Day 622 – Florida Republicans Vote No on Hurricane Relief

October 1, 2022

Yeah, it’s hard to believe but Republicans, including those from Florida, voted against giving their constituents needed hurricane relief. Matt Gaetz, being the dick that he is, said he wouldn’t give any money to Joe Biden’s agencies. Nice. Smart. Classy to the end. Dip.

Val Demming (D-Florida’s 10th) and running for Senate voted for the package.

…

It turns out that this isn’t as I was made to understand from the headlines. 

I could not find the House vote. Finally, it became clear that this wasn’t just a disaster or hurricane relief bill. It was wrapped into the Continuing Resolution to keep the government running. Had the bill failed to pass the Federal Government would have shut down.

So, people like Gaetz vote against it because they don’t want to give any money to Dems when they are running the government. This skirts the larger issue. Mainly, do you keep the government up and running when you are not in charge? This is the “burn it to the ground” idea offered by Newt Gingrich, Steve Bannon, Grover Norquist and many others. They may dress it up in various names but the idea is that your side never helps the country if it requires working with the other side. There are fanciful ideas that emerge and always the details are glossed over.

Remember Ron Paul and his Revolution? It was based on what was known as Austrian Economics. The idea that you could fiddle with the monetary rate and the debt would somehow disappear.

Or Reagan’s “trickle down” economics? Didn’t make sense when proposed. Didn’t work in practice. Yet, some still cling to it.

Or “Brexit” ? Didn’t make sense when proposed. Didn’t work in practice. Yet, some still cling to it. (Okay, It’s the Brits, but it’s still stupid.)

The list goes on and on.

Or Steve Bannon’s hostile idea to ruin the government and thereby shrink it to the size of a pea? (his term.) Somehow this would be helpful.

Yet, no matter what, there are two things that seem to run through all of this talk:

1 – It applies to “the other” not me (the one proposing)

2 – There is always an element of magic (it will shrink. It will go away.) etc.

Yet. It never works as proposed.

Not only that, but when these people take power the only thing they do is cut taxes for their rich friends and corporations, attack benefits for the poor, and make pompous statements.

Some say Biden is old. He is. Some say he’s boring. Maybe. But he is consistently moving our country forward, solving one problem after another, or at least making it better.

Remember when he took office we were in the death grip of Covid? There was no plan to distribute the vaccine that had been developed. He got that turned around. He got much of the country vaccinated.

Then there was the back up at the ports. You don’t hear anyone talking about that now, because he got that moving along.

Recently, there was the impending railroad strike. He got that averted.

He got more IRS folks hired to go after the rich who aren’t paying their taxes. Republicans are running ads saying agents will be breaking down your doors to take your money. They don’t want these extra agents because what the IRS is hiring is accountants to go after the Republican benefactors.

Biden got a health care bill passed. It limits the amount folks pay for insulin and caps prescription drug payments. He didn’t get it for everyone because Republicans blocked him, but for many. He got the okay for Medicare to negotiate its own prices instead of the stupid system we had. What have Republicans said about that? They will repeal that bill as soon as they can. In other words, the Republicans will screw you over as soon as they take power.

Biden ain’t flashy. He’s not holding press conferences everyday promising to do this or that and then doing nothing like the last administration. In fact, if the last administration had done nothing it would have been better than what they did do.

Okay. Gotta go.