Sandy is a Great Example of Republican Failure

Don’t blame me for the title of this posting, and don’t blame Democrats either. The strong words come from Republicans!
by Charlie Leck

And that’s only the beginning folks. The Republican Party is weighing in on the leadership of the majority party in the House of Representatives; that is, on Speaker John Boehner, one of their own. The verdict is not pretty.

The 112th Congress is history. It recessed without a vote on aid for the victims of Hurricane Sandy. It’s historic. Relief packages are normally easy things to pass. Americans are in need somewhere and they need the help of other Americans. The way we do it is through the U.S. Congress – just as we did with New Orleans and the larger gulf coast after Katrina. People on Staten Island, Long Island and the southern New Jersey coast, needed that aid money. Fix-up and clean-up in those areas is stalled because of the lack of funds and Americans from all parts of the country are angrier than hell at the Tea Party branch of this Congress for holding up this vote and these funds.

It’s my hope that the Tea Party went too far this time. The relief bill had all the votes it needed to pass. Leader Boehner didn’t bring the vote to the floor because of his fear of the Tea Party. The Grand Old Party has got to clean up its own house before it tells other politicos how to care for themselves. Enough already! Enough!

A poll in the Washington Post this morning asked: “Whom do you blame for Washington’s difficulties in making a debt deal?” The response options were (1) Democrats, (2) Republicans, (3) Both or (4) Neither or Other. By 6:00 A.M. (EST) morning than 24,000 people had already responded to the survey and 72 percent of them blamed the Republican Party, while 17 percent said both.

The Tea Party is made up of obstructionists and isolationists. Should their lead be followed, the nation would back up to a time and place that would crash our economy and throw us into vile class wars. They are locked on to a set of principles that will not work in a nation that must unite, lead and call for the cooperation of 50 different state governments. When a minority political group uses its power to thwart the generous, wholesome and caring will of the people, we’ve got a big problem.

Republican New Jersey Governor, Chris Christy, came down hard on Republicans yesterday for allowing a group of weak-kneed Tea Party advocates to obstruct action on the relief bill that would have helped his state recover from this tragic storm. This is a state, along with New York, that contributes an enormous amount of money to the federal treasuries each and every year – far, far great than that of almost all other states in the nation.

My own Congressman, a Republican, is showing himself to be a jerk and one of these obstructionists. We’ll remind people of this when the next election rolls around in 2014. Congressman Erik Paulsen voted against the fiscal cliff bill and he laid low on the question of granting aide for Sandy Relief before this Congress recessed. He’ll deny any leadership responsibility, but he won’t be able to avoid the fact that he was stone-cold silent about doing something to help New York and New Jersey.

Paulsen should have had the courage to stand up and protest the inaction of Congress, as conservative Representative Tom Reed of upstate New York did: “There is not a better purpose of the federal government than for [it] to stand with our citizens when they are suffering the most.”

Leadership in the Republican Party has got to wake up. They are out of touch with the will and spirit of the American people. John Boehner must go! Someone more from the center of the party should be elected to the Speaker’s chair. The change must come when the new Congress convenes later this month.

Four telephone calls from Governor Christie to John Boehner were ignored and unreturned on Tuesday night. Christie exploded in anger about the Speaker’s lack of leadership.

“This used to be something that was not political,” Christie said, with anger firing up his eyes. “Disaster relief was something you didn’t play games with.”

If you will please remember, it was Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate for the office of the Presidency, who suggested in the recent campaign that role of the Federal Emergency Management Agency ought to be ended and its work transferred instead to the individual states. What shear, unadulterated BS, but it is what the Tea Party advocates are quietly saying to each other.

If you want to hear Governor Christie blast Speaker Boehner and his own Party, you can watch a video of it here… “Sixty-six days and counting,” the Governor said!

If that isn’t enough for you, watch Republican Peter King ask people of New York and New Jersey to refuse to give any contributions to his own party – “not one penny,” King said.

“Sometimes,” King said, quoting John F. Kennedy, “party loyalty demands too much!”

Indeed!

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