ephemera

January 4, 2013

House Speaker John Boehner yanked the bill to provide $60 billion in emergency aid to states ravaged by Hurricane Sandy to get back at a top lieutenant who defied him over the Fiscal Cliff fix, Congressional sources said Wednesday.

Boehner was angry, the sources said, when Majority Leader Eric Cantor led the revolt Tuesday by conservative House Republicans against the Fiscal Cliff compromise that wound up being passed later in the day, the sources said.

So rather than let Cantor bring the Sandy aid bill he had hammered out with New York and New Jersey lawmakers to the floor for a vote, Boehner (R-Ohio) pulled rank and tabled it - likely killing the aid package for the current session of Congress, which ends Thursday.

Boehner’s decision to pull the bill triggered outrage Wednesday from both Republicans and Democrats in New York and other states devastated by Sandy. They said his decision forces tens of thousands of storm victims to wait even longer for help.

His voice shaking, Rep. Pete King, a Long Island Republican, took to the floor of the House Wednesday morning to launch an extrordinary attack against Boehner, his own political leader.

King called it a “cruel knife in the back” to New York and New Jersey.

Gov. Cuomo, a Democrat, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, issued a joint statement calling the House’s inaction a “dereliction of duty.”

And at a Manhattan press conference, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said, “Speaker Boehner pulled out the rug from us at the last minute.” He added, “This failure to get relief now could be called the Boehner betrayal.”

—

The New York Daily News, “Sources: House Speaker Yanked $60 Billion In Sandy Aid Out of Spite.”

Pathetic.

(via inothernews)

The most childish man in modern American politics.

(via wilwheaton)

6:06pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZnopayazpZt6

(Notes: 1,082)