One of the insider-political discussions in Indiana has been a discussion on Rep. Todd Rokita and Rep. Marlin Stutzman’s vote against Sandy Relief. For Rokita’s part, here was his explanation. The conventional wisdom is this, “What cold heartless scumbags! Wait until a tornado hits their district!” These were just from the Republicans!
The bigger problem for the 80-some Republicans is the view that this is a goodie-bag for their districts. New spending always helps your re-election efforts.
I especially would like to point out this line: “Additionally, there are billions of dollars in the Senate’s emergency spending bill that are not for relief and repairs directly related to Sandy, but rather for future projects spread across several federal agencies. These types of requests do not belong in an emergency bill and should be handled through the normal budgeting process, where we can have a discussion about spending priorities.”
If you’d like an accurate and entertaining view of the type of scams that these bills produce, then take a look at season 2 and 3 of Treme on HBO.
Reason.TV recently produced a concise view of the problem with this type of relief, and they go in to the philosophical issues with these types of bills.
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