‘Emergency’ Sandy relief bill shows Washington’s fiscal folly
Alternate headline: “This is why we’re screwed.” The Obama administration and Senate Democrats have proposed $60.4 billion in spending, some of which may not have anything to do with helping people recover from the superstorm that hit the Northeast this fall. But the entire lot is being rushed through as part of the “emergency” spending package that has to be passed RIGHT NOW according to Democrats — even though, according to the Congressional Budget Office, only about one-third of the money will be spent in the next 21 months.
What else is the dough going for, if not for immediate relief? Jamie Dupree has the full list of items on his AJC.com blog. ABC News reports that millions of dollars are for federal agency spending that is unrelated, or only tangentially related, to Hurricane Sandy. Another $13 billion of it is tabbed to help mitigate future disasters. Those particular mitigation measures may or may not make sense, and it’s hard to know which are worthwhile and which aren’t when Congress is being asked to allocate the money in such a rushed fashion. For the non-immediate needs, it would be very helpful for Congress to have more time to study them before spending almost three times as much as President Obama’s cherished “Buffett Rule” would generate in new revenue.
And that’s the proper way to look at the bulk of this spending. As ABC News notes, that $60 billion represents almost all the new revenue the federal government would take in next year if Congress also were to pass Obama’s “deficit reduction” bill. We are perhaps days away from going over the so-called fiscal cliff because Obama and congressional Republicans can’t agree about cutting existing spending. So it seems absolutely crazy to rush through a new appropriations bill in the name of “emergency” disaster relief when two-thirds of the money — as much as the annual amount of spending Obama is talking about possibly, maybe, potentially, perhaps being willing to cut in negotiations that just might take place next year if the GOP gives him everything he wants on taxes now — is not going to be spent until sometime in 2014 or after.
Yes, folks, this kind of attitude is exactly why our fiscal condition is so dire. The GOP should insist on funding only what is absolutely necessary now, and discuss the rest next year when said discussion can be more rational.
– By Kyle Wingfield
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414 comments Add your comment
CC
December 15th, 2012
5:07 pm
Del@4:43:
If very young, time and a few of life’s lessons will bring about change. If there is no change, then “terminally stupid” will be the applicable description.
Aesop's Fables and other Lib Economic Theories
December 15th, 2012
5:38 pm
“To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” – Thomas Jefferson
Hat tip George Will.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right
December 15th, 2012
5:46 pm
Does anyone else find it a bit ironic that AmVet would complain about venom on this site after he makes a post wanting to drown all conservatives in a bath tub?
AmVet = hate filled screed.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right
December 15th, 2012
5:53 pm
JDW, your drug-induced Rantings need a response better that I can provide on a smartphone.
Needless to say, one of the scariest things you posted was that you have propagated.
CC
December 15th, 2012
5:56 pm
“Does anyone else find it a bit ironic that AmVet would complain about venom on this site”
Half the venom found on this site comes from him . . . and evokes nearly the entire other half of the venom found here.
carlosgvv
December 15th, 2012
6:27 pm
Barry – 4:41
And I will argue that we’ve never had in the past or now any liberal President who matches that description.
However, the far right Republicans will be more than happy for you to actually believe such nonsense.
bluecoat
December 15th, 2012
6:41 pm
The only Liberal I’m against,the liberal gun ownership laws.All privately owned guns should be confiscated.Give the owners a chance to bring in all guns,then if they don’t confiscate.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right
December 15th, 2012
6:45 pm
Never quite got around to understanding private property rights, did you, bluecoat?
Lil' Barry Bailout - OBAMAPHONE!!!
December 15th, 2012
6:52 pm
carlosgvv: And I will argue that we’ve never had in the past or now any liberal President who matches that description.
———-
You can argue that a dog’s tail is a fifth leg, but that won’t make it so.
Obozo: Liberal fascist.
bluecoat
December 15th, 2012
7:00 pm
I just think rights to life are superior to property rights.
Rafe Hollister preparing for an Obamanist America
December 15th, 2012
7:01 pm
JDW
That nirvana or utopia you think your generation is about to create is more apt to become a vast sea of mediocrity. When you resent accomplishment and make excuses for failure, you are sure to wind up with equal misery for all, but the ruling elite. Got to get those guns banned before the people learn that the ruling elite are living a much more luxurious life than they are.
Google Bath, MI school deaths. One guy in 1927 killed forty something children with explosives at that school The thing we have in common in all these tragedies is not guns, but mental illness. We need to find better ways to ID, treat and monitor mental illness. Timothy McVey did not need a firearm to do his vile work. The Unibomber didn’t either, but all these folks were mentally ill. Liberals need to come around on profiling, these people usually give off plenty of signs that they are dangerous, we just need to find out how to help them or at least monitor their activity.
Rafe Hollister preparing for an Obamanist America
December 15th, 2012
7:06 pm
bluecoat
You are a typical liberal, always wanting security and willing to trade your freedom for the illusion of security and safety. Unfortunately, I think when you do that you wind up with fewer rights and no more security.
Lil' Barry Bailout - OBAMAPHONE!!!
December 15th, 2012
7:08 pm
bluecoat: I just think rights to life are superior to property rights.
———
Hmmm…how about rights to life versus privacy rights?
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right
December 15th, 2012
7:19 pm
Bluecoat, life liberty and property rights are all intertwined.
CC
December 15th, 2012
7:20 pm
bluecoat@6:41:
You’re welcome to try to confiscate mine. Come over any time . . .
Romney
December 15th, 2012
7:23 pm
Cc the tough tike
“Come over anytime”
He propositioned another blogger
Hahahahahahahahaa
Lil' Barry Bailout - OBAMAPHONE!!!
December 15th, 2012
7:27 pm
The liberal fascists rekindled gun-grabbing schemes will quickly run into reality, in the form of House Republicans and red-state Democrats.
bluecoat
December 15th, 2012
7:43 pm
From past election,think the red state democrats growing faster than National Debt.
Aesop's Fables and other Lib Economic Theories
December 15th, 2012
8:30 pm
The liberals fore go the mourning and turn this in to an opportunity to disarm the country.
They really don’t care about anything but their political agenda, do they?
Aesop's Fables and other Lib Economic Theories
December 15th, 2012
8:32 pm
Another dead dozen in Chicago of the black variety, killed by the same guns they tried to outlaw, but yet, obozo doesn’t blubber about this.
Must not be a chance to score some political points over their corpses.
Aesop's Fables and other Lib Economic Theories
December 15th, 2012
9:13 pm
There is a reason that these punk liberals want to focus on guns -
Government officials told the Washington Guardian on Friday night that two Justice Department programs that had provided more than $200 million to schools for training, security equipment and police resources over the last decade weren’t renewed by the Obama administration in 2011 and 2012, and that a separate program that provided $800 million to put police officers inside the schools was ended a few years earlier.
So what are they doing with all of the money?
carlosgvv
December 15th, 2012
9:28 pm
Barry – 6:52
You are the very model for a simple tool so useful to Big Busness and the Republican Party.
And BONUS for them. You actually believe they care about you.
Lil' Barry Bailout - OBAMAPHONE!!!
December 15th, 2012
9:29 pm
a separate program that provided $800 million to put police officers inside the schools was ended a few years earlier
——————————
Must be Bush’s fault.
Lil' Barry Bailout - OBAMAPHONE!!!
December 15th, 2012
9:31 pm
Who cares about you, carlosgvv?
JDW
December 15th, 2012
9:32 pm
@Tiberius..”your drug-induced Rantings need a response better that I can provide on a smartphone.”
Only drug around here is the occasional scotch..as for your smartphone…at least something in Tiberiusville is smarter than a rock. Learn from it.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
December 15th, 2012
10:53 pm
JDW, I knew your incoherent ravings of a lunatic mind had to do with some mind-altering substance, as no normal person could ever write that garbage with a straight face.
“Sadness-Pity-Joy-Hope
Sadness that twenty small bodies lay in the halls of a school in Connecticut and some people in this country are so selfish as to believe that a perverted view of their “right” to weaponry is more important than those and other lives.”
There is no one who thinks that a right to own a weapon is more important than anyone’s life. They are, in fact, equally intertwined life, liberty and personal property rights. The perversion is on your side of this issue, JDW. You and your ilk completely and totally disarmed the general populace at the school, opening it up to a prime target for anyone who wished to do those children and adults harm. What amazes me is that for all your self-purported intelligence, you can’t even learn from nature. What happens to a flock of sheep if there is no shepherd to guard them from the wolves? That’s right, dummy – the wolves slaughter the defenseless sheep. YOU nabled the wolf to slaughter those innocent sheep, JDW. Their blood is on YOUR hands.
“Pity for you and those like you that exist in such a hate filled state, consumed with a past that never was and longing for a future that never will be.”
I hate no one. And the past is the past, and history proves that it did actually exist, despite your denials. As to the future, I see nothing but endless decline as the moochers of the world continue to take that which they do not earn, and the money eventually runs out. YOU are enabling that as well, JDW.
“Joy that you and most of those like you will soon be passing from this world to whatever reward you so richly deserve. With you will go many of the antiquated ideas that your generation has foisted upon this country over the last 30 years to be replaced by a much richer and more fulfilling vision of what can be achieved.”
Another so-called peaceful liberal who wishes death to those they disagree with. Way to stay classless, moron. And please tell us what “antiquated ideas” have been foisted upon this country in the past 30 years that didn’t come from the vapid mind of a liberal.
“Hope that as you and yours pass from the scene myself, my children and others like us will remake this world as a better place. A place where excellence is rewarded and all are afforded the opportunity to pursue it in safety.”
Excellence is rewarded? In YOUR world, JDW? Not hardly. In your world MEDIOCRITY is rewarded. How else do you explain our current President Incompetent? And you don’t want equality of opportunity, which already exists, but equality of outcome – again, mediocrity.
What a truly pitiful individual you are. You’re everything we’ve come to expect from years of government indoctrination. The perfect tool of the State.
bluecoat
December 16th, 2012
12:02 am
Tiberius/JDW just a little respect please. Thank You
amen
December 16th, 2012
12:35 am
Tiberious
The lonely bloviator
capguitarman
December 16th, 2012
3:37 am
As Rahm Emmanuel once famously said, never let a crisis go to waste. Keep in mind the amount of taxes that this Democratic party ruled area of the nation pays. Not only do they pay extraordinary state and local taxes, but they pay very large federal tax bills too. They make a lot, no question, but they pay a big share of the nation’s taxes. And if Obama gets his way, they are going to pay a whole lot more if Obama’s “millionaires” (those couples making $250,000 + ) are whacked with removal of the Bush tax cuts, the cap on deductions (that make their mortgages and state income taxes even bearable) and the coming Obamacare taxes on dividends and capital gains. And if we go off the fiscal cliff, all of that . . . plus the Alternative Miniumum Tax will kick in for a huge number of them. The Dem/Libs are desperate to give them a big chunk of money to rebuild because they are slowly but surely being taxed out of existence.
Lil' Barry Bailout - OBAMAPHONE!!!
December 16th, 2012
7:31 am
How is Obozo proposing to pay for this “emergency” spending?
Oh, right, put it on the credit card.
Along with all of his failed “stimulus” spending (which was mostly union/government job protection schemes).
Aesop's Fables and other Lib Economic Theories
December 16th, 2012
8:26 am
Don’t want to get shot in Afghanistan? The new obozoarmy Field Manual has some advice for ya-
The draft leaked to the newspaper offers a list of “taboo conversation topics” that soldiers should avoid, including “making derogatory comments about the Taliban”… “advocating women’s rights,” “any criticism of pedophilia,” “directing any criticism towards Afghans,” “mentioning homosexuality and homosexual conduct” or “anything related to Islam.”
One, two, three , what are we fightin for, don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn, next stop is Afghanistan, and it’s a five, six, seven upon up the Pearly Gates, there ain’t no time to wonder why, whoopie, we’re all gonna die!
CC
December 16th, 2012
8:27 am
LBB@7:31:
The stimulus spending was mostly “payback” to his contributors and voters, end of story.
carlosgvv
December 16th, 2012
8:37 am
Aesop – 8:26 “mentioning homosexuality and homosexual conduct”
I wonder how this will go over with the gays who are now allowed to openly serve in the Military?
Looks like the politically correct want to have it both ways.
Lil' Barry Bailout - OBAMAPHONE!!!
December 16th, 2012
8:44 am
We’re only supposed to impose our beliefs on Americans, carlosgvv.
CC
December 16th, 2012
8:59 am
LBB:
“We’re only supposed to impose our beliefs on Americans, carlosgvv.”
Yep, the libs are only allowed to impose their perversions on Americans!
Lil' Barry Bailout - OBAMAPHONE!!!
December 16th, 2012
9:05 am
carlosgvv: And BONUS for [big business and the Republican party]. You actually believe they care about you.
———————-
Yes, I do. I believe they care about maintaining a relationship with me wherein they provide something I want in return for a payment or contribution from me. Both parties are free to act in whatever manner they choose to maintain this relationship, and either party can choose to end the relationship.
Do you believe the government cares about you? Tell me about the choice you have in dealing with them.
Aesop's Fables and other Lib Economic Theories
December 16th, 2012
9:06 am
carlos – “Gays in the military” is a liberal canard used in the effort by the sodomites to impose their animalistic heathentry upon the entire United States. You’d be lucky to count .01% homos among the men fighting for their own lives and nothing else in the wilds of Afghanistan.
And even with that, how easy would it be to prance around the battlefield with one hand tied behind your back?
Road Scholar
December 16th, 2012
9:32 am
This is rich: Fox News this AM accused Democrats of being soft on gun control! What?! The “only no” republicans in the House and Senate and their NRA masters would not allow ANY legislation that would permit gun control, registry, etc. FOX strikes again. As with the election results…LOOK WITHIN..YOU are the reason you lost and are the reason we still have mass murders! And you have the nerve to pass blame?
Aesop's Fables and other Lib Economic Theories
December 16th, 2012
9:40 am
and are the reason we still have mass murders!
Faulty, hysterical, feminine thinking^^ at it’s finest.
Timothy James “Tim” McVeigh (April 23, 1968 – June 11, 2001) was an American domestic terrorist who detonated a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. Commonly referred to as the Oklahoma City Bombing, the attack killed 168 people and injured over 800.
Lil' Barry Bailout - OBAMAPHONE!!!
December 16th, 2012
9:43 am
Norway has strict gun control. How is it possible that they recently had a much worse mass murder than Newtown?
Lil' Barry Bailout - OBAMAPHONE!!!
December 16th, 2012
9:44 am
Progs, please explain how your War on Guns will be any more successful than the war on drugs.
Thanks in advance.
Road Scholar
December 16th, 2012
9:51 am
LBB: Norway had one mass murder. How many has the US had since then???? DUH!
Lil' Barry Bailout - OBAMAPHONE!!!
December 16th, 2012
9:52 am
I’m not asking for a compare/contrast, Road. I’m asking how it could happen that a country with strict gun controls could have a mass murder.
And if I did want to do a compare/contrast, I might consider the relatively small population of Norway versus that of the U.S.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
December 16th, 2012
9:55 am
Aesop, I have a problem with anyone serving in the military today who has a problem with gays serving beside them.
How can you take an oath to defend the Constitution when you refuse to follow it’s tenets of equality?
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
December 16th, 2012
9:58 am
Hey, Road Scholar?
How many people does your precious State keep from being killed by guns every year?
Think about it.
Lil' Barry Bailout - OBAMAPHONE!!!
December 16th, 2012
9:58 am
I have a problem with anyone serving in the military today who has a problem with gays serving beside them.
——————–
That opinion seems rather intolerant.
Lil' Barry Bailout - OBAMAPHONE!!!
December 16th, 2012
9:59 am
When the citizenry is unarmed, they are totally dependent on government for security and protection.
Just another means for the liberal fascists to enlarge the role of government in our lives.
Road Scholar
December 16th, 2012
10:01 am
Maybe you should be comparing since you are looking for reasons Norway had one. The availability of guns? The “chest beating” Americans are prone to do? Our arrogance? Our willingness to profess freedom only if it resembles what a certain few think it should be? The growing anger (some reasonable, a lot just plain stupid) that is in our country, culture, etc. We are no longer civil as a country , state, or community. Our society has no manners, ability to deduce nonviolent solutions, or respect for other points of view! We have all done it, but to varying degrees, and it is starting to accumulate into our daily actions.
Aesop's Fables and other Lib Economic Theories
December 16th, 2012
10:02 am
The US Constitution says nothing of “equality” and most people don’t take an oath to defend the Declaration of Independence, a document written to throw off the subjugation of the rights of Americans by the British, but thanks for trying, Tibs.
Lil' Barry Bailout - OBAMAPHONE!!!
December 16th, 2012
10:04 am
All of the negative trends you cite, Road, happened in parallel with the growth of government.
Thanks, progs.