The House Republican leadership. led by Eric Cantor, Majority Leader, is insisting that there be budget cuts to match any increase in spending on disaster relief and emergency preparedness.
This outrage is being perpetrated as the Midwest and the South face the most daunting natural disasters we have ever seen in just the past few months!
The onslaught of hundreds of tornadoes in the past two months, including the most disastrous in Alabama and Missouri, along with the flood crisis faced along the Mississippi River all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico, is a national emergency of massive proportions!
When a natural disaster occurs, reaction by first responders, police, firefighters, and paramedics should be unlimited without any consideration of budget costs!
If government cannot provide aid to the needy and the desperate in a time of trauma, then what good is government at all? It is NOT the job of government solely to defend the nation from outside attack and internal man made threats to our national security. It is ALSO to come to the aid of the needy, the poor, and the disadvantaged when a natural disaster occurs, without forcing budget cuts to match the disaster’s costs!
The truth is that there is no way around the fact that tax INCREASES will be necessary, whether the American people want them or not. It is government’s job to do what is “necessary and proper”, for the “common defense and general welfare”, Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, the “elastic clause”!
The Republican Party is showing its true colors in so many ways, but particularly in “blackmailing” the Democrats to force cuts in the midst of a national emergency! How despicable and disgraceful!