“The Opposite Of Patriotism”: Republican Resistance To Hurricane Relief Is A Stink Of Hypocrisy, And Worse
Provoked by opposition to Hurricane Sandy relief among House Republicans – and the delay in voting the first tranche of aid by Speaker John Boehner – both New Jersey governor Chris Christie and representative Peter King (R-NY) denounced the irresponsibility and cruelty of those betrayals. Even when that first bill passed, 67 Republicans voted no, in contrast with only 11 who voted no when Congress provided emergency funding for Hurricane Katrina (far more quickly, too) in 2005.
The Tea Party Republicans in Congress would offer various excuses for their hostility to Sandy relief, from budgetary constraints to far-right ideology. But those who voted no hail from states that have benefited from all kinds of federal relief over the past two decades, financed by Northeastern taxpayers who send a wildly disproportionate sum in levies to Washington every year.
Moving down the alphabet from Hurricane Andrew onward over the past two decades, it is not hard to trace tens of billions of dollars for storm relief alone that have flowed from New York and Connecticut to the South, the Gulf Coast, the Midwest and other regions over the years, with never a word of demurral over costs, “pork,” or “offsets” from other federal spending.
Then consider the many other forms of federal aid that have benefited the regions where “conservative” fiscal stringency supposedly prevails, and a disturbing habit quickly emerges: Republican members of Congress tend to support aid packages that benefit their own states or districts, while opposing help for other Americans. This doesn’t hold true for all Republicans or conservatives, of course, but it is nevertheless a detectable pattern.
The most obvious example in recent years is the rescue of the auto industry, a decision of national importance supported by both presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, which nearly all Republicans rejected – except those from Michigan and auto-plant districts in several surrounding states. Those in favor included Paul Ryan, the House Budget Committee chair from Wisconsin, who voted for the bailout and then, while running for vice president on the GOP ticket, pretended to have opposed it. But he couldn’t bring himself to vote for Sandy relief.
The Republicans in Kansas, whose entire four-member delegation voted against Sandy relief, never voiced any opposition to the massive aid provided by the federal government in 2007 when the city of Greensburg was devastated by a Force 5 tornado – or for that matter all the other instances of disaster assistance accepted by that benighted state over the decades. Nor did the Republicans in places like Missouri or Georgia or any of the other states severely damaged by flooding in recent years suddenly stop their routine pleading for federal aid, which they duly received.
The biggest frauds are naturally to be found in Texas, one of the drought-stricken states where the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Agriculture, and sundry federal agencies have been spending vast sums to help farmers, ranchers, and other suffering residents. Rep. Randy Neugebauer, a right-wing Texas Republican whose district includes bone-dry Lubbock, praised those federal bureaucrats just last summer for spending funds to help farmers and ranchers in his Lubbock district “mitigate damage caused by wildfires and drought.” Quoted in a local newspaper, Neugebauer said, “I hope that FEMA will quickly follow suit and declare a major disaster declaration for affected Texas counties.” But this week, Neugebauer was one of seven Texas Republicans who voted against Sandy relief, along with fellow wingnuts from drought-afflicted districts across the South and West.
All this represents something worse than cheap hypocrisy, which often crosses political and ideological lines. The behavior of these Republicans is rooted in their selfish ideology and regional chauvinism – and their rejection of a generous spirit that has united this country for more than a hundred years. It is the opposite of patriotism.
By: Joe Conason, The National Memo, January 5, 2013
“Make No Mistake”: GOP Freshmen Even More Tea Party Than 2010
The Republican freshmen sworn into Congress this week might be even more tea party than the Tea Party Class of 2010.
The tea party influence on last year’s primaries wasn’t as big a story as it was two years prior, as the label lost its luster and the rallies stopped. But the anti-establishment fervor of that movement lives on in the crop of 35 Republicans joining the House.
And in fact, it may even be ratcheted up.
Case in point: The vote Friday to approve a $9.7 billion aide package for victims of Hurricane Sandy, which some Republicans have criticized for not being accompanied by spending cuts.
In the end, 67 House Republicans voted against it. Of those 67, 19 came from the freshman class, compared to 22 who came from the Class of 2010.
Pretty close, huh? Well, when you consider that the 2012 class (35 Republicans) is less than half the size of the 2010 class (84 Republicans), things begin to come into focus.
In fact, while just more than one-quarter of 2010ers voted against the Sandy aid bill, more than half of 2012ers voted no. And while freshmen make up less than 15 percent of the GOP caucus, they comprised nearly 30 percent of the no votes.
(Also worth noting: four freshmen voted against John Boehner for speaker on Thursday — almost as many as the five defectors from the Class of 2010.)
Make no mistake: Even as the tea party isn’t as much of a thing any more, its ideals and anti-establishment attitude very much remain in today’s Republican Party and House GOP caucus.
And if the first votes of the 113th Congress are any indication, incoming members will continue to vote the tea party line — perhaps in even higher numbers than their tea party predecessors. Which make Boehner’s job very, very difficult going forward.
By: Aaron Blake, The Washington Post, January 4, 2013
“A Shameful Political System”: When Did Violence Against Women Become A Partisan Issue?
While the world rang in a new year and the U.S. teetered on the edge of a fiscal cliff, House Republicans boldly stood in the way of legislation that would have gone toward helping thousands of victims in need.
Not only did the GOP leadership flub the $60 billion relief effort that was intended for Hurricane Sandy victims (although their blocking that bill was quite incredulous in itself), they also managed to obstruct the Violence Against Women Act–a bill first introduced in 1994 that provides funds to prevent, investigate and prosecute violent crimes against women.
VAWA is typically thought to be one of those “easy” legislative measures. Every few years, a vote comes up to reauthorize the bill and every few years it passes with little, if any, opposition.
Why wouldn’t it? The key aspects of the bill are intended to serve and protect victims of rape and domestic abuse–hardly a partisan issue, right?
In addition to its original purpose, the bill was recently revised to include protections for gay and lesbian victims of domestic abuse and crimes against American Indians and immigrant women. Three groups that are especially vulnerable and all too often overlooked.
So when the vote came up to reauthorize the bill, which included the new aforementioned measures, it came as a surprise to many that the Republican-led House refused to sign off on it. Especially after the Senate already approved the bill in a 68 to 31 vote.
Instead, the House introduced and passed their own watered-down version, eliciting a veto threat from the White House.
“The Administration strongly opposes H.R. 4970, a bill that would undermine the core principles of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA),” the White House wrote in a press release. “H.R. 4970 rolls back existing law and removes long-standing protections for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault — crimes that predominately affect women.
“If the President is presented with H.R. 4970, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.”
Thursday, the 113th Congress was sworn into office. There is hope that the fresh new faces of this Congress–many of them women and several LGBT–will work toward getting VAWA back up and running.
The fact, however, that the 112th Congress stood idly by and allowed the measure to expire in the first place, that speaks volumes for the current state of our political system.
By: Lana Schupbach, MSNBC, January 3, 2013
“Nothing But Contempt”: One Man’s Disaster Relief Is Another Man’s Pork
In all the attention paid to the drama over the fiscal cliff, most people momentarily forgot that there were a few other important things the 112th Congress was supposed to take care of before its ignominious term came to an end. But yesterday, thanks to a couple of prominent politicians criticizing their own party—something always guaranteed to garner plenty of media attention—everybody remembered that states in the Northeast, particularly New York and New Jersey, are still waiting on federal disaster aid. First New Jersey governor Chris Christie came out and gave a blistering press conference in which he blasted House Republicans for not taking up the relief bill, saying, “There is only one group to blame for the continued suffering of these innocent victims: the House majority and their speaker, John Boehner.” Christie also said he called Boehner multiple times, but Boehner wouldn’t return his calls. Then Representative Peter King, a Republican from New York, delivered a rather extraordinary statement on Fox News, not only urging people in New York and New Jersey not to donate to members of his party, but referring to them as “these Republicans,” as though they were from a group of which he was not a part. “These Republicans have no problem finding New York when they’re out raising millions of dollars,” King said. “I’m saying right now, anyone from New York or New Jersey who contributes one penny to Congressional Republicans is out of their minds. Because what they did last night was put a knife in the back of New Yorkers and New Jerseyans. It was an absolute disgrace.” Yow!
Obviously, it’s good politics to plead on behalf of the folks back home, but King seemed genuinely pissed off (it’s harder to tell with Christie, since pissed off is pretty much his default mood). And the GOP is about as popular as syphilis right now, so criticizing them is also good politics. That will always be true for Christie, which could complicate his potential 2016 presidential run—he can’t look too close to the national party or his popularity at home will suffer, but he can’t be too antagonistic if he’s going to win over Republican primary voters. (King won his last election without too much trouble, but his district has plenty of Democrats). But this is a good reminder that one man’s absolutely necessary emergency government expenditure is another man’s pork.
This mini-revolt also reminds us just how far south the center of gravity within the Republican party has moved. New Jersey, which has an independent commission draw its congressional districts, will have a 6-6 split in its delegation in the new Congress. But head north, and it’s tough to find a Republican. Only six of New York’s 27 members are Republicans, and there are a grand total of zero Republican representatives from the New England states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Christie and King are criticizing a party in which they as Northeasterners are a vanishing breed.
The fact that Sandy hit a couple of states that many members of the House GOP caucus would just as soon see go straight to hell anyway went a long way to mitigate their enthusiasm for disaster relief. This problem is both regional and ideological. The time is gone when most or all members of Congress saw Americans suffering from a natural disaster, no matter what part of the country it occurred in, and said, “Of course the federal government will help.” After all, the fact that people are looking for help from the federal government just shows that they’re 47-percenters who deserve nothing but contempt.
All that being said, there’s only so much pressure an embattled Speaker can take. After emerging battered and bruised from the fiscal cliff debacle, by the end of the day yesterday Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor basically sued Christie for peace, declaring that the new Congress will take up a Sandy relief bill on the first day of its session.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, January 3, 2012
“A House Divided Against Itself”: The GOP Will Either Become All One Thing, Or All The Other
When House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) announced his opposition to the bipartisan fiscal agreement, it caused quite a stir. Cantor is not only a very influential GOP figure, but his comments came before House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) had even taken a position on the bill, and certainly gave the impression that the two were sharply at odds.
As speculation intensified — was this a precursor to Cantor challenging Boehner for the Speaker’s gavel? — the Majority Leader’s office tried to lower the temperature. Cantor’s chief spokesperson insisted that the Virginia Republican “stands with” Boehner, and rumors to the contrary were “silly, non-productive and untrue.”
But Cantor really didn’t stand with the Speaker, and speculation wasn’t — and isn’t — silly at all.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy broke with Speaker John Boehner Monday night, voting against a multi-trillion tax package designed to avert the fiscal cliff.
The decision to abandon Boehner — which came after Boehner’s leadership team whipped not only rank and file members but even other lower ranking members of leadership — will almost certainly set off a furious round of speculation about the future of his speakership, less than 48 hours before members are scheduled to vote on it.
It’s worth emphasizing, as John Stanton reported, that both Cantor and McCarthy waited to register a vote until the bill had 218 supporters, paying Boehner “the courtesy” of registering a preference without actively trying to bring down the entire bill.
But that doesn’t make up for the fact that when it came time for the biggest House vote in the last year, the Speaker was on one side and his top two lieutenants were on the other. Boehner is regularly ignored by his rank-and-file members, but it’s one thing when backbenchers go their own way on key pieces of legislation; it’s something else when the GOP leadership is split down the middle.
The next question, of course, is the short-term consideration: what happens tomorrow when House Republicans elect their Speaker for the next Congress?
The working assumption, which I’ve generally accepted, was that Boehner was in deep trouble if he passed the fiscal agreement by relying overwhelmingly on Democratic votes. There was no magic number, per se, but if the Speaker relied on 25 to 30 House Republicans to pass the bill, it would amount to a practical vote of no confidence.
But when the dust settled overnight, it was hard to miss the fact that 85 House Republicans voted with Boehner in support of the measure. Sure, the Speaker had to forgo the “Hastert Rule” and rely on a majority of the minority, and 151 House GOP members went the other way, but it’s tough to see 85 votes as a career-ender for Boehner.
Over the weekend, Politico reported, “It’s a truth that fire-breathing conservatives will have to handle: John Boehner isn’t going anywhere as speaker of the House.” To be sure, that was before the Senate agreement was reached and three days before last night’s vote, but it nevertheless seems accurate, barring 11th-hour drama.
The vote, after all, is tomorrow, and as of this minute, Boehner has no opposition. This has been an ugly couple of weeks for the Speaker, but he appears to have survived — weakened, but still standing. This, like the intra-party divisions, won’t help Boehner govern in the next Congress, but it should be enough to help him keep his gavel.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, January 2, 2012
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