Aid for Irene recovery might require cuts elsewhere
WASHINGTON – Federal relief to repair damage and offset costs of dealing with Hurricane Irene could become a political battleground in Congress this fall.
House Republicans demanded earlier this year that new disaster relief be funded by cuts elsewhere, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s office said Thursday the Virginia Republican continues to believe that.
Rep. Scott Garrett agreed. Garrett, R-N.J., said through a spokesman it was the "responsible thing to do."
"With $16 trillion in debt and budget deficits as far as the eye can see, the last thing we should be doing is spending money we don’t have," Garrett spokesman Ben Veghte said.
Some North Jersey Democrats, however, said Congress should deal with major disasters the way it often has in the past, with emergency funding provided outside the normal budget process.
"I’ve always seen, whether it was a big fire out on the West Coast or a calamity in one of the Northern states during a snowstorm, America’s always been there, Congress has always been there," Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-N.J., said in an interview.
"Mr. Cantor can’t even run his own caucus. I don’t know how you can expect him to say anything reasonable or sane. This storm isn’t hitting Democrats, it’s not hitting Republicans, it’s hitting all of us," Pascrell said.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., said in a statement it was "unconscionable that anyone would hold up emergency aid for this storm over ideology.
"People are going to need urgent help, and I will fight like the devil to deliver it," Lautenberg said.
Earlier this year, a bill approved nearly along party lines in the Republican-dominated House sought to cut spending, including about $450 million allocated to Amtrak for upgrades in Central Jersey, to replenish the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Disaster Relief Fund.
The Senate has not acted on that bill and the Federal Railroad Administration has since approved Amtrak’s project, making it more difficult for Congress to cut the funding.
FEMA’s disaster fund covers a variety of costs, including emergency workers’ overtime, repairs to public works such as roads and utilities, and temporary housing for victims. Fifteen New Jersey counties buried by a post-Christmas blizzard last year, for example, received $19 million this year from the disaster fund.
FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate said last week that the fund has about $900 million available, though the agency is still paying for damage from this year’s deadly tornadoes in Alabama and Missouri.
Congress would have to step in if Irene’s damages deplete the fund, a situation that has happened following major hurricanes in the past.
Eric Cantor: We’ll Pay For Post-Quake Relief — If We Can Find The Cuts
Never fear, earthquake-rattled citizens of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's home state: The federal government is coming to help you. If Cantor can find the cuts, that is.
Months after he took heat from fellow Republicans for his contention that the victims of the massive tornado in Joplin, MO should get federal aid only if Democrats in Washington agreed to cut the budget to pay for the relief spending, Cantor delivered a similar message to Virginians still cleaning up from a historic earthquake -- and hunkering down in advance of a massive hurricane.
"The federal government does have a role in situations like this. When there's a disaster there's an appropriate federal role and we will find the monies," Cantor told reporters in Mineral, VA, the epicenter of the quake, Wednesday. "But we've had discussions about these things before and those monies will be offset with appropriate savings or cost-cutting elsewhere in order to meet the priority of the federal government's role in a situation like this."
Mineral took some damage in the quake which, despite being felt along much of the East Coast, produced no fatalities. In Washington, DC, national sites like the Washington Monument and the National Cathedral suffered damage significant enough to close them.
Cantor's suggestion that paying for repairs at the Washington Monument should be used as a bargaining chip for spending cuts could be another optics problem for the Virginia GOPer, who had to face down Missouri Republicans after his Joplin comments. As of Wednesday he didn't look like backing down, however. Speaking at Culpeper, VA, Roll Call reported him as holding the line and saying, ""All of us know that the federal government is busy spending money it doesn't have."
Also
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/08/disaster-funding-in-the-age-of-the-tea-party/244202/
So this is an even more blatant than usual example of politicians directly **** with people's lives and well-being in order to score ideological points with the hard-core faithful. I get the whole "spend within your means" thing, I really do, but rule #1 should be that you look after your people first when they need it, then you worry later where the money comes from. Any politician who forgets this isn't going to be a politician for much longer, people have long memories when it comes to things like this. So the next time VA gets whacked by a big disaster, Cantor is going to say "no, we don't want your federal money until you cut something somewhere else?" 
Disaster recovery - if you cut somewhere else?
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