Texas GOP misstates Sandy aid package
Texas Republicans now clamoring for federal money to aid their flood-stricken state overwhelmingly opposed a disaster relief package after Superstorm Sandy hit the East Coast in 2012. They insisted then — and have repeated in recent days — that the legislation was packed with wasteful spending.
While the $50.7 billion package had non-Sandy money, it wasn’t as stuffed with pork-barrel spending as Sen. Ted Cruz and other Republicans have maintained.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and other Northeast Republicans are calling out Cruz and his fellow Texans who are seeking aid for their hard-hit state.
Here’s a look at the competing claims, and the reality:
CRUZ, in an NBC interview Monday: “The problem with that particular bill is it became a $50 billion bill that was filled with unrelated pork. Two-thirds of that bill had nothing to do with Sandy.”
CHRISTIE, firing back Wednesday on CNN: “I see Senator Cruz and it’s disgusting to me that he stands in a recovery center with victims standing behind him ... still repeating the same reprehensible lies about what happened in Sandy, and it’s unacceptable to me. Absolutely unacceptable.”
REP. TOM COLE, R-Okla., in an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday: “I think a lot of the people that voted against Sandy now have the shoe on the other foot, so they’re going to learn some lessons and I hope they do. We shouldn’t be trying to score political points out of natural disasters. And we have a lot of people trying to rewrite history. I mean, I’m sorry, there wasn’t a bunch of pork in the Sandy bill.”
THE FACTS: Congress actually approved two bills in response to the October 2012 storm, which resulted in more than 120 deaths and disaster declarations in 12 East Coast states and the District of Columbia.
One, approved overwhelmingly in early January 2013, provided $9.7 billion in additional borrowing authority for the National Flood Insurance Program.
The second bill, approved 62-36 in the Senate and 241-180 in the House, provided $50.7 billion in disaster aid and other assistance. President Barack Obama signed it into law on Jan. 29. A report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service concluded that while the final bill included some non-Sandy related spending, it “largely focused on responding to Hurricane Sandy.”
The Associated Press reported that the Sandy aid package “was tinged with some bitterness for Northeast lawmakers who have complained that Congress approved tens of billions of dollars in aid within days of Hurricane Katrina (in 2005) but dragged their feet for more than two months on Sandy aid.”
Texas Republicans overwhelmingly voted against the final Sandy aid bill. Cruz and John Cornyn, now the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, both opposed the aid package, as did more than 20 House Republicans representing Texas.
Cornyn said this week he voted against the final bill “because it included other things weren’t Sandy Superstorm-related,” an argument also made by Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, whose district was hard-hit by Harvey.
“They had funding for things as far away from Alaska that wasn’t even touched by Sandy,” Farenthold said. “That was not a vote against disaster relief. That was a vote against pork-barrel spending.”
In truth, the final Sandy aid package did not include money for fisheries in Alaska and other states after complaints from conservatives about spending unrelated to the storm. The final bill stripped $150 million from the earlier, Senate-approved bill for fisheries disasters stretching from Alaska to Mississippi and New England.