Hiding in Plain Sight

Last week and this weekend have been strange for us in New Orleans. We live anxiously through hurricane season (and the upcoming anniversary of "the Storm" known elsewhere as Katrina). Over the past week, we have been innocent bystanders as the East Coast experienced first an discernible earthquake and then Irene's rain and wind. We are are thankful that the the loss of lives was minimal although property damage may reach into the billions.

What was not unexpected has been the reaction of various TeaPublican politicians who have managed to take two diametrically opposed positions on paying for disaster relief. One one hand, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Another Planet) maintains that any disaster relief must be offset by spending cuts elsewhere. I am sure his constituents are pleased that their representative is willing to maintain his ideological purity at the expense of helping to pay for the damage to their homes and communities. As Cedric Richmond (D-New Orleans and my congress critter) maintained, if NOLA had to wait for spending offsets in the wake of Katrina, we would still be waiting for federal relief. He called Cantor's comment, "Sinful."

On the other hand, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) has called for passage of a bill that has $1 billion in additional disaster funding for FEMA. Rogers blames the shortfall on, who else, President Obama, "who has ignored the obvious funding needs of the Disaster Relief Fund, purposefully and irresponsibly underfunding the account and putting families and communities who have suffered from terrible disasters on the back burner." Chair Rogers seems to have forgotten (or chose to ignore) that these cuts were proposed and approved by his committee.

So our TeaPublican brethren have suggested that, at the same time, (1) we shouldn't fund disaster relief without cutting other unnamed programs in the federal budget and (2) it's Obama's fault that the House-passed Continuing Resolution cut funds for disaster relief, so we should just appropriate more money. If you can reconcile these two positions, be my guest. My take is that these people are so fueled by hatred of the liberal traditions of U.S. governance, that they will do and say anything to destroy our Social Compact. These people are true enemies of "We the People," and they are right there in front of us everyday, hiding in plain sight.