Our Views: Two views on relief

When nine Republican senators bucked the party line and voted with Democrats in the U.S. Senate to clear a Hurricane Sandy relief bill, it appeared to be something of a victory for bipartisanship.

At the least, it was a victory for the political principle of “where you stand depends on where you sit.” Several senators, including U.S. Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, were from states in the Gulf Coast where the threat of hurricanes is ever-present.

The lack of promptness for Hurricane Sandy relief is not a good sign in general: Even Vitter and other GOP senators backed an earlier amendment to the bill to unsuccessfully tie the relief spending to cuts in the federal budget elsewhere.

We think Vitter was right to buck the party line on the final vote, as did several GOP senators from Mississippi and Alabama.

We share their concern about the budget deficit. The Sandy bill came to $50.5 billion, not a small amount of money.

But as U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., has correctly stated, the issue of hurricane relief cannot become a hostage to the excessive and unending partisan battles over the budget on Capitol Hill.

That way, Hurricane Audrey relief might still be in discussion after 50 years.

Further, the key to hurricane recovery is prompt assistance to get business activity and investment flowing again. Landrieu, as head of the Small Business Committee and a veteran of hurricane relief battles, had by far the better grasp of these issues.

Still, the bottom line is that Vitter and his colleagues stood on record for Sandy relief, as they should, because of the need for effective assistance to the afflicted region.

Comments

1) Comment by Whatnow - 04/02/2013

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2013/01/03/pork-holding-up-senate-sandy-relief-bill-funneled-into-the-troughs-of-gop-deficit-hawks-you-betcha/. It was a filibuster proof bill!

2) Comment by Whatnow - 04/02/2013

The issue of hurricane relief cannot become a hostage to the pork for both sides that we didn't need at this time in our economy and to the taxpayer.

3) Comment by billynurse - 04/02/2013

Would have been a short and simple process to pass an aid bill , if not for the Senate(democrat)...waitforit.... PORK !!!

4) Comment by Tea_Slayer - 04/02/2013

Mygulfbleedsforu: you must be a sadist....

5) Comment by agagent - 04/02/2013

The Democrats put the pork in the bill, passed their bill, and told the house to hurry and pass the bill. They did not care about the deficit, and they did not have to bribe Republicans to pass the legitimate aid in the bill. The media helped Democrats in their attempt to pass the pork and blamed Republicans when they wanted to eliminated the pork before passing the bill.

6) Comment by Mygulfbleedsforu - 04/02/2013

agagent, thank you for your response about the non-existent pork in the Sandy bill. Those disaster provisions in the Senate bill that were non-Sandy, and that you continuously attribute to the Democrats, were included to secure passage without a Republican filibuster. If the parties were switched -- if Republicans had the Senate and included this additional disaster assistance to placate Dem. senators in a filibuster-proof deal-making move, would you be holding the Democrats harmless? Did you even know the bill was cleared of the non-Sandy expenditures? Are you even sure each of those things should not have been funded? In this case, about this bill, will you stop claiming the bill *contains* pork and that the pork was for the benefit of Democrat senator districts, and will you finally realize that in the rightwingnutballosphere, only the worst possible spin gets blogged and reblogged, and it is often not true?

7) Comment by [e-mail] - 04/02/2013

Just another cynical ploy by unscrupulous politicians to benefit from somebody else's misery while shedding crocodile tears; not surprising that "Our Views" is satisfied.

8) Comment by agagent - 04/02/2013

The Republicans did the right thing and much of the pork was stripped in the house bill. Because of the $1.3 trillion annual deficit they should have found offsets for the added spending. When the Senate was up to its usual political tricks, the House acted responsibly. Most voters just heard the media parrot the false charges of the Democrats. The media sided with the Democrats who filled the bill with pork.

9) Comment by agagent - 04/02/2013

And the media blasted the house Republicans for not passing it.

10) Comment by agagent - 04/02/2013

Here is the pork in the relief bill passed by the Senate Democrats: “$8 million to buy cars and equipment for the Homeland Security and Justice departments. $150 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to dole out to fisheries in Alaska $2 million for the Smithsonian Institution to repair museum roofs in DC. $207 million for the VA Manhattan Medical Center $3.3 million for the Plum Island Animal Disease Center $1.1 million to repair national cemeteries $58.8 million for forest restoration on private land. $10.78 billion for public transportation, most of which is allocated to future construction and improvements, not disaster relief. $17 billion for wasteful Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), a program that has become notorious for its use as a backdoor earmark program. $197 million “to… protect coastal ecosystems and habitat impacted by Hurricane Sandy.” $41 million to fix up eight military bases, including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba $4 million for repairs at Kennedy Space Center in Florida (because Florida is so close to New Jersey, right?) Oh yes, for good measure there is an eye-popping $13 billion slated to go to “mitigation” projects to prepare for future storms.”--Jon Fleischman

11) Comment by Mygulfbleedsforu - 04/02/2013

There are those who argue that disaster relief is not a valid expenditure, period. Aside from that general POV, would you, agagent, please provide a few specifics on the "pork" in the final Sandy Relief Act? The senate version contained non-Sandy-related disaster relief funds **for areas with Republican Senators** as a deal that was struck to prevent a filibuster. That pork was on your party's head. My understanding is that those provisions were eventually stripped. Maybe my understanding is wrong. So ... agagent ... do you have anything on the pork allegation you keep making?

12) Comment by jdk944 - 04/02/2013

If you are going to recap this how about providing ALL the facts and not just the ones that help you further your own agenda??

13) Comment by agagent - 04/02/2013

Didn’t the editorial writer notice that the sponsors of the bill held it back for several months before submitting it? It was a tactic to rush it through so that the pork would not be examined. The federal relief effort did not run out of money. The federal government is closing to $16.5 trillion in debt, and they dare pass another bill laden with pork.