Sen. Kyl on the Porked-up Sandy Relief Bill: "Can I verbalize that stinky look on my face?"

The Senate is rushing through a Sandy relief package, but, as is usually the case with "emergency" bills, they're larding it up with pet projects that aren't related to the Sandy disaster. Senator Kyl is not impressed:

“At $60 billion? In this time when we’re trying to solve the deficit problem? Can I verbalize that stinky look on my face?” Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said Friday. “I can’t predict what my colleagues will do. But that’s an awful big bite to swallow when the amount of money that’s set aside for this is about $5 billion and they’re asking for $60 billion.”

The Club for Growth announced yesterday that they would score a vote for the Sandy package negatively in their end-of-year scorecard, which will hopefully make Republican members think twice about supporting it.

Of course, Democrats started moaning that Sandy relief is needed immediately, with no time to debate silly things like $150 million in fisheries disaster recovery in Alaska, Mississippi, and American Samoa; $56.8 million for charting the debris from last year's Japanese tsunami; $41 million for eight military bases including Guantanamo Bay; $100 million for the federal Head Start day care program; $188 million for new Amtrak lines (not repair, whole new lines); and $4 million for the Kennedy Space Center.

So, what's the rush? FEMA still has $5 billion in disaster relief funds that are expected to last until March.

Update: Senate GOP launches #ShadySandySpending. Lotta spending I missed. Check it out. Retweet.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 09:28 AM

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