Fire up Congress

Shutdown threats present an opportunity to fight for a full hurricane recovery.

As Congress continues to ignore Houston’s hurricane recovery needs, you can’t help but wish that we still had Texas politicians in the mold of Sheriff Thomas W. “Buckshot” Lane.

The top lawman in Wharton County witnessed a fair share of shootouts in his day, but for years the biggest threat to his constituents was the dangerous Kentleton Bridge on Highway 59. A faulty alignment caused accident after accident, and in 1935, the bridge claimed the lives of three college students. Shortly thereafter the bridge caught fire, forcing the state to build a new, safer one.

Ten years later — once the statute of limitations on the arson had passed — the perpetrator stepped forward and confessed to the crime. The arsonist had been Sheriff Buckshot Lane himself.

The lesson: Sometimes you’ve got to be willing to burn a few bridges if you want to get anything done in government.

Three months have passed since Harvey, and the Houston congressional delegation can’t seem to find a match. Heck, in September they couldn’t even persuade four fellow Texans — Reps. Joe Barton of Ennis, Jeb Hensarling of Dallas, Sam Johnson of Richardson and Mac Thornberry of Clarendon — to support one of the preliminary hurricane recovery bills.

They need to find their inner Buckshot, and there’s no opportunity better than right now.

The federal government is on path to run out of funding on Friday, forcing Congress to pass a continuing resolution to keep the money flowing until it approves a full budget.

The Texas delegation should threaten to block these budget negotiations until Congress passes the hurricane relief our city and state deserve. Republicans and Democrats might have to break with their parties to get this done — they might have to burn some bridges. But the Lone Star State won’t stand alone in this fight. A bipartisan group of representatives from Texas and Florida met last week to strategize the best way to secure adequate funding during the inevitable budget battle.

Houston’s U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat, even dropped the sbomb: shutdown.

“We do not have the adequate resources, and this is going to be on the verge of a government shutdown if Texas and all of the other victims of these hurricanes do not have a compromise where we can work together,” she said. “I would encourage you to tell the president that it is not enough. It simply is not enough.”

Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney, the man responsible for the inadequate $44 billion hurricane recovery bill, does not seem to be moved.

“[T]here’s a group of lawmakers from some of the hurricane states who want to shut the government down until they get what they want,” Mulvaney said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “This just sheds light on the fact that the appropriations, the spending system is broken when any little group can sort of hold the government hostage.”

Perhaps Mulvaney’s illustrious career in the House Freedom Caucus never brought him to the Lone Star State. Maybe he’s ignorant of the degree to which the entire nation relies upon our refineries and fracking fields. It may be that he’s never counted the massive container ships that keep commerce flowing through the Port of Houston. The extensive studies illustrating the existential threat that a hurricane poses to all this critical infrastructure might have passed him by.

Mulvaney saw fit to support the 2013 government shutdown in an inherently futile attempt to block the Affordable Care Act, and now he goes on national television to make light of our struggle to rebuild after Harvey and prepare for the next big storm.

During Harvey, Houston endured a disaster of wind, rain and flood beyond any modern record. If Congress can’t write a proper recovery bill, then we might as well add some fire to the mix.

Let’s burn some bridges. Shut it down.

The Texas delegation should threaten to block these budget negotiations until Congress attaches the hurricane relief our city and state deserves. Republicans and Democrats might have to break with their parties to get this done — they might have to burn some bridges