In a rebuke to House GOP leaders, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour told reporters on Friday that Congress should authorize disaster relief funds even if they are not offset with spending cuts. Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) has said that the emergency funds to help Missouri residents affected by deadly tornadoes should be paid for with cuts elsewhere, a break from precedent.
"No, " Barbour said when asked if he agreed with Cantor. "I think disaster relief is not predictable. Emergencies caused by tornadoes, hurricanes are not predictable. Even if Congress, which as far as I know they never have, set aside a pot of money, as some have proposed, and said, 'Okay, here's this money we're going to use to pay for disaster relief' -- if they were to do that and we had a gigantic disaster that cost much more than that, surely Congress would go back and appropriate the extra money. And if they didn't have a place to offset it, they should still go in and do it."
That's because even guys like Barbour here realize that politicizing federal disaster relief like this will only assure it is used as a weapon against governors by Congress...and they're even more aware of the fact that red states like Mississippi take in a hell of a lot more money from Washington than they pay in as far as federal taxes go. Mississippi is second only to New Mexico in that they get $2.02 for every $1.00 of federal tax money (and NM gets $2.03.)
So yes, Boss Hogg wants to put a stop to this noise as soon as possible. Somebody might say "Well why stop at disaster relief?" Imagine that...
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