Forum Post: 179 Republicans Vote Against Sandy Aid
Posted 11 years ago on Jan. 16, 2013, 4:59 a.m. EST by quantumystic
(1710)
from Memphis, TN
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/15/sandy-relief-measure-passes_n_2480328.html
Seriously? These guys just don't get it. Their time is over.
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the new democrats will sell you out quickly.
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If you’d done a little research you’d know the reason they voted against it was it was full of pork and special interest money not related to disaster recovery. They had the principles to try and stop the greedy people who would use this disaster for personal gain.
the main reason for all of the Rs votes was that there were no cuts to balance the Sandy relief. But as you stated, the koch's club for growth disagrees
The House on Tuesday passed a $50.5 billion package of recovery and related aid for Superstorm Sandy and other disasters. It was divided into two parts: a $17 billion base bill for immediate recovery needs from the late October storm, and a $33.5 billion amendment for longer-term recovery efforts and projects to curb damages from future disasters.
A look at its main provisions:
BASE BILL
—$5.4 billion for New York and New Jersey transit systems.
—$5.4 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster relief aid fund.
—$1.35 billion for Army Corps of Engineers projects.
— $3.9 billion for the Department of Housing and Urban Development's community development fund for Sandy recovery projects.
—$235 million for repairs and renovations at Veterans Affairs Department facilities.
—$143 million to the Coast Guard for damages by Sandy.
LONGER-TERM AID AMENDMENT
—$10.9 billion for New York and New Jersey transit system recovery projects.
—$12.1 billion for Housing and Urban Development Department community block grants for Sandy and other federally declared disasters in 2011-2013.
—$3.4 billion for Army Corps of Engineer projects for Sandy-related damage and protections against future storms.
— $2 billion for the Federal Highway Administration's emergency relief program to repair storm-damaged federal highways.
—$290 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, much of it for programs and equipment to improve weather forecasting.
—$235 million for repairs and renovations at Veterans Affairs Department facilities. —$143 million to the Coast Guard for damages by Sandy.
These are incredible amounts of money. Any idea where the other 10 billion in the long term plan is going?
Are yo saying the 235 & 143 are NOT related to Sand y damage?
Please post link to this info
And, so they presented a detailed amendment to remove those items so they could enthusiastically support it. No? They proposed across the board cuts which would be at least as destructive? Now that is responsible representation, NOT! Was there some bad pork in it, I am sure. Was there in the fiscal cliff bill? Sure. Did the GOP insist on it being in there? Certainly.
They had an opportunity to appear responsible and relevant, but frankly, they just don't have the depth and it really wasn't about pork. It was about politics..
the gop is just full of integrity especially regarding spending bills and pork programs.
They're all corrupt, The Dems are just as bad. I suspect you know that.
they are all globalist cocksuckers who don't give a fuck about us.
That's not all it's full of...........:)
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/14/is_john_boehner_hitting_the_bottle/
Quantum, don't mean to seem like I'm changing the subject here but did you or anyone else happen to watch the PBS doc on Obama's presidency last night? It's worth watching because it explains why the right wing votes as it does relative to Obama. Pelosi and a few others clearly showed the evidence to support that the right wing deliberately opposes ALL and anything that Obama presents. I'm sure that many of us here already realized this, however, the evidence of this is quite disturbing for many reasons. Playing games on our dime, without our lives, should be punishable..to the full extent of the law. Obama is just as guilty as they are for compromising the integrity of his legislation in an effort to gain their support. This is how we ended up with half baked finance reform and even worse, obamacare that lines the pockets of the wealthy, drug companies and big insurance and banks. The bailouts were another one of Obama's attempts to impress and patronize the GOP.
obama is a globalist no if's, and's, or but's about it.
That bill is loaded with pork that has nothing to do with the hurricane. Given the recent CBO report are you okay with that? Really?
Katrina costs 80 Billion. A huge hurricane. almost 2k deaths, and broke open the levies. Total destruction.
This one was a cat 1, barely. Some flooding and wind damage. And 60 billion?
That is an incredible amount of money. Im all for the gov helping in disaster situations, but this is a fuck ton of money that was just fought tooth and nail for with the "fiscal cliff" that is now just being tossed around like its peanuts.
First I don't think you understand the shear magnitude and size of the event. While it was a Category 1 storm off the coast of the Northeastern United States, the storm became the largest Atlantic hurricane on record (as measured by diameter, with winds spanning 1,100 miles). Preliminary estimates of losses due to damage and business interruption are estimated at $65.6 billion (2012 USD), which would make it the second-costliest Atlantic hurricane, behind only Hurricane Katrina. Also the eastern seaboard is one of the most heavily populated areas of the world. tens of millions of people where impacted by this storm where as the population on the gulf coast while new orleans is a major city is significantly lower. Things cost more on the east coast to property wise so a house in texas may have been 150k is 450k in hoboken for example.
The wind was not the major cause of damage -- the flooding was. The flooding was caused by the wind and its terrible direction, coinciding with high tides, funnelling effect of the land masses around New York Harbor and New Jersey, combined with at least two weather disturbances that had rolled into Hurricane Sandy. Although Sandy had very deceptively weakened to less than a hurricane when it hit landfall, it was still a monstrous storm in its reach and created an extreme-height storm surge (more than 14 feet high of Atlantic Ocean coming onto land!) that slammed into some of the most populated and precious real estates in the U.S. Even in my wildest dreams, I would have never thought that Manhattan could be flooded like that. Manhattan is likely one of the world's most connected places in terms of the tunnels and a number of those were flooded, stopping the subways. I am not surprised that the monetary damages became so high. In the disaster relief package, there is a chunk of money in there to build up defenses and infrastructures to prevent future occurrences (just one year prior Hurricane Irene had swung by so there were preparations underway already for preventing flooding damage but the planners never thought that Sandy would breach that so quickly -- as both Irene and Sandy were supposedly "storms of the century").
Irene helped changed policies so we most fortunately did not have people stranded in subway trains in flooded tunnels or low-lying areas on the Atlantic beach front such as the Rockaways. Instead, the subways were shut down completely -- that basically put the "city that never sleeps" to bed. The really sad thing is that we had made the same mistake as the Japanese nuclear reactor people at Fukushima -- we put electrical systems underground or not far from ground level and when the water came, they were knocked out. Without electricity, the high-rise buildings in lower Manhattan became nearly uninhabitable, due to no water, no electricity, and no elevator service (truly high and dry).
No doubt the tunnels are in need of major repair, and there will be significant flood damage. Ive done flood repair work, and have friends that live in New Orleans. The way this bill is budgeted its for complete rebuilds and then some. Im not saying that there isnt significant damage. Im saying that 60 billino is an incredible amount of money.
Absolutely, $60 billions is tremendous. This event was like a storm-induced tsunami. Many businesses were disrupted due to the lack of electricity and people just stopped going there altogether for services for a while so the economic damages were lingering. I do not think that even with this sum of money, there can be complete rebuilds -- most ravaged homeowners on the ocean fronts will probably suffer financial losses in addition to mental distress and depression due to the losses of their homes.
Im just saying that this amount, 60 billion, is 10% of what the entire budget in the country in 1980. There is something terribly flawed with our entire monetary system and its getting worse. The entire GDP of Ireland is 217 Billion right now. Its going to take the same amount of money to fix up after Sandy that the entire country of Ireland creates in 3 months. That doesnt seem to site well.
This would be a good time to address insurance companies. If insurance is mandatory on properties, and this happened, then where are they? And how much are they contributing? From what Ive seen, they are going to pay 10-20 Billion.
Flood damage in homes is basically ripping out about the bottom three feet of the drywall and all the floors, baseboards, spraying the remaining studs with bacterial and mold killing chemicals, and then redo the drywall, install the floors, and put in your baseboards.
Figure 10k to do the usual 1500k sq ft house. If half the money (30billion) went to the flood damage, not the wind damaged homes, it would cover 3 million homes.
Christie said about 72k in Jersey were "damaged". Thats pretty broad. But we will go with it, assuming its all flood damaged, and needs a total gut out for typical flooding.
Lets assume that NYC has about 5 times as much damaged homes, at 350k homes. (theres around 3 million homes in the NYC area, including Jersey).
So we are at around a half a million homes, needing flood damage (theres no way its that much). Lets bump the 10k to redo the floors and some drywall and base to 20k, just for arguements sake.
That puts it at 10 Billion. Astromical what you can do with that. Throw in the 20 billion from insurance to cover other damages like roofs, etc.
So where is the other 50 billion going?
And just to be clear, Im not saying that these people shouldnt get some help. They should. But the last 12 years have been such a free for all that there is no longer anyone trying to actually budget things. Its like they just pick a number and go with it.
Well, we all believed in progress and economic growth, don't we? The only way to keep everybody happy is to increase the money supply year after year without letting what we are cooking catch fire but of course all of it will turn into charcoal in due time. Nobody really needs to pay back any money for real. All of the numbers getting bigger and bigger every year allows the following to occur: "Hurray!" said the business owners, "I made more money this year than last year! I'll hire more workers to expand my business!" "Hurray!" said the workers, "My boss had given me a pay-raise. I am a valuable employee and I have more money to spend. Let me buy that new car that I have always wanted!" What does the car dealer say? Now, now, whoever owes the most makes the most if they do not go broke in the meantime. That is why we do not really need to "pay back the national debt" as some very naive folks (mostly conservatives) believe. The longer we can keep up this game without going broke, the better off it is for us. We just need to keep on muttering to the world that we are the wealthiest society that has ever existed and roll over our debts.
The insurance companies had better pay up and they will. However, the actual replacement costs are usually much higher than what the insurance companies will actually be willing to pay and they know good tricks to achieve that.
My experience in budgeting is that if one only budgets what one knows, one always comes out short. There are always people who will talk and talk to get the numbers down and stretch out the schedules to "save some money" -- a little bit like how we "cut" the budget of Medicare for the next decade. They then come out telling everyone how great they are due to how much money they have "saved for everybody." When all is said and done, things cost a lot more than planned for and these people will start an "investigation" of why the cost overruns have occurred if they are still around or likelier still they have moved on to bigger and better things due to their achievements in "saving the money for everybody." Very often, the most successful solver of ANY problem is the person who has created the problem to begin with. The banksters will be the most successful solvers of the financial meltdown that they have created. If we, the Macondo people, still remember how to tally, we will see how much the total cost of recovery and building up defenses will come to be. In our political system driven by emotions, carpe diem is the motto to follow (as Rahm Immanuel had his own personalized version when he served with Obama). We have lived with a Newtown massacre EVERY DAY for who knows how long already (at least decades as I can recall) and no one has really cared. Now a bunch of white, rich, and innocent children were murdered and we suddenly get political shuffling and tap dancing to curb guns and ammunition.
BTW - government getting ready to face the future.
Assholes all. But seriously not "just" the GOP/RINO's/corpoRATists
But on another note - shouldn't ins companies be leaned on to pay-up on claims of customers - and emergency aid - should that not go to covering what insurance policies don't - but also to addressing future events? Work to minimize or eliminate future damage? By redesign requirements and or relocation rebuild requirements or some sort of combination? PUBLIC WORKS ????