These Louisiana politicians are demanding flood aid, but voted against Sandy relief

[GMDino]

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-louisiana-floods-20160822-snap-story.html

Quote:Call it logrolling or one hand washing the other, a generally recognized fact in Washington is that if you want something for your district, it pays to agree to the same thing for another guy’s district.

That point may have been lost on three Louisiana congressmen when they voted against a $50.5-billion relief package for the victims of Superstorm Sandy. The 2012 storm ravaged coastal communities in New Jersey and New York. Now they’re in the position of needing the same sort of aid for their own state. How will that play out?

The three lawmakers, all Republicans, are Rep. Steve Scalise (currently the House majority whip); Bill Cassidy, who moved up to the Senate last year; and John Fleming. They’re all likely exemplars of another Washington truism: fiscal responsibility is great, until it’s your own district that’s getting fiscally hammered. Then Job One becomes working to “help the residents of the threatened areas in their time of need.”

Paying for disasters and being fiscally responsible are not mutually exclusive.— Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), on rejecting a $50-billion aid package for Superstorm Sandy in 2013

At least, that’s what the letter all three signed to President Obama on Aug. 14 said. The letter, which sought a disaster declaration for the state in response to its floods, came from all six Louisiana members of Congress and its two senators. Obama issued the declaration that very day. 

Fleming, Scalise and Cassidy, by the way, are also climate change deniers, a sign that they’re unable to process evidence in front of their own eyes. Fleming has claimed that evidence of climate change is the product of a “radical environmental agenda.” Scalise has griped that it’s an effort by radicals “to prop up wave after wave of job-killing regulations that are leading to skyrocketing food and energy costs.” Cassidy in 2014 claimed that global temperatures had not risen in 15 years, which happened to be untrue. Remarkably, both Fleming and Cassidy are medical doctors. 


No one is saying that the flood-stricken communities of Louisiana don’t deserve all the assistance that the U.S. government can provide them. But so did the residents of the Sandy zone. How do the lawmakers’ 2013 votes to deny relief to those
Northeast communities square with their demand for emergency flood assistance now?

A before-and-after look at the deadly, record-setting flooding in Louisiana

“Apples and oranges,” says T.J. Tatum, a spokesman for Scalise. To begin with, he explains, the money sought under the disaster declaration has already been appropriated; the declaration is merely a formality needed to authorize the Federal
Emergency Management Agency to start spending it in the disaster zone. 

The Sandy relief, by contrast, wassupplemental relief to cover recovery and rebuilding in the wake of the disaster. Scalise and Cassidy, according to their spokesmen, actually voted for a $17-billion initial appropriation for that purpose. But they balked at a further $33-billion chunk. A spokesman for Fleming’s office didn’t return our call. 

Because the two appropriations were bundled together in a final bill on Jan. 15, 2013, they voted the whole package down. (It passed the House anyway, 241-180, and the Senate followed suit two weeks later.)

Scalise and Cassidy said their objection actually had been that the House had failed to offset the Sandy appropriation with federal budget cutbacks elsewhere. “Paying for disasters and being fiscally responsible are not mutually exclusive,” Scalise said at the time. 

But they almost certainly knew that their proposed offsets were sure bill-killers: They would have eliminated mass transit subsidies for federal workers and certain agricultural subsidies, among other things. When an amendment to require those offsets was voted down, Scalise, Cassidy and Fleming rejected the $50.5-billion total, including the initial $17-billion piece.

Some fellow lawmakers warned them that their position could come back to bite them in a sensitive spot later. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) — who was defeated by Cassidy in 2014 — called the demand for budget offsets “a dangerous precedent” serving only “an extreme, tea party ideology." 

[*michaelsean*]

Budget offsets are an extreme Tea Party ideology?

So they were in favor of relief for the east coast, and then Congress bundled relief and rebuilding.

[GMDino]

(08-23-2016, 09:24 AM)michaelsean Wrote: Budget offsets are an extreme Tea Party ideology?

Only in the sense that they only demand budget offsets for what other people want....

[*PhilHos*]

I like how you post an article that supposed to blast these guys but in the same article it basically defends them. They WERE for Sandy relief, just not as much as was asked for and even then, they were okay with it as long as there was some offset somewhere (you know, kind of like what the Dems always ask for when a Repub proposes a tax cut).

So, unless these guys decide to ask for supplemental relief, then I don't see the issue here other than the standard politicization surrounding a disaster.

[GMDino]

(08-23-2016, 11:26 AM)PhilHos Wrote: I like how you post an article that supposed to blast these guys but in the same article it basically defends them. They WERE for Sandy relief, just not as much as was asked for and even then, they were okay with it as long as there was some offset somewhere (you know, kind of like what the Dems always ask for when a Repub proposes a tax cut).

So, unless these guys decide to ask for supplemental relief, then I don't see the issue here other than the standard politicization surrounding a disaster.

They were so much for it they voted against it because their attempt at "offsets" never had a chance of passing.

Quote:Scalise and Cassidy said their objection actually had been that the House had failed to offset the Sandy appropriation with federal budget cutbacks elsewhere. “Paying for disasters and being fiscally responsible are not mutually exclusive,” Scalise said at the time. 


But they almost certainly knew that their proposed offsets were sure bill-killers: They would have eliminated mass transit subsidies for federal workers and certain agricultural subsidies, among other things. When an amendment to require those offsets was voted down, Scalise, Cassidy and Fleming rejected the $50.5-billion total, including the initial $17-billion piece.

Got it.

[*PhilHos*]

(08-23-2016, 11:33 AM)GMDino Wrote: They were so much for it they voted against it because their attempt at "offsets" never had a chance of passing.



Got it.

Oh, they "surely knew"? That's some great rationale right there. "I believe this bill was stupid and surely, so did the guys that wrote it. Ergo, they KNEW that it was stupid."

And so what f they "knew" the offsets weren't going to pass? Do you only stand by your convictions as long as the majority agrees with you? The fact remains they were against the supplemental relief without the appropriate budgetary offsets as stated in YOUR article. You can disagree with that (I can certainly understand and may even agree with you on that), but that does not equate to hypocrisy until these guys ask for supplemental relief themselves.

[fredtoast]

(08-23-2016, 11:40 AM)PhilHos Wrote: Oh, they "surely knew"? That's some great rationale right there. "I believe this bill was stupid and surely, so did the guys that wrote it. Ergo, they KNEW that it was stupid."

And so what f they "knew" the offsets weren't going to pass? Do you only stand by your convictions as long as the majority agrees with you? The fact remains they were against the supplemental relief without the appropriate budgetary offsets as stated in YOUR article. You can disagree with that (I can certainly understand and may even agree with you on that), but that does not equate to hypocrisy until these guys ask for supplemental relief themselves.

So let's discuss the offsets they are suggesting for the funds they are going to receive.

What exactly are they?

Surely they are not just going to ask for funds without suggesting offsets are they?

[*michaelsean*]

(08-23-2016, 10:37 PM)fredtoast Wrote: So let's discuss the offsets they are suggesting for the funds they are going to receive.

What exactly are they?

Surely they are not just going to ask for funds without suggesting offsets are they?

They wanted offsets for the rebuilding, not the relief.

[fredtoast]

(08-24-2016, 08:56 AM)michaelsean Wrote: They wanted offsets for the rebuilding, not the relief.

I don't think so.


http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/01/scalise_wants_sandy_disaster_a.html


Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, is backing an amendment to a Hurricane Sandy aid package that would offset $17 billion in spending with cuts in federal programs.




That is the amount of the original relief package.

[*michaelsean*]

(08-24-2016, 09:13 AM)fredtoast Wrote: I don't think so.


http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/01/scalise_wants_sandy_disaster_a.html


Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, is backing an amendment to a Hurricane Sandy aid package that would offset $17 billion in spending with cuts in federal programs.




That is the amount of the original relief package.

I was just going off the posted article. It's Dino's fault.

[GMDino]

(08-24-2016, 09:52 AM)michaelsean Wrote: I was just going off the posted article.  It's Dino's fault.

So this place is just like my home life?