{"id":5146,"date":"2005-09-02T10:03:25","date_gmt":"2005-09-02T14:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=5146"},"modified":"2005-09-02T10:03:25","modified_gmt":"2005-09-02T14:03:25","slug":"hastert-was-against-the-emergency-funding-before-he-was-for-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/hastert-was-against-the-emergency-funding-before-he-was-for-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Hastert was against the emergency funding before he was for it"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite earlier reports that Congress would not reconvene to address emergency funding for the Gulf Coast, lawmakers are poised to pass a $10-billion bill<\/a> today. Good.<\/p>\n

And while I’m pleased to see Congress respond, I can’t help but notice that Speaker Hastert’s office seems a little confused.<\/p>\n

Just 48 hours ago, Roll Call reported<\/a> that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi urged Speaker Dennis Hastert to have a special session to appropriate relief to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, but the Speaker’s office said it didn’t plan to hold a vote this week because FEMA has things under control.<\/p>\n

[Hastert spokesman Ron] Bonjean said calling Members back to town this week is not the best course of action. <\/p>\n

“There is a humanitarian rescue operation going on right now, as we speak,” Bonjean said. “It is difficult to get a real assessment on the amount of damage done, which makes a special session unlikely. In addition, emergency relief services such as FEMA have billions of dollars at hand to help with the initial relief.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Last night, however, Roll Call reported<\/a> that Hastert’s office has not only embraced Pelosi’s idea, they now want credit for the whole thing.<\/p>\n

Ron Bonjean, a spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), said the GOP Congressional leadership is committed to helping the victims in the Gulf region. <\/p>\n

“We’ve approached the Minority Leader [Pelosi] with a proposal to bring the House back into emergency session to pass emergency funding for Hurricane Katrina victims,” Bonjean said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What was that about not playing politics with the disaster? On Wednesday, Hastert’s office is rebuffing Pelosi’s idea for an emergency bill. On Thursday, Hastert’s office is saying it was their idea all along.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the credit for a good thing doesn’t matter and I’m just glad the money is on its way to FEMA. But Bonjean’s attempt to spin this seems unusually callous.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite earlier reports that Congress would not reconvene to address emergency funding for the Gulf Coast, lawmakers are poised to pass a $10-billion bill today. Good. And while I’m pleased to see Congress respond, I can’t help but notice that Speaker Hastert’s office seems a little confused. Just 48 hours ago, Roll Call reported that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}