Herman Cain breaks with House GOP on shutdown threat

Taking great advantage of his Saturday win in the Florida straw poll, GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain appeared on an array of news shows on Monday.

They included this CNN encounter in which Cain broke ranks with House Republicans on the latest threatened government shutdown:

Said Cain:

”We should not play politics with tragedies. You’re talking about human beings out there, not a group of statistics. The fact that they want to play politics with it – I would blame both parties. Secondly, you and I both know that there is plenty of money in Washington D.C. to offset anything that we need to spend on FEMA. I would make sure that FEMA got the money that it needed, and if I had to go find the offsets later, go find it later. Stop playing with people’s tragedies….”

- By Jim Galloway, Political Insider

For instant updates, follow me on Twitter, or connect with me on Facebook.

73 comments Add your comment

td

September 26th, 2011
5:11 pm

jayone

September 26th, 2011
4:52 pm

We have taken your way for years. Regan signed a bill with the promises of cuts, the first George Bush raised taxed with the promise of cuts later and GWB did the same and guess what happened? The cuts never came. I am not opposed to closing loopholes and even raising taxes temporarily to pay down the debt but only if the spending cuts come first this time and are in place for a while before the tax increases happen.

td

September 26th, 2011
5:15 pm

mum

September 26th, 2011
4:53 pm
@td: do you have something against women’s healthcare that you want to cut funding to planned parenthood?

I am against any set aside funds that favor one gender over another or one race over another. Plus, planned parenthood is a duplication of services offered by primary care doctors.

mum

September 26th, 2011
5:15 pm

@DannyX..the same that people screaming to cut government funding don’t even know what the “government” provides….until you break it down for them. For instance, many of those conservatives they don’t use government services don’t even know that the healthcare they receive is through medicaid because their claims are processed via a private healthcare organization, unfortunately they don’t realize that this is the Medicaid Advantage program. It’s easy to say cut wasteful spending when it’s something they believe is useless only because somebody keeps telling them it’s useless spending.

td

September 26th, 2011
5:17 pm

DannyX

September 26th, 2011
4:58 pm
What are the offsets for the Governor’s (R) port project?

I do not know but maybe we could cut Welfare, FS or Medicaid since the project would bring more jobs and as a result we would need less services.

mum

September 26th, 2011
5:25 pm

@td, “planned parenthood is a duplication of services offered by primary care doctors”

..and since Planned Parenthood mostly services people without insurance, which primary care doctors do you know that provide these duplicated services for nominal fees like PP does?

mum

September 26th, 2011
5:49 pm

fiddling while “Rome burns”…..http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0926/How-FEMA-funding-fight-led-to-monster-mosquito-swarms-in-N.C/(page)/2

Ekim

September 26th, 2011
8:03 pm

“I am against any set aside funds that favor one gender over another or one race over another”

Okay, let’s open up Planned Parenthood to the boys, too.

Mari

September 26th, 2011
8:05 pm

Road Scholar@2:33, I could not agree more with you. I absolutely think that since lawmakers think we have too many layers in government, why can’t they type their own letters/email. I do! I have a cell phone that I take with me while working. I do not have a secretary who screens my calls. Not only that, if I don’t return calls to customers in 24 hours, my head will roll. Lawmakes don’t think the government should pay for any benefits except the ones they get. And worse yet, we tolerate that arrogance.

Get real

September 26th, 2011
8:18 pm

Here is what the deems should do. Obama should come out and say “we are rolling taxes back to what they were when Reagan was President!”. I dare them to rebuke that one. Tax rate goes up, we get needed money for FEMA, repubs think they won, and everything is hunky dori!

MrLiberty

September 26th, 2011
9:01 pm

It should be clear to every republican voter that Mr. Cain is just another big government status quo republican. I guess it is his background as former director of the KC Federal Reserve branch that makes him feel that there is pleny of money in Washington to pay for the horrible and destructive FEMA. Thankfully a REAL conservative like Ron Paul gets its right. By being there no matter how irresponsible people are, FEMA creates a moral hazard. By running a low cost flood insurance program, FEMA enables rich folks to keep building and rebuilding on the coast, developers to keep building in flood plains, and people to keep making bad decisions about where to live. Proper insurance would signal bad choices with MUCH higher premiums and would likely discourage most chronically stupid behavior.

While Mr. Cain may want to speak like a caring republican, his ill-placed faith in federal government institutions like FEMA over private or even state-organized solutions clearly shows that a Cain presidency will be just more of the same we have gotten from Washington for the past 100 years – failure.

Ron Paul 2012. Not afraid to tell the truth or take the right and principled stands.

BEND OVER, HERE COMES THE CHANGE

September 26th, 2011
9:20 pm

Ol’ Timer

Yeah, that what they said about NObama in 2007.

dre

September 26th, 2011
10:50 pm

The only saving grace of this blog is that 99% of you are too stupid to find your polling place. Go Herman!!!

philiopo

September 26th, 2011
11:07 pm

Why can’t the offsets be the billions we send overseas to Pakistan, Israel, Palestine or any of the many countries we send aid to. If we just cut out Military aid to a half dozen or so countries (Egypt, Columbia) we could fund all the social programs we needed and take care of our own citizens first.

Alabama Communist

September 27th, 2011
12:22 am

More Breaking News On Herman Amazing Victory In Rigged Republican Florida Straw Vote.. A confirmed unknown source deep within the Republican Congress said today ” That Herman hasn’t got a clue how he won the Republican Straw Vote Poll in Florida except that maybe FEMA rescue him as Hurricane Katina was approaching downtown Orlando during the Republican Presidential Primary debate.”

dd

September 27th, 2011
5:02 am

I’m a former Democrat.

Now, I’m an independent. I vote the candidate, not the party. This country needs a jolt

Herman sounds just as good as any of the others, including what we have in the White House now, so why not?

He can’t do any worse that what’s been up there the last 30 years. JMO

Jay Bookman

September 27th, 2011
6:30 am

The stimulus is working !

Obama is doing a wonderful job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Parky Bill

September 27th, 2011
6:53 am

I suppose the thing that amuses me the most about this whole Herman Cain debate is the rank hypocrisy it shows among the Tea Party racists and the conservative punditry. Yesterday, Cain used a barnyard epithet to describe Obama’s economic policies. All the Tea Party blogs were AWASH in comments congratulating Cain for using straight talk to describe his comment. Rewind to June 2010 when Obama was talking about “knowing whose ass to kick” in the BP Oil Spill debacle. The Tea Party bloggers and the conservative punditry collectively clutched their pearls and tried to direct themselves to the nearest fainting couch with a serious case of “the vapors” over the fact that this crude “street thug gangster” would USE language like that. It’s like the Tea Party racists and the conservative punditry FORGOT we have this thing we call “the Internet” and we can SEARCH and LOOK UP the things they said before and COMPARE them to the things they say now!

http://www.billschmalfeldt.com/?p=665

(And hey, does this sudden Tea Party and conservative punditry embrace of a black candidate remind anyone ELSE of the old racist denial tactic of saying, “I can’t POSSIBLY be racist. I know this guy at work. A black guy? NICEST guy you’d ever want to meet!”)

honested

September 27th, 2011
8:02 am

It’s nice to know that herman would do the right thing, despite himself.

Only the problem of limiting the bill to less than 3 pages (his idea) might pose some problems when it came to the specificity needed for much of the legislation that squeezes through Congress.

td

September 27th, 2011
8:46 am

Parky Bill

September 27th, 2011
6:53 am

It is not racist to dislike Obama, it is called patriotic. Socialism is a cancer and must be stopped at any cost. Obama is a pure bred European social democrat and must be removed from office. You do not hear any Tea party people or conservatives saying anything bad about Clarence Thomas. I have only heard other African Americans and white libs talk bad about him.

mum

September 27th, 2011
10:37 am

@Ekim, your comment shows that you know nothing about planned parenthood because they provide services to boys as well. That shows how little you know about the organization. You should go and participate in one of the sessions they have for parents and their teenagers, you’d learn a lot.

crabby

September 27th, 2011
10:45 am

GOPers interested in cutting spending? Stop it, you’re killing me!

Bishop Eddie Longs Red Panties

September 27th, 2011
12:07 pm

Herman Cain 2012 MY MAN!!!

USDebtSlave

September 28th, 2011
11:51 am

Abolish FEMA. Don’t steal my hard-earned money to pay for your house on the beach. Worried about hurricanes? Then buy insurance. No one will sell you any? Then you shouldn’t live on the beach.

Abolish PBS too. Get cable if you want better TV.