I'm pleased to see various Republicans taking a stand against House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's hypocritical stance on emergency funding for victims of the recent east-coast earthquake and Hurricane Irene.
For example, New Jersey governor Chris Christie was speaking at a town hall the other day, sharing the stage with HS Secretary Janet Napolitano and FEMA head Craig Fugate.
In a clear dig at the way debt-ceiling talks went recently, Christie said, "You're going to turn it into a fiasco like that debt-limit thing where you’re fighting with each other for eight or nine weeks and you expect the citizens of my state to wait?"
He certainly raises good points, especially the part about waiting:
“They’re not gonna wait, and I’m going to fight to make sure that they don’t. I don’t want to hear about the fact that offsetting budget cuts have to come first before New Jersey citizens are taken care of.”
(As an aside, I'd be curious to see if anyone has ever checked into whether a fast, intense funding response is actually cheaper than one which drags out for weeks of hostage negotiation-style bickering. But I digress...)
Eric Cantor isn't on to anything new here. In 2004, Texas Republican Congressman Jeb Hensarling introduced an amendment which would have forced Congress to find discretionary spending to cut in order to fund a $10.9 billion disaster relief emergency bill following a series of hurricanes and violent storms, including one which hit Cantor's own district.
Hensarling defended his Cantor-like approach in 2004 on the floor of the House, sounding eerily familiar in the context of recent events:
“Many, many members have come to the floor to decry deficit spending. It will be interesting to see how many of them truly want to do something about it and support this amendment... Mr. Chairman, the true question before us is, who will tighten their belt to pay for this $10.9 billion of hurricane damage? Families, or government? I vote for the government."
Although Hensarling's amendment would have ensured that none of the discretionary cuts could affect veterans, the military, or Homeland Security, well over 100 of his fellow Republicans (including Cantor) voted against it, along with pretty much every Democrat. This puts one of Hensarling's comments in some perspective, as he said, "opponents of this amendment will argue that it will gut vital government programs. I simply reject that notion.”
As a demonstration of a complete reversal of Cantor's 2004 stance, look at this heavily nuanced (read: heavily non-committal & uncertainty-provoking) excerpt from an explanatory email from his spokesman, Brad Dayspring, which tries to link the larger debt issue with emergency spending, EXACTLY the approach Cantor rejected in '04:
"People and families affected by these disasters will certainly get what they need from their federal government. The goal should always be to find ways to pay for what is needed or to find offsets whenever possible, that is the responsible thing to do. Is the suggestion that Congress should completely ignore the $14 trillion debt and make no effort to try to pay for things? That seems quite extreme. People also expect their government to spend their dollars wisely, and to make efforts to prioritize and save when possible. They aren’t and shouldn’t be considered mutually exclusive concepts."
Oh, but they ARE, Brad. They are. When your boss holds disaster relief funds hostage, even based on the principles of fiscal responsibility (har har), he crosses a line with disaster victims, and shows the cruel side of being out of touch with folks back home.
As it is, Cantor has suggested cutting first responders as a possible way to fund FEMA emergencies, which is just stupid beyond belief. He also claims that the funding for this relief was already approved and paid for with cuts elsewhere, but fails to explain that those cuts affected tornado and other disaster relief programs by reassigning those funds to Irene and earthquake relief efforts.
Nice going, Eric. Next time I'm in therapy because my back is all messed up, I'll quit that therapy altogether in order to get a needed root canal done. I hope you get voted out for this issue alone.
Oh, and here's a pro-tip: you should probably go ahead and add disaster relief funding to the list of uncuttable programs. At least that way the people who are currently digging out of previous disasters will know that you won't completely screw them over to score ideological brownie points with the extreme side of your party.
By the way, pointing this out to Eric Cantor's spokesman might get you blocked on Twitter.
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