’s path, including Guantanamo Bay, Cub - $41 million
Homeland Security and Justice departments for vehicles and equipment - $8 million
Kennedy Space Center, Florida - $4 million to repair sand berms and dunes
Plum Island Animal Disease Center, New York - $3.3 million
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. - $2 million to repair museum roofs
National cemeteries - $1.1 million for repairs

http://beforeitsnews.com/opinion-con...s-2551664.html

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/nationa...Elj4CKwbheEV0N

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...fisheries.html

[gator996]

That's how you get votes on the hill...

All of those items would never survive by themselves...and every district wants their guy to bring some of that stuff home every session

[Swampmaster]

the corrupt congress cashes in big with billions in new pork to send back to their friends and contributors back home---classic!

[gator996]

Everyone of the constituents would tell you that it adds jobs back home...

Those are the "job creators" right?


Yeah, they're jobbing you alright....