Not sure how I feel about this. I’m frustrated that our Congress critters can’t seem to figure out how to cut spending. On the other hand, why wouldn’t the feds provide disaster relief in this case when they do for other natural disasters? (Not saying that the feds should EVER provide such relief, or that this dollar amount is appropriate if they do.)
Welcome to the new normal. Unfortunately, you couldn’t get 100 votes in the house to cancel disaster assistance.
So, what do you do in that case? Well, the purists argue that you simply vote against every case of trying to do disaster assistance.
Unfortunately, that means that the purists have absolutely NO SAY in what happens in these bills — because they won’t vote for it no matter what. Three cheers for the purists, they are pure, and they are principled, and they are “correct”.
Except, of course, that the bills will pass anyway. And as much as Boehner would love to have bills passed by republicans, he can’t stop 218 members from signing a discharge petition. Now, the other republicans really do want to be the majority, and would be happy to drive a relatively hard bargain in the process, if it would get them the 218 votes.
But as we have learned with “Plan B” and other votes, the purists aren’t playing. Because they are pure, and principled, and correct.
So, we’ll end up with a pork-ladened bill, which will be what the democrats want, and will vote for, since we can’t pass the bill with just republican votes, and there aren’t even 100 votes to say NO.
This is the difficulty with purism. If you will never compromise, but your positions can’t even get 100 votes, much less 218, you will be ignored. The only reason to ever bargain with someone is if there is a compromise that will get them to vote for something that will pass.
So far as I can tell, the purists, and the purist supporters, should cheer the passage of pork-ladened bills, since that is the direct result of applying the purist principles that it is better to hold true to your principles than to influence more positive outcomes.