The Obama Years- A GOP love story

[firstdown]

Originally Posted by over the mountain

I question how he came up with the 13 bil number. Some of his complaints about emergency relief money going to the Virgin Islands as an indication that the bill contains pork spending not related to the Sandy Storm doesnt hold up either as the Virign Islands was impacted by the storm as well.

What i do agree with him on is that emergency disaster relief fund bills shouldnt contain spending for things that should go into and be considered in the normal annual budgeting (such as environmental impact studies or future mitigation studies etc).

Getting money for ppl to get food, clothes, clean up and rebuilding is fine. Using this as an opportunity to grab funding to upgrade NJ sewer systems should be in the annual normal budget.

Seems the list a pretty good amount of items that had nothing to do with getting any money to the people as needed. Not saying these things did not need addressing but they were not helping the people right after Sandy. Also not 64% of the bills spending did not start for 2 yrs. HMMM how the hell does that help anyone.


Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) today released the following statement on the $60.4 billion Hurricane Sandy supplemental spending bill before Congress this week:

“As Congress considers the $60.4 billion Hurricane Sandy supplemental spending bill this week, it is critical that we ensure taxpayer dollars go to help those impacted by this devastating storm and not to wasteful spending projects. We have already identified many issues that need to be addressed in this legislation.

“This is a preliminary list of questionable spending in the bill:

•$2 million to repair damage to the roofs of museums in Washington, D.C., while many in Hurricane Sandy’s path still have no roof over their own heads.
•$150 million for fisheries as far away from the storm’s path as Alaska.
•$125 million for the Department of Agriculture’s Emergency Watershed Protection program, which helps restore watersheds damaged by wildfires and drought.
•$20 million for a nationwide Water Resources Priorities Study.
•$15 million for NASA facilities, though NASA itself has called its damage from the hurricane ‘minimal.’
•$50 million in subsidies for tree planting on private properties.
•$336 million for taxpayer-supported AMTRAK without any detailed plan for how the money will be spent.
•$5.3 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers – more than the Corps’ annual budget – with no statement of priorities about how to spend the money.
•$12.9 billion for future disaster mitigation activities and studies, without identifying a single way to pay for it.

“All told, 64 percent of the $60.4 billion in ‘emergency’ spending in this legislation will not be spent for nearly two years.

“Americans impacted by Hurricane Sandy deserve better than this. We look forward to working with our colleagues to address these issues on the floor of the Senate this week.”