Storm over Sandy relief

Helping fellow Americans should have been a no-brainer

Better hope California isn't hit with a major earthquake. Or flood. Or firestorm.

That's the warning apparent from House Republicans' refusal to act on a $60 billion relief package for residents of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut who were swamped by superstorm Sandy.

Some of those residents spent the holidays shoveling sand out of their living rooms while some in the House spent the holidays complaining the relief bill sent them by the Senate was not ready for prime time. House Republicans, on the other hand, were ready for a holiday hiatus from doing all that public good.

Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie complained he couldn't even get Speaker John Boehner to return his calls.

That will teach him to thank President Barack Obama when he showed up days after the superstorm offering federal help to the nation's most densely populated area laid low by Sandy.

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said the speaker is "committed to getting this bill passed this month." In fact, a small portion of the aid package - $9.7 billion for flood insurance relief - was passed Friday with the balance promised in a House vote Jan. 15.

Friday's 354-67 vote sent the bill to the Senate, which passed the bill later in the day. All of the no votes in the House were cast by Republicans.

But that promise came only after House Republicans, many of whom obviously don't support relief for the Northeasterners, came in for a withering attack, including from some fellow Republicans representing the afflicted states.

One of those, Republican Rep. Pete King of New York said Tuesday, Boehner "just walked off" the floor and had an aide break the news that there would be no vote.

That's not a move likely to endear you to folks sleeping on cots and still trying to find ways to rebuild their homes. Nor is it an action likely to endear you to local government officials worried there's no money to build barriers to a new storm that could again swamp coastal areas.

To be sure, $60 billion is a lot of money. It's roughly two-thirds of California's general fund budget for the current fiscal year.

But balanced against the importance of that region to the nation's economy, the number of people affected and overall federal spending, the proposed relief package - and we say this with the old political saw about "a billion here and a billion there" ringing in our ears - is chump change.

There is evidence that House Republican reluctance on aid has less to do with budget concerns than with comeuppance to the politics of those blue states. Would there have been this hesitancy had a natural disaster struck Texas? We certainly hope not. Not from Republicans or Democrats.

"These people have no problem finding New York when it comes to raising money. They only have a problem when it comes to allocating," Rep. King fumed on the House floor (of course, a lot of national officials who are Democrats only parachute into California to belly up to the ATM too).

The point was made best in a joint statement in which New Jersey's Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, accused the House of a "dereliction of duty." "When American citizens are in need, we come to their aid," they said.

That's when we stop being Democrats or Republicans and start acting like Americans. That or residents of this area better start filling sandbags in case a few Delta levees burst during a flood.

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