After New Jersey Governor Chris Christie “in an angry news conference decried the ‘selfishness and duplicity,’ the ‘palace intrigue,’ ‘the callous indifference to the people of our state,’” (ABC News reported) U.S. House Speaker John Boehner assured lawmakers that the House will vote on $60 billion in aid related to Superstorm Sandy by January 15.
The plan is to vote Friday for $9 billion in aid and then deal with the remaining $51 billion on the 15th. The fact that they’re still talking about a $60 billion package means, presumably, that they’re going to cave and keep all or most of the pork contained in the Senate bill rather than strip out the expenditures unrelated to Sandy and vote on a “clean” bill. At least half of the $60 billion Sandy Relief bill that the Senate voted on is pork or additional spending that is sort-of-kind-of, but-not-really, associated with the storm.
Senate Democrats trying to gain Republican support for the legislation meant to help those affected by Hurricane Sandy, offered Republicans a few kickbacks, a senior Senate aide told THE WEEKLY STANDARD. As proof, the Senate aide sends along a marked up piece of the Sandy legislation, showing that Democrats expanded the legislation during a mark-up to include not just areas affected by Sandy, but also to provide money for “storm events that occurred in 2012 along the Gulf Coast and Atlantic Coast within the boundaries of the North Atlantic and Mississippi Valley divisions of the Corps that were affected by Hurricanes Sandy and Isaac.” (You can read HR 1 at this link.)
- $10 million to repair and improve weather forecasting capabilities and infrastructure
- $150 million for necessary expenses related to fishery disasters as declared by the Secretary of Commerce in calendar year 2012 [NOT exclusive to the storm]
- $44.5 million for repairs and upgrades to NOAA hurricane reconnaissance aircraft.
- $4 million for FBI expenses supposedly related to the storm, $1 million for the DEA and $230,000 for the ATF. Did the FBI, DEA and ATF have overtime expenses and property losses during the storm?
- $10 million for Federal Prison System, Buildings and Facilities.
- $15 million for Construction and Environmental Compliance and Restoration at NASA facilities
- A $1 million payment to the Legal Services Corporation
- $5.37 million for Army expenses related to the storm.
- $8.5 million for the Air Force.
- $6.165 million for the Army National Guard and $5.775 million for the the Air National Guard.
- $2 million to repair roofs at the Smithsonian.
- $8 million to buy cars and equipment for Homeland Security and the Justice Department.
- $207 million for the VA Manhattan Medical Center.
- $125 million for the Department of Agriculture’s Emergency Watershed Protection Program.
- $20 million for a Water Resource Priorities study.
- $50 million to plant trees on private propety.
- $336 million in AMTRACK subsidies.
- $5.3 billion for the Army Corp of Engineers.
My favorite piece of pork is the $13 billion for “mitigation” projects to prepare for future storms? Sounds more like an Obama slush fund!
Is Geithner gearing up the printing presses? How else can the government come up with the money?
