Republicans, Disasters, and Their Idea of a 'Real America'

Steve Benen believes we won't be seeing a big disaster relief fight over the tornado disaster in Oklahoma. I hope he's right. The Republican Party's refusal to fund relief after Hurricanne Sandy was shameful at best, anti-American at worst. While Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn quickly decided to hold his constituents hostage to budget cuts, he doesn't have a lot of allies in that effort. By yesterday, he was already forced into damage control mode and the rest of the GOP was taking the opposite position.

Many prominent Republicans sounded downright Democratic yesterday. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who opposed Sandy relief, said, "Finding some way to offset is not the priority. Meeting the known and immediate needs as quickly as possible is the priority." House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) added, "I really don't think disasters of this type should be offset. We have an obligation to help those people. We'll worry about our budgetary items back here, but the aid has to be there."

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said, "I think they should get every penny they need. I've been through this. We can do the political games later on, the important thing is to get them the aid as quickly as they need it and not to make a political issue out of it." Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) added, "[A]t the end of the day my objective here is to make sure the people here get the help they need in a timely fashion."

"Here's hoping we'll see a return to traditional American norms when it comes to post-disaster aid. For generations," Benen writes. "Congress didn't fight over offsets in the wake of a crisis, it simply moved to help American communities in their time of need. That changed after Republicans took control of the House in 2010, but given GOP reactions yesterday, we may be seeing the first signs that the party is rethinking the utility of its posture."

What we need to remember, however, was that Sandy happened right before the election. President Obama got a little bounce for his competent handling of the crisis and New Jersy Governor Chris Christie praised him for his leadership. It wasn't the deciding factor in the election, but it was a deciding factor, with 41% of respondents in a one exit poll saying it was either the "most important factor" in casting their vote or just an "important factor."

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Mitt Rebrands Campaign Rallies as 'Storm Relief Efforts'

If New Jersey Governor Chris Christie got an email from the Romney campaign this morning, you could probably boil it down to three words: "You're not helping."

In the wake of former hurricane and now current "superstorm" Sandy, Christie has been all over the media talking about what an awesome job President Obama and the federal government have been doing in dealing with the crisis. "The federal government's response has been great," Christie told Today. "I was on the phone at midnight again last night with the president, personally, he has expedited the designation of New Jersey as a major disaster area," adding that "the president has been outstanding in this."

Later, he told Joe Scarborough that "the president has been all over this and deserves great credit." We already know what Mitt Romney think would be the ideal federal response to this sort of thing -- none. For Mitt, responding to natural disaster means deficit spending, so helping people is "simply immoral" in his worldview. Christie's praise of Obama does double damage to Mitt's message.

Here's Romney's idea of disaster relief:

The Hill:

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan scheduled "storm relief" events Tuesday after previously canceling planned campaign rallies.

Romney will attend an event in Kettering, Ohio, Tuesday morning with race car driver Richard Petty and country music artist Randy Owen. He had previously scheduled a campaign rally at the same site with Petty, Owen, and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Tuesday afternoon, but later scrapped the campaign events out of deference to those in the path of Hurricane Sandy.

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