Sandy Relief Slowed by Pork

[#HBC | Acrostic]

Opinion Piece - The Outrageous Sandy Outrage
Link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323374504578219733538204830.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

House Speaker John Boehner is getting all sorts of grief these days, but there's one decision for which taxpayers should thank him: putting the brakes on a $60 billion relief bill for the victims of Hurricane Sandy that has become cover for Congress to revive earmarks and the pork machine.

Instead of being pressured to vote on the whole unsavory bill, Members will now be asked as early as Friday to vote on $9 billion in additional federal flood insurance funds. On January 15 or so they'll get to decide if the rest of the package is worth the price.

This legislative maneuvering took courage on the Speaker's part. There was the predictable outrage from New York and New Jersey Democrats. But the sniping from inside the GOP has been unhinged.

New York Representative Peter King's first reaction was to call the delay "a knife in the back of New Yorkers and New Jerseyans" and to urge donors to stop contributing to his own party. But the prize for unmoored political bluster goes to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who declared that "there's only one group to blame for the continued suffering of these innocent victims—the House majority and their Speaker, John Boehner."

Really? We've appreciated Mr. Christie's outspoken style, and he has to advocate for his battered state. But he's also supposed to care about the public fisc. His advocacy would have been more accurate, and more effective for New Jersey in the long run, if he had also pointed out that Democrats from the rest of the country have jeopardized the aid by cynically using the bill for their own parochial interests. Mr. Christie is running for re-election in a Democratic state, but that doesn't mean he has to compete to be the next Charlie Crist.

Look at some of what was in the $60 billion bill: $150 million for Alaskan fisheries; $2 million for roof repair at the Smithsonian in Washington; and about $17 billion for liberal activists under the guise of "community development" funds and so-called social service grants. Far from being must-pass legislation, this is a disgrace to the memory of the victims and could taint legitimate efforts to deal with future disasters.

California Republican Darrell Issa had it right when he told Fox News that "They had the opportunity to have a $27- to $30-billion legit relief package, packed it with pork, then dared us not to vote on it."

Beyond the recriminations is the larger problem that every disaster has become a Washington political opportunity. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is fully funded but does an incompetent job. Federal flood insurance encourages overbuilding in storm zones, so taxpayers pay first to subsidize the insurance and then to save the homeowners who overbuilt. And politicians use the public sympathy after any disaster as an excuse to throw even more money not merely at victims but for pent-up priorities they should be funding out of regular state and local tax dollars.

Mr. Boehner's sin was ensuring that the House had time to sort the pork from the parochial. Mr. Christie should thank him on behalf of New Jersey taxpayers.

Expenditures for a Hurricane, and Beyond
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/nyregion/expenditures-for-a-hurricane-and-beyond.html?ref=nyregion

Spoiler

Here are some of the items included in the Hurricane Sandy aid package that critics object to. Supporters say many of the appropriations are necessary to respond to disasters, though some are unrelated to the storm:

¶ $150 million for fisheries in Alaska.

¶ $2 million to fix museum roofs in Washington.

¶ $20 million for watershed restoration in response to wildfires in Colorado.

¶ $1 million for the Legal Services Corporation.

¶ $56.8 million for tsunami marine debris remediation.

¶ $5 million for Corps of Engineers investigations unrelated to the hurricane.

¶ $499 million in Corps of Engineers construction funds for disasters occurring before the storm.

¶ $578 million for flood-control mitigation projects by the corps unrelated to the storm.

¶ $28 million for watershed protection activities unrelated to the storm.

¶ $4 million to the F.B.I. to replace vehicles, office equipment and furniture.

¶ $1 million for the Drug Enforcement Administration to replace 15 vehicles and equipment.

¶ $230,000 to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to replace three vehicles and furniture.

¶ $15 million for construction at NASA facilities, including restoration of sand berms.

¶ $855,000 to Immigration and Customs Enforcement to replace vehicles.

¶ $300,000 for the Secret Service to replace vehicles and communications equipment.

¶ $50 million for National Park Service historic preservation activities.

¶ $150 million for the Interior Department to create a fund that may be used for restoration at national parks and refuges affected by disasters.

¶ $2 billion in Community Development Block Grant funds reserved exclusively for activities related to the mitigation of future disasters.

Updated News
Link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323374504578221561827167752.html#

Spoiler

WASHINGTON—Congress cleared legislation Friday to increase the borrowing authority for the federal flood-insurance program, the first and least controversial piece of a package aimed at helping the Northeast recover from superstorm Sandy.

The $9.7 billion measure allows the National Flood Insurance Program to keep paying out claims. The fund, which provides almost all flood insurance in the U.S., was due to run out of money sometime next week largely because of the increase in claims due to Sandy, which struck during the last week of October.

The Senate passed the measure without opposition hours after the House voted for it by 354-67. The 67 votes against the measure all came from Republicans, including 17 freshmen and Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the former GOP vice presidential nominee, who objected to raising the program's borrowing limit to $30.4 billion without making changes to improve its finances.

The measure now goes to President Barack Obama, who is expected to sign it.

Lawmakers from New York and New Jersey had counted on the House clearing a broader $60 billion relief bill before the prior Congress adjourned Thursday morning. But House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) put off that vote and decided to take up the flood-insurance piece on Friday and consider the rest of the package on Jan. 15, the new Congress's first full legislative day.

The easy approval of the flood-insurance measure drew muted praise from Northeast lawmakers, many of whom were livid after Mr. Boehner canceled the vote on the larger package.

"It's a good first step, a good down payment," said Rep. Peter King, the Republican from Long Island, N.Y., who was among the loudest critics of Mr. Boehner's move. "The real fight's on Jan. 15, and I am confident we're going to have votes on the 15th. But I'm not taking them for granted."

The U.S. government has provided flood coverage since the late 1960s, filling a void left by a private-sector insurance industry that generally views floods as too unpredictable and too expensive to cover. But the federal program has been in financial trouble, having borrowed billions from the Treasury to pay out claims in recent years. The largest hit—$16 billion in claims—came from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Sandy dealt it another significant blow.

There are a series of obstacles to approving the remaining $51 billion. Some House Republicans claim the package includes unwarranted "pork" expenditures and has insufficient oversight of how the aid funds are disbursed. Northeastern members of Congress from both parties disagree, saying that everything in the bill is urgently needed to help storm victims.

The measure that the House was set to vote on earlier this week had been pared slightly from the one passed by the Senate at the end of last month.

"There are no non-disaster-related things in this bill," Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) said.

But some of the provisions that were stripped away could make it harder to pass in the Senate later this month, Mr. Schumer said, because they appealed to lawmakers from other regions who might not otherwise vote for the bill.

Among other things, the Sandy relief package would replenish the Federal Emergency Management Agency funds used to pay grants to disaster victims, fund Army Corps of Engineers projects designed to protect the coastline, and repair mass transit and housing.

Still, Mr. Schumer said he expects the aid package to pass.

"We're more optimistic today, because I think that people realize that playing games with this money was broadly unpopular in every part of the country and with every political stripe," Mr. Schumer said.
—Alan Zibel contributed to this article.

My two cents: Even accounting for the tendency of newspapers to be rather sensationalist in their reporting coverage, Alaskan fisheries and Colorado wildfire relief are self-defining factors that are rather off tangent from the problems that need to be addressed from Hurricane Sandy. Pork-barrel legislation is relatively common, however this case in particular has a level of cruel manipulation in the sense that relief provisions were tampered with by political greed on part of Congress to gain suction with whatever core constitutions their bacon would benefit. It is likely that aid relief was suspended precisely to add these provisions to the bill. Governor Christie and other representatives from New York and New Jersey were likely in the know that this bill was being fattened by personal interest on part by several politicians. Presenting and passing on the $60 billion appropriated bill as being a complete aid package for the state constitutes a continuous play by politicians to play on the ignorance of Americans. Politicians, much like high scale sales traders, bankers, and others in the upper echelon of money-market dealings regularly deal with dispensing misinformation and manipulative trading that play on public ignorance. In both occupations, it is oft the case that legality is strictly followed while the nature of the law is betrayed and morals are thrown out the window when capital is offered whether it is in the form of money, political influence, or career advancement. It would help if controls were put into place to regulate such matters such as open dissemination of which Congressman approved of which provision when it comes to pork additions. However such changes would require pressure for reform by a constituent public that will take the politician's position as hostage if the pursuit for transparency is not undertaken, unfortunately values do not pay and collective concern for idealism wanes. However, the fact that blatant porking would occur on a relief bill is a disgusting manifestation of our modern political culture taken to light.