The GOP Doesn’t Care About Muggles
Remember how the GOP tried to force a government shutdown over disaster relief? Remember how we had Tornado Terror! and ZOMG! Earthquake!! and Hurricane Irene LOL? And still the Republicans led by Eric Cantor and his sidekick, Great Orange Doofus bravely stood up to disaster relief?
If you don’t recall, let me refresh your memory: FEMA asked the White House for more money; President Obama, in turn, asked Congress for more money; and the Republicans were dicks about it.
Now, it seems that Republicans are pissed FEMA managed to recover enough unused funds and were able to avoid having to close shop, and are probing FEMA’s accounting practices:
Congressional Republicans haven’t gotten over the last government shutdown fight — perhaps because it wasn’t a clear win. They’re probing FEMA’s accounting practices in the last week of September, suggesting the agency manipulated its disaster relief fund to help Democrats avoid a political fight with Republicans. But FEMA officials were on the record, both publicly and in private briefings with members of both parties, about the tools they were using to keep themselves in the black through the fiscal year. So what’s this really all about?
Recall that the September government shutdown fight centered on the GOP’s demand that there should be matching budget cuts to make up for funneling emergency money to FEMA’s disaster relief fund.
~snip~
Republicans are peeved that FEMA claimed to need money, but ultimately didn’t. They say it amounts to playing politics with the disaster relief fund, and exposes a flaw in the agency’s accounting method going back years.
~snip~
A spokesperson for Blunt did not respond to a request for comment.
This reflects a larger disagreement about how FEMA budgets. But it’s hard to identify a scandal. The lead up to the September shutdown fight is a pretty clear matter of public record. The administration expected FEMA’s disaster fund to run dry and requested a supplemental appropriation. No doubt FEMA and the administration would have preferred Congress comply quickly and quietly rather than come so close to draining the account. But when the request became the focal point of another fight that threatened to shut down the government, FEMA stepped up the effort to buy themselves running room, and recouped enough money to stay in the black through the end of the year.
As a FEMA spokesperson explained to reporters on September 27 when the standoff ended, “Our goal has always been to extend the balance of the Disaster Relief Fund for as long as possible, while providing Congress with daily updates on the status of our fund — which continues to be fluid. While FEMA is constantly working year-round to recover unused funds from completed recovery projects, since Hurricane Irene, FEMA undertook an aggressive effort to recover any possible funds from completed recovery projects to provide critical assistance to disaster survivors and prevent the fund from lapsing. In total, FEMA recovered nearly $180 million in September, stretching funding by five additional days. Without these recoveries, FEMA would have run out of disaster funding this past Sunday and all disaster operations would have been shut down.”
Seriously?
Yes, seriously.
I can’t stand these people.
[via Talking Points Memo]
[cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles]
capt
So this is their jobs plan? I’m certain I heard the GOP say they were elected on the idea of jobs?
John Weiss
Republicans, as currently incarnated, are a bunch of dickheads.
So what else is new?
General Stuck
It wasn’t any kind of win, being what they wanted was to gut medicare and the safety net. What they got was a little bigger pig in a poke from Obama than with the res to fund the government earlier, and Boehner and Pelosi conspiring to take away their ability to hold for ransom the world economy, and give that power to raise the debt ceiling to Obama.
I think it is a testament to the general ethical doings of the Obama administration to so far provide little grist for the winger witch hunt mill. The hunting was much better at this stage when Clinton was presnit. The wingnuts are reduced to rummaging around a popular agency for dead rats to cook. Dead Katrina rats.
Patrick
Wait until Jan 2013, Liberals.
Just you wait.
r€nato
@capt: see, that’s what’s wrong with you libruhls: you don’t obediently forget yesterday’s talking points.
g
So FEMA took extra steps internally to be able to continue to do their job in the face of a Republican shut-down, and that’s apparerntly a scandal.
JGabriel
@Patrick:
Oooh, scary.
Let me ask you a question: are you more interested in helping the country’s economy get better, or in punching liberals?
Because I get the feeling that more and more of the country is coming to the conclusion that the GOP has no ideas and no principles, that they aren’t serious about governing the country, but only serious about helping the rich and pissing off anyone to the left of Jim DeMint.
And that’s not really a winning national platform, despite whatever Fox News tells you on a daily basis.
.
Maude
This will be followed by Issa’s hearings into Fast and Furious. He’s needs to get moving on those impeachment hearings.
Isn’t it about time for Peter King to hold another Muslim hearing?
JGabriel
@g:
Shorter GOP: (whining) No fair! They defended themselves when we attacked! That’s not fair! It’s cheating!
.
TenguPhule
At this point, Disaster Aid for Republicans should consist of Mercy Kills. And then billing their family for the bullet.
TenguPhule
Yes.
Drowning Victims aren’t supposed to suddenly sprout snorkels.
wrb
Because it sounds like what they think a rich guy does.
But they’ll neither accompany her to the clinic nor help raise the child.
The prophet Nostradumbass
I think there should be the word “are” between Republicans and FEMA.
Jay in Oregon
@JGabriel:
I know it’s kind of par for the course for big-talkin’ yellow-bellied Republicans, but have they given any thought to the fact that homeless/unemployed/disenfranchised people with nothing left to lose and no hope for the future don’t just just lie down quietly in the gutter and die? They’re kinda more motivated to, I dunno, break shit and take what they need?
This isn’t intended as a “homeless and unemployed people are all lazy, shiftless thieves” thing. It’s a recognition that people who are shut out of, or ignored by, the system are willing to take matters into their own hands when the chips are down.
*shrug* Maybe Erick Erickson and Eric Cantor and Mitch McConnell and Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity think they would be safe from the mobs. But I don’t know that I’d be willing to stake everything on being wrong…
The Dangerman
They wanted another bite at the Government shut down apple…
…because, as I understand it, the last time they threatened to blow everything up (debt ceiling), they settled for some committee to go get huge cuts or huge cuts would kick in automatically…
…and it appears those automatic huge cuts are smoke and mirrors. I don’t know who got played if this is true, but, given how fucking stupid the Right is these days, I’m guessing it was them.
JGabriel
@ABL:
You know, non-consensual probing is illegal, and only aliens probe, which means …
Oh my God, the Republicans are all illegal aliens!
.
JGabriel
@Jay in Oregon:
I think the GOP’s attitude to that inevitable consequence of their policies is, “Who care? Everyone I know lives in gated communities.”
.
AnotherBruce
@JGabriel: I somehow feel that the internet tough guy isn’t going to answer your question.
arguingwithsignposts
@Patrick:
Should we bookmark that? Sadly, No! is that way.
Chris Grrr™
@capt: Stupidly, I took all that talk about being “focused like a laser” on jobs to mean they’d be hawking direct action to create them…
wrb
@JGabriel:
Those creatures in fraternities are aliens?
Sometimes there are moments when confusing stuff just falls into place and makes sense.
Getting a fema drunk and probing her? It is the will of Zarkon.
AA+ Bonds
Emergency management: it’s fucked up, man. All those kids not dying, shit, we gotta do something about this ! ! !
@Jay in Oregon:
For what it’s worth, polls show that the wealthy and Wall Streeters are genuinely terrified of this. As a crisis theorist of politics, I’m tickled pink that the world’s movers and shakers agree with me. It’s astounding how so many people continue to believe in peace and prosperity even when it’s gone.
Fax Paladin
@Jay in Oregon:
Feature, not bug. It gives them the pretext they need to declare a state of emergency and clamp down.
rikyrah
they are assclowns
Elie
This has just gotten to be so damned predictable and boring. Honestly, I can’t believe that they aren’t boring themselves yet…
Terrible people. Terrible.
Yutsano
@Patrick: Eliza Doolittle called. She said get off my schtick asshole.
Paul in KY
@Patrick: I’ll be here.
jayjaybear
@Yutsano: I had a brilliant parody of that written just now in this very box and the internet up and ate it. :0(