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Ear to the Ground

Disaster Bill Rejection Boosts Likelihood of Government Shutdown

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Posted on Sep 23, 2011
Flickr / U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Northeast Region (CC-BY)

Members of the House passed a disaster aid spending bill early Friday morning, then went home for a weeklong recess. Hours later, the Senate rejected the bill, making the possibility of a government shutdown Oct. 1 a real possibility.

The bill, which the Senate voted down 59 to 36, was meant to provide funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, whose coffers are nearly empty after a series of natural disasters this year.

But Democrats in the Senate took issue with the House version of the bill, which used spending cuts to offset what they said wasn’t enough money to aid disaster victims anyway. —BF

The New York Times:

Democrats oppose the House measure on the grounds that it does not provide enough relief for disaster victims, and because that relief was offset by spending cuts to other programs near and dear to them; conservatives appeared to feel their House colleagues had failed to cut deeply enough.

The Senate action left Congress mired in an impasse with serious implications for the financing of federal agencies. The House and Senate were scheduled to begin a week-long recess Friday. But without an agreement on a bill to pay for federal operations beginning Oct. 1, the government would run out of money before lawmakers returned unless some resolution was found.

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By kdyson, September 25, 2011 at 9:20 pm Link to this comment

Holding people hostage is what the Republicans do
best…the trick is to not back down…call their
bluff..and make sure the electorate understand exactly
who is responsible…

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anaman51's avatar

By anaman51, September 24, 2011 at 12:18 pm Link to this comment

The GOP cannot allow the opportunity to pass. They have yet another chance to hold a desperate group of suffering Americans hostage while they try to force Congress to include a series of destructive conservative initiatives in the bill meant to relieve their situation. The help for them should come first and fast, without sneaky inclusions, complications and compromises.

This is always how it goes with the GOP, this process of forcing someone to suffer in order to get what they want. This is extortion, any way you look at it, and it’s up to you to stop them. It doesn’t bother them a bit to make these helpless victims suffer even more; that should be telling you something about the overall character of those in the GOP.

If the voters can become consciously aware, if they can find a way to see around the curtain of lies, perhaps they can get a glimpse of the cruel and hateful people at the controls. The voters need to understand that by putting these creeps in office, they perpetuate this kind of shameful behavior. This can be resolved by getting rid of the lowlife criminals that cause it. Vote ‘em out! If we can’t manage that, maybe they can be arrested for extortion, ‘cause that’s sure as hell what they’re doing.

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By Marian Griffith, September 24, 2011 at 5:46 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

@Leefeller
—-What the hell does Congress do besides go on vacation?—-

Why, they need 300 days each year for fundraising and campaigning their reelection… (oh and their rounds of golf with the old boys network so they can land themselves a cushy corporate job once they are kicked out of office).

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Leefeller's avatar

By Leefeller, September 23, 2011 at 4:55 pm Link to this comment

Geebeibiz on a cracker! What the hell does Congress do besides go on vacation? Didn’t they just come back from a vacation? I am beginning to think those clowns are over paid and under worked, maybe they should join a union and have collective bargaining and for starters have the same medical insurance the people have!

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By diamond, September 23, 2011 at 1:22 pm Link to this comment

Two words for you. Climate change. Ignore it at your peril. The day will come when no amount of money will be enough to ‘fix’ these disasters because there will be so many of them with such loss of life and infrastructure that nothing will be done, because it can’t be. The politicians are fiddling while Rome burns. The last person who did that was mad. Reach your own conclusions.

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