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Post on September 2, 2011 by 14 Comments »

In case you missed it, Paul Krugman nailed it this week on the offensive statements by Rep. Eric Cantor about federal disaster relief for victims of Hurricane Irene.

Not long ago, a political party seeking to change U.S. policy would try to achieve that goal by building popular support for its ideas, then implementing those ideas through legislation. That, after all, is how our political system was designed to work.

But today’s G.O.P. has decided to bypass all that and go for a quicker route. Never mind getting enough votes to pass legislation; it gets what it wants by threatening to hurt America if its demands aren’t met. That’s what happened with the debt-ceiling fight, and now it’s what’s happening over disaster aid.

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Comments (Closed):14

  1. Alex
    September 2, 2011 at 7:56 am

    I guess no one is listening to Krugman’s flawed economic theories any more, so now he is moving over to weather disasters.

  2. jlp75
    September 2, 2011 at 8:48 am

    Alex,

    So you see no problem with American people being used as bargaining chips? Hopefully you never suffer a disaster and find yourself being used in a similar fashion. Also glad to know you are an economics expert. Perhaps you should put your talents to use for good. But no that’s not what you arm chair republicans do. You just sit back and lob insults at those who at least try to make a difference. At least that makes you feel good about yourself. Meanwhile it does nothing to improve the situation we all face.

  3. Alex
    September 2, 2011 at 9:55 am

    Imagine what we could with that $1.5 trillion dollars in stimulus that we frittered away in useless projects.

  4. david esmay
    September 2, 2011 at 2:06 pm

    Here’s the solution, make all the cuts from Cantor’s, Boehner’s, and Mconnell’s districts, throw in Demint’s and Coburn’s, and sit back and listen to them squeal like pigs.

  5. david esmay
    September 2, 2011 at 2:12 pm

    Alex, first of all get your figures straight, I know it’s a stretch, but the stimulus, once Boehner and his buddies finished with it was 580 million dollars, of which 275 million were tax cuts. If you want, you can google 2009 stimulus chart, at the top of the page the NYT has, using the figures from the appropriations comittee, a beautiful pie chart I’m sure you’ll enjoy, it’s got colors and everything is spelled out just for you.

  6. david esmay
    September 2, 2011 at 2:14 pm

    I’m sorry, I meant 275 billion, I do not want to confuse you.

  7. Alex
    September 2, 2011 at 4:16 pm

    My figure of $1.5 trillion includes the bailout of heaven only knows who received the money. Your math David is about like Obama’s. He can’t tell the difference either between millions and billions.

  8. david esmay
    September 2, 2011 at 9:28 pm

    My math comes from OMB and CBO, yours is tea party b.s.

  9. Alex
    September 3, 2011 at 7:57 am

    I’m sorry David but you’re listening to a bunch of idiots. Google your progressive economist buddy, Dean Baker, and read what he thinks of the nuts over at CBO. They couldn’t even see the housing fiasco coming in 2007. As for the OMB, they haven’t even been able to produce a budget in the last two years because of so much red ink.Now I understand why you are so confused all the time.

  10. Jimmy
    September 3, 2011 at 9:42 am

    Every figure I’ve seen had the Stimulus Bill at $787 billion dollars of which $275 billion was tax credits. I don’t think you’re reading the chart correctly David.

  11. david esmay
    September 4, 2011 at 12:57 pm

    According to the house appropriations committee figures the final tally was 580 billion. Alex, who’s listening, I go to the source, unlike you, who apparently repeats whatever Faux news or the heritage foundation spits out.

  12. Jimmy
    September 4, 2011 at 1:49 pm

    David, the bottom line is you can’t defend the economic record of this president ! It’s awful, and getting worse.

  13. david esmay
    September 4, 2011 at 5:48 pm

    The bottom line is you cannot defend a republican administration that secretly provided an additional 1.2 trillion dollars to banks they had just bailed out in December 2008, you want to point fingers, point them at Bush, Paulson, and Greenspan. The fact is people like Boehner, Cantor, McConnell, and Demint are nothing but obstructionists bent on subverting the welfare of this country for political gain.

  14. Vin Right
    September 6, 2011 at 5:37 pm

    Can’t we all just get along and admit that our government wastes a ton of money? Ideally our government would have the money stashed away to handle disasters. We also need to ask ourselves why our government is in the habit of paying for disaster relief in places where we know disasters occur with a high frequency or might occur on such a large scale that the expense is cost prohibitive. Bev spending 10 million on a temporary fix to highway 10 on the outer banks is a prime example. Spending money to close the Durham Expressway Spur is another example. I really dislike Cantors style, his timing is repulsive, although it might be the only way the issue gets addressed. But he’s not trying to address why we’re throwing money down the toilet is he?