It's All Fun And Games Until A Hurricane Hits Your State, Eric

Remember Eric Cantor's "you're on your own" response to the deadly Joplin, Missouri tornado in May?

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.”

That's right, Cantor, in an act of absurd callousness, wanted spending cuts to offset the hundreds of millions, if not billions, in tornado damage to the town.  Natural disasters are a zero sum game, and I said this at the time:

Would Cantor be saying the same thing if a tornado or massive storm swept through VA-7 and the suburbs north of Richmond, causing billions of dollars of damage?  Which would be a worse answer, that he wouldn't expect spending cuts before helping his own district out...or that he would insist upon them?

Well gosh, with the earthquake this week and Hurricane Irene barreling towards Virginia, we're about to find out.  And the preliminary answer is that yes, Eric Cantor would screw over his own constituents.

Looks like House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) will extend his requirement that federal disaster relief be paid for by cutting spending elsewhere in the budget to Hurricane Irene.

"We aren't going to speculate on damage before it happens, period," his spokesperson Laena Fallon emails. "But, as you know, Eric has consistently said that additional funds for federal disaster relief ought to be offset with spending cuts."

This isn't just to lay a honeytrap for Cantor. Human toll aside, hurricane damage can be very expensive, and if against all hope Irene hits hard, this sort of parameter could put a severe dent in federal programs that are already stretched quite thin. 

Boy, if I lived in Cantor's district, I'd be thrilled to know that if Irene went through my hometown and wrecked power, traffic, water and city streets, that Eric Cantor's office was more interested in scoring political talking points than helping people in need.  And if I were one of Cantor's Virginia delegation colleagues, I'd be ringing up his office and saying "Look, pal, my constituents are going to need this money.  Don't be pulling this nonsense."

The guy has the heart of charcoal and barbed wire, I swear.