Soledad O’Brien Challenges GOP Congressman Over Opposition To Newest Hurricane Sandy Relief Package

[RetroGamer1971]

Source: www.mediaite.com

“My difficulty with [the new relief package] is simply that it is not paid for,” he explained. “We’re borrowing this additional money and I think that’s wrong. I’m hoping we can figure out a way today during the amendment process to find savings elsewhere to pay for this without adding to the debt.”

O’Brien then challenged Mulvaney by listing all the previous disaster aid packages that did not include the financial offsets he now seeks, including one that helped his home state of South Carolina after Hurricane Hugo in 1989. She played a soundbite from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie claiming he does not expect the federal government to do any more for NJ than it did for the residents of the Gulf region after Katrina, and Joplin, Missouri, after the tornado outbreak.

“It’s a fair point,” Mulvaney responded. “I would encourage the governor and everybody else to consider the fact in 1989, and even as late as Katrina several years ago, the debt was much, much smaller. 1989 it was $2 trillion or $3 trillion. It’s five and six times larger than that today.”

“I’m not against doing this,” he concluded, “but I think the days of just being able to say okay let’s borrow money from China to do this and that have come and gone.”

Read more: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/soledad-obrien-challenges-gop-congressman-over-his-opposition-to-newest-hurricane-sandy-relief-package/

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So the next time a disaster hits his home state, should we tell them tough luck guys, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps?

[1StrongBlackMan]

1. gop/teaparty translator, engaged:

“It’s a fair point,” Mulvaney responded. “I would encourage the governor and everybody else to consider the fact in 1989, and even as late as Katrina several years ago, the debt was much, much smaller. 1989 it was $2 trillion or $3 trillion. It’s five and six times larger than that today.”

Translator Scanning ... Translator Searching ... Solution Realized, Please see below:

That's different!

[Berlum]

3. The debt was indeed lower until the diaper-fetish chickenhawk Republicans ran it up

...with two unpaid for wars.

[freshwest]

12. Could we add the word 'revenue' to his translator?

[1StrongBlackMan]

13. The term ...

"revenue" is no where in the gop lexicon.

[freshwest]

14. We should remind the voters that voodoo economics doesn't work, then..

Or maybe call their deficit reduction plans pixie dust economics. No one starves their family to death and calls it a budget. There's no famine either, despite GOP apocalyptics.

[Raggaemon]

2. How to be a lying hypocrite in one easy step

This man knows that without flinching if his state or district was devastated by another natural event, he'd DEMAND government help, and he'd scream his ass off in protest if those tea-party hustlers tried a shakedown to get offsets before his state could be helped.

I guess he took his son's tuba lessons away to cut costs in his own household ?

[CBHagman]

15. Mulvaney's an even bigger hypocrite than that...

...as he received help himself after his business was flooded.

[url]http://www.wltx.com/news/article/216790/2/House-Rejects-Mulvaneys-Proposal-on-Sandy-Aid[/url]

Mind you, it does warm the cockles of my heart to think that Mulvaney had to wade through filth -- practice for his eventual ring of hell, perhaps?

[another_liberal]

4. Slash the Dept. of Def. budget in half . . .

Slash the Department of Defense budget in half. We'll still be spending more than twice as much on that crap as we should be. Disaster relief is the kind of thing we need a Federal Government for. We do not need one for nation-building in Afghanistan or maintaining an obscenely top-heavy General Officer Class.

[freshwest]

16. I wonder what percentage of employment that is in red districts.

I can't honestly say it's not a big factor in blue states, either. If the direction of the knowledge base that makes weaponry was diverted to sustainable projects that actually helped the environment, it would be worth it. Currently it's not helping anyone but some employees and billionaires. And not helping any of the locales the bases are located in.

[another_liberal]

17. Very true.

All that labor, intelligence and expense just to make machines which let Generals blow things up and play God with innocent lives. It's sick.

[DallasNE]

5. What A Copout

If he wants offsets let him name those offsets. And could you not pay for it with revenue as well. Here is a guy that can't think outside the box so he falls back on the tired GOP sound bite of offset, offset, offset. Where was he when Bush was President? Where were the offsets for the two wars Bush started?

[JustAnotherGen]

6. I hate to say it

But in response to this:
So the next time a disaster hits his home state, should we tell them tough luck guys, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps?

Yes.

I live in NJ. Prior to that I lived in NY State for 25 years. At the end of the day - NY and NJ ALWAYS pay in more to the Federal till then we EVER get back.

So at this point - they can all go f*ck themselves.

[okaawhatever]

11. Screw him! South Carolina: Satan's home state. I say NJ and NY declare state of

emergency and don't send in their federal taxes. Really you d-bag, because now the gov't owes more? That is your f-kin excuse? OMG Sorry your national disaster happened at a more convenient time. Tell those RW ultra conservative "Christians" that if God didn't want you to have that money he wouldn't have sent the storm. Bastards.

[csziggy]

7. Here's one reason for him to object

"Critics are taking the sharpest aim at $12.1 billion in the amendment for Department of Housing and Urban Development emergency block grants. Any state struck by a federally declared major disaster in 2011, 2012 or this year would qualify for the grants, and that's just about all the states, said Stephen Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a budget watchdog group. Only South Carolina, Arizona and Michigan would not qualify, he said."
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/01/hurricane_sandy_relief_package.html

That amendment makes no sense to me - why would not having disasters in previous years prevent you from applying for relief for a new disaster?

[Third Doctor]

8. He quibbles about debt and pork when not too long ago he

supported a two unpaid for wars and tax cuts for the wealthy. All the time we have people that needs this help in states that pay more into the federal coffers than his area does. I'll say this again we have to find away around the gerrymandering and get enough of these fools out of congress. I'm tired of this shit.

[samsingh]

9. kick

[tanyev]

10. Ooookay. So he's volunteering to give up all federal monies coming into his district

until enough savings are found to pay for the disaster aid?


Nope. Thought not.