My apologies to the late Sir Winston Churchill, minter of the the original words “It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma” speaking of the now defunct Soviet Union. This is the only way I can describe what I feel the upcoming Sandy Relief bill has become. One would think, after the disaster left in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, that elected officials from both parties would show some respect for citizens who have suffered the hurricanes destruction. That would be far beyond a reasonable expectation it now appears.
Neil Cavuto, of Fox News, recently interviewed New York City Republican Councilman Daniel Halloran, concerning the relief bill being hijacked by congressmen and woman of both parties. The councilman briefly laid out the problem:
“Of the $60 billion allocated for supposedly the emergency relief and hurricane bill, you’re talking about roughly $24 billion of which has absolutely nothing to do with hurricane relief. It is going to projects like the Alaska fisheries. It is going to projects like Amtrak subsidies, at the tune of almost $330 million. These are things that have nothing to do with any of the hurricane damage and more importantly are adding on to the national deficit at a time everyone claims they want to deal with it.”
The Sham:
The original estimate , which was considered to be conservative in scope, was that New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut would require 80 billion dollars in state and local spending for infrastructure repair and victim relief. The congress agreed to fund 60 billion dollars according to Councilman Daniel Halloran. Of that 60 billion dollars congress wants to take 24 billion to fund projects unrelated to the disaster to get the necessary votes needed to pass both House and Senate on January 15th.
The Disappointment:
If there were any doubts as to the waning trust citizens have towards our elected officials in Washington D.C., this should erase them. Taxpayer money, intended to aid the victims and repair the damage of Hurricane Sandy is, for lack of better words, being stolen from those it is intended to help. All this is being done while 360 million people watch and hundreds of thousands remain suffering.
The Travesty:
Any elected official who tries to point out the snout-in-the-taxpayer-trough actions of their peers in Washington will be branded as a inhumane heartless bastard hell bent in prolonging the pain and suffering of Sandy’s victims. The media will regurgitate the narrative and feast on the propaganda slipped to them from both parties. The upcoming bill should be for relief only, and those who are hijacking the funds to fund pet projects should be dragged before the public to answer directly as to why stealing funds intended for relief is justified. This,of course, will never happen. Both parties have greedy snouts rutting and squealing for more taxpayer slop and will nip at anyone trying to stop them from getting it.
Lastly, there are two more parties responsible for the travesty of the corrupt attitude infecting the Beltway pigsty: The taxpayer and the voter. Both enabling this behavior by sitting back and doing nothing. Both condone these actions by re-electing officials time and again that are well practiced in the art of taxpayer money manipulation. Both have the resources to bring this a sudden halt. The problem is when will both taxpayer and voter finally have had enough?
The Sandy Relief Bill should have already been voted on with no reason for contention about its contents. Yet, here we are again, as with anything else done in Washington that should be a matter of common decency, delayed because of the amount of slop the pigs in the sty demand to be fed.
If I had my way they all would be in tin jackets with the word SPAM printed on the label.
He is just a fat guy in Maine.