Discussion: House Overwhelmingly Backs $7.9 Billion Harvey Aid Package

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Of course they did…this is the South voting for the South and the Confederacy to take more money from the Union. It’s all about their confederate statues and slavery.

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They should hold on for a few days to see what Irma does to Florida. Trump doesn’t have affected properties in Texas, but he might have some in FL. Priorities, priorities…

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Let’s just have a clean disaster recovery funding bill and stop the childish bullcrap!
What was the Congress’ plan for the debt ceiling if the hurricane had not hit Texas… nothing?

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This is an insult to proud Texans. They had asked for $120 billion.

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You know, it’s going to cost a lot more in the future if they don’t have regulations for infrastructure and building.

I really do feel for the victims of Harvey. Throughout all of Texas. But we really need to do a better job, thinking of how to build and where to build.

With that said [zoning didn’t make Harvey damage worse], Blackburn believes that there are still measures Houston can take to lessen future flooding. This could include the government bolstering its reservoirs, buying and preserving wetlands, and incentivizing farmers to harvest their land, rather than sell it to developers.

But in this era of ongoing catastrophic weather events, he continued, the conversation needs to move away from debates about land-use minutiae and toward macro-level ones about where Americans should be living.

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Texas has no state income taxes. Does it plan to introduce an income tax designed to pay for some of its Harvey losses? Or will it seek a near-total federal bailout? And what about its contributory negligence, ie, its failure to regulate urban development in a way that makes reasonable provision for hurricane events? I recognize that in any case the country will and should come to its aid, but at some point in the process there should be strings attached to federal funding. Time to get serious about the costs of climate change.

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“I think it’s a terrible idea,” said House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows

What, the existence of a “debt limit” for a sovereign nation which (at least for the moment) owns the de-facto world currency? You’re right, it’s a terrible idea.

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“Freedom Caucus”? Crazy ideologues who don’t belong anywhere near the levers of power is more like it. What a jackass; I wonder what his response would be if/when South Carolina suffers from some natural disaster. The bigger wonder is that voters sent this idiot to Washington.

Not sure about 7.9 billion. That doesn’t even cover for all the damaged guns and spoiled ammunition, what about the trucks?.

I wonder which three GOP weasels voted against it?

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I believe Texas is one of the few red states that puts more into the fed then they normally get. May change with this, but just saying.

That’s the other code I can’t crack. Did the Teanuts want a clean debt limit bill, a longer debt limit bill or are they just upset with the thwarting of their dream of plunging the entire world into economic chaos that would make September, 2008 look like a mild recession?

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I think that’s right. But Texas receives 31.8% of its general revenue from federal aid. New York (my state) only receives 24%. NY also raises over $4000 p.a per capita in state taxes, whereas TX raises just over $1,400. Admittedly, there are other states which rely even more heavily than TX on federal aid. But as a New Yorker, it sticks in my craw that part of my taxes will in effect be transferred to TX so as to subsidize its policy of charging no income state tax.

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I assume these are rhetorical questions?

Looks like my state - CA - raises a hair less than $4000 per capita. Only gets 26% general revenue from the feds. Yes, it does make me cranky, too!

https://ballotpedia.org/California_state_budget_and_finances

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So Paul Ryan has no problem with supplying, “a hammock that lulls able-bodied citizens into lives of complacency and dependency,” if that hammock is for a Red State…

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There are an awful lot of military bases and such in Texas. When we went to San Antonio last year, there were uniformed folks all over the place. I suspect that’s where a lot of that revenue ends up.

Wisconsin has never had a storm of this magnitude, so Rayn is talking out his behind. If anyone has ever enjoyed that hammock of complacency and dependency, it’s our little Paulie, what with all the assistance he and his family received.

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Of course they voted for all this $$$.

The “shock doctrine” will apply in spades and will create many new millionaires.

Coined by Naomi Klein et al:

These post -Harvey events [will be] examples of “the shock doctrine”:

“using the public’s disorientation following massive collective shocks – wars, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters – to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy’”
In practice it means replacing all the poor housing with upscale housing and resorts.

You heard it here.