Holding Hurricane Sandy victims hostage, Tea Baggers again attempted to sabotage relief funds, offering flawed across the board cuts.
Information below --
The vote tally:
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll023.xml
From Huffington :
Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), a member of the
House Tea Party Caucus, introduced the failed amendment requiring all spending on the initial $17 billion in relief funds to be offset by a 1.6 percent across-the-board cut to federal discretionary expenditures in 2013. The amendment was backed by other Tea Party-allied conservatives and cleared for a floor vote by the House Rules Committee on Monday night.
Mulvaney rejected the notion that the amendment was designed to sabotage the Sandy aid bill, however.
"This amendment is an across-the-board cut that holds no program safe from harm," Rogers [
Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee] said.
No previous disaster relief bill has required offsetting spending cuts, and Cole
[Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla)] called it "hypocritical" for lawmakers whose districts have benefited from federal aid after previous disasters to require sweeping spending cuts in order to authorize the storm aid.
"We have never done that in the past in a disaster, and we certainly shouldn't do so now," Cole said.
From Daily Kos:
House approves Hurricane Sandy relief package
Tim Larsen/AP - At a Jan. 2 news
conference, Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.) blasted his party's "toxic internal
politics" after House Republicans initially declined to approve disaster relief
for victims of Superstorm Sandy.
By Rosalind S.
Helderman,
Jan
16, 2013 12:50 AM EST
The Washington Post Published:
January 15
The House on Tuesday approved about $50 billion in relief for victims of
Hurricane Sandy, a package designed to speed aid to devastated communities in
New York and New Jersey and a vote that provided an early test of the resolve of
GOP deficit hawks.
The package was adopted on a 241 to 180 vote, on the strength of support from
Democrats, as well as 49 Republicans, many of them representing communities hit
hard by the Oct. 29 storm.
It overcame a
tough challenge from fiscal conservatives who
believed the emergency spending should be offset with spending cuts in other
parts of the federal budget to avoid adding to the federal debt.
Most Republicans — 179 in all — opposed the final package, an outcome that
would have once been unthinkable in the GOP-led chamber. But it was the second
vote in recent weeks to pass with a majority of Democratic votes.
Most Republicans also opposed the tax deal that concluded the “fiscal-cliff”
package this month. House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) allowed both votes to
proceed knowing they would likely be adopted mostly through the work of
Democrats.
A majority of Republicans also supported a failed amendment that would have
offset a large chunk of the spending with other budget cuts. The move was fended
off by the same coalition of Democrats and a smaller number of Republicans who
feared it would derail the bill in the Senate.
But Boehner needed to get past the Sandy issue. He earned a stinging rebuke
from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) this month and designed a complicated
legislative pathway to ensure its passage despite muted Republican support.
First, the House agreed to an underlying bill that contained $17 billion
intended to cover immediate relief needs, including $5.4 billion for the Federal
Emergency Management Agency fund that funnels aid directly to individuals and
local communities to rebuild. The measure passed on a 327 to 91 vote.
Then, on a 228 to 192 vote, the House tacked on $33.6 billion in additional
money to cover a longer-term effort to rebuild.
Splitting the bill into two pieces allowed Republicans who wanted to provide
immediate help to be able to withhold their votes from the long-term effort;
only 38 Republicans backed adding the longer-term dollars.
Supporters say all of the money is desperately needed — Christie and New York
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) have requested nearly $80 billion in federal aid.
Together, the $50 billion, along with $9.7 billion for flood relief approved
by the House this month, would equal a package passed in December on a
bipartisan basis in the Senate.
Backers had feared changes to the package could disrupt passage in the
Senate. “We don’t want to find ourselves with a bill the Senate can’t take, and
we’ll have to Ping-Pong around here for a few months,” said Rep. Louise M.
Slaughter (D-N.Y.). “It’s important that we get this done and get it done
quickly.”
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said late Tuesday that the House bill, while
not as good as Senate’s product, was “close enough” and he would urge colleagues
to pass it speedily.
To appease conservatives, House leaders allowed votes on a dozen amendments —
chosen from among more than 90 proposed by members — many of which would slice
out spending projects that some conservatives consider not directly related to
storm relief. Most were unsuccessful.
That included a key amendment proposed by Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) and
backed by the conservative Club for Growth that would have offset the $17
billion underlying measure by cutting 1.63 percent from every federal agency,
including the military.
Traditionally, storm relief is considered emergency spending, much like money
to fund wars, and appropriated quickly by Congress on top of other spending
priorities. But some fiscal conservatives have expressed exasperation with that
notion. The total $60 billion relief package is larger than the budgets of many
states. It also would swallow up more than half of the spending cuts set to take
effect next month as part of the hard-fought sequester process, which was
designed to begin denting the federal deficit.
“We’re spending money we don’t have. We just have to control our spending,”
said Rep. Paul C. Broun (R-Ga.), explaining why conservatives sought offsetting
cuts.
But Mulvaney's proposal fell on a 258 to 162 vote after House Appropriations
Committee Chairman Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) appealed to colleagues that the
across-the-board offsetting cut would cause indiscriminate damage to federal
programs
. He noted that the cut would total more than the size of the
entire Agriculture Department.
“At times, the spending of federal dollars is indeed necessary,” he said.
“Natural disasters hit unexpectedly and sometimes require a response that we
cannot foresee.”
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and former GOP vice-presidential
candidate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) were among the 157 Republicans who voted for
the failed amendment.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-set-to-vote-on-hurricane-sandy-relief-package/2013/01/15/984d5dec-5f32-11e2-b05a-605528f6b712_story.html?hpid=z4
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