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Tornado disaster relief - Should Congress require offsetting spending cuts?


Bliz

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Cantor apparently thinks so. I guess this is the official death knell of "compassionate conservatism"

Good grief.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/55513.html

The No. 2 House Republican said that if Congress doles out additional money to assist in the aftermath of natural disasters across the country, the spending may need to be offset.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said “if there is support for a supplemental, it would be accompanied by support for having pay-fors to that supplemental.”

Finding ways to offset disaster relief funds could be a significant challenge for House Republicans and would put their promise to cut spending to a true test. Roughly 100 people have died in Joplin, Mo., in the last few days after a tornado cut through the town.

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How about we bring troops home early from Afghanistan and Iraq? They can be put to work helping to rebuild these areas. I'd rather spend that money helping Americans. And think of the psychological good that can come from having our military men and women helping people to rebuild rather than killing people.

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So Cantor is OK with continuing the tax cuts for the richest Americans but is not in favor of helping American victims of the deadliest tornado in U.S. history?

He's one Hell of a guy. And yes, he's my ****ing Congrssman.

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So Cantor is OK with continuing the tax cuts for the richest Americans but is not in favor of helping American victims of the deadliest tornado in U.S. history?

He's one Hell of a guy. And yes, he's my ****ing Congrssman.

Then let his office know how you feel.

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How about we bring troops home early from Afghanistan and Iraq? They can be put to work helping to rebuild these areas. I'd rather spend that money helping Americans. And think of the psychological good that can come from having our military men and women helping people to rebuild rather than killing people.

I'm pretty sure that when those troops come home, they will have plenty to do just trying to put their own homes and their own families back together. I don't think a Grateful Nation Should reward these troops for a job well done by sending them out to Missouri or Oklahoma so that they can pick dead bodies out of the rubble. That just doesn't seem like a good course of action to me.

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Correct me if I'm wrong,but we already budget disaster relief and personnel right?

What is wrong with attempting to shift funds to cover any additional costs?

Which is more important...disaster relief or a new golf course ?

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So Cantor is OK with continuing the tax cuts for the richest Americans but is not in favor of helping American victims of the deadliest tornado in U.S. history?

He's one Hell of a guy. And yes, he's my ****ing Congrssman.

I am not rich and i got a tax cut

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Correct me if I'm wrong,but we already budget disaster relief and personnel right?

What is wrong with attempting to shift funds to cover any additional costs?

Which is more important...disaster relief or a new golf course ?

I assume we do. But, and this is extremely important, there's a huge difference between trying to figure out how to pay for this stuff and saying "we're not going to pay for this stuff, unless..."

Should the communities in need have to wait for congress to decide what the offsets are before thy get help? The 1994 California earthquake caused some $20 billion in damage. Can you imagine if we had to cut that out of the budget as a condition to assisting in human rescue, supply of food/water/shelter/medicine, etc.?

Katrina caused $80 billion. Where do you suggest we start? How many golf courses would we have to cut to get there?

Now I suppose we could pay for it with new revenues. A disaster preparedness tax, so that the government can adequately respond to natural disasters and terrorist attacks. That's not what cantor means, though...

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Yep. Idiocy. Imagine. Me. Getting MY money back, so I could spend it instead of the feds.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. :rolleyes:

HI. I'm the government. We are running a deficit, but we want to make the deficit worse. So here is what we've decided to do.

We are going to borrow 100 dollars more, and we are going to give it back to you to spend. Sounds good? Ok, here's how we are going to do it.

Honorary_hog, you are going to get 13 cents. Predicto, you are going to get 2 dollars and 13 cents. And Donald Trump, you are going to get 97 dollars and 74 cents.

And then all of your grandchildren can pay it off. Enjoy!

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I assume we do. But, and this is extremely important, there's a huge difference between trying to figure out how to pay for this stuff and saying "we're not going to pay for this stuff, unless..."

Should the communities in need have to wait for congress to decide what the offsets are before thy get help? The 1994 California earthquake caused some $20 billion in damage. Can you imagine if we had to cut that out of the budget as a condition to assisting in human rescue, supply of food/water/shelter/medicine, etc.?

Katrina caused $80 billion. Where do you suggest we start? How many golf courses would we have to cut to get there?

Now I suppose we could pay for it with new revenues. A disaster preparedness tax, so that the government can adequately respond to natural disasters and terrorist attacks. That's not what cantor means, though...

I didn't read his comments that way, if a supplemental spending bill is needed we need to look at our priorities in spending is what I got from it.

As far as your totals for disaster costs...the Feds do not pick up the whole tab in any disaster...nor simply give money to those effected(though Katrina came pretty close)

We already have a disaster tax....it's called govt revenue and budgeting,and we can find much more budgeted funds to transfer if our priorities are right than golf courses..

You start by not wasting funds....you could also appeal to all the Dem officials to pay the taxes they owe :ols:

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We should pay as we go as a nation. Why do people not agree universally - I truly do not understand???? There are so many ways to do this but all our elected officials (by us) ever seem to agree to is more spending, less taxes for all and more debt for our children and grandchildren to pay - which they will not be able to.

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I thought disaster relief was already in the budget.

It is.

That being said, we are maxing out our disaster budget and are going to run out of money to pay for these continued disasters (eg. tornadoes) if they keep hitting us. I was actually just talking about this with another disaster manager today. This is a major problem. I actually thing there need to be cuts in other areas of the budget to continue to pay for disaster preparedness/response sector.

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We should pay as we go as a nation. Why do people not agree universally - I truly do not understand???? There are so many ways to do this but all our elected officials (by us) ever seem to agree to is more spending, less taxes for all and more debt for our children and grandchildren to pay - which they will not be able to.

Because I don't agree that we need to pay as we go as a nation. Some things might be appropriate to borrow for. As an example, I borrowed to buy my home, and I don't see a problem with that. The problem (IMO) is not borrowing, its the amount of borrowing.

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Because I don't agree that we need to pay as we go as a nation. Some things might be appropriate to borrow for. As an example, I borrowed to buy my home, and I don't see a problem with that. The problem (IMO) is not borrowing, its the amount of borrowing.

Especially when it seems we are borrowing to repay borrowing.

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Because I don't agree that we need to pay as we go as a nation. Some things might be appropriate to borrow for. As an example, I borrowed to buy my home, and I don't see a problem with that. The problem (IMO) is not borrowing, its the amount of borrowing.

I think we agree? I don't have a problem with borrowing for an emergency or for long term investment that pays dividends.

What I do have a problem with from our government is tax cuts for all while we increase govt spending year after year with supplemental spending (no tax) bills and handouts putting it all on credit card year after years as a way of just doing business and we elect/re-elect those who vow to give us more tax cuts and more govt handouts all the while borrowing this money from our good friends in China and the middle-east and pass this off as a good thing.

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It is.

That being said, we are maxing out our disaster budget and are going to run out of money to pay for these continued disasters (eg. tornadoes) if they keep hitting us. I was actually just talking about this with another disaster manager today. This is a major problem. I actually thing there need to be cuts in other areas of the budget to continue to pay for disaster preparedness/response sector.

That sucks.

As a Katrina victim though, I have to give me standard snarky response that I give every time I see a disaster on the news now: "All those people should just move." ;)

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It is.

That being said, we are maxing out our disaster budget and are going to run out of money to pay for these continued disasters (eg. tornadoes) if they keep hitting us. I was actually just talking about this with another disaster manager today. This is a major problem. I actually thing there need to be cuts in other areas of the budget to continue to pay for disaster preparedness/response sector.

I found ya 500 million for a start

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/sebelius-early-learning-initiatives-need

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Yep. Idiocy. Imagine. Me. Getting MY money back, so I could spend it instead of the feds.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. :rolleyes:

You got back pennies.

The cuts they accept at the top make your "cut" look like razor burn.

Of course they'll throw you your crumbs.

Keeps you happily voting for them to continue to eat the rest of the bread.

Don't be so easily bought.

~Bang

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How about we bring troops home early from Afghanistan and Iraq? They can be put to work helping to rebuild these areas. I'd rather spend that money helping Americans. And think of the psychological good that can come from having our military men and women helping people to rebuild rather than killing people.

I definitely would support this

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