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Following up on Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's pissy responses to those that ask him about his refusal to vote for the federal Hurricane Sandy aid package coupled with his request for such aid post-haste now that his own state is in dire need, the Washington Post's fact checker picks apart Cruz's longstanding claim that the Hurricane Sandy aid package was "filled with unrelated pork" and his even more bizarre theory, yesterday, that in fact "two-thirds of that bill had nothing to do with Sandy."
The short version is that America's worst senator either doesn't know what the hell he's talking about or doesn't care; "virtually all" of the bill's provisions were Sandy related, and the few things that weren't were either line items for other disasters or the prevention of future ones. Charitably, the Post considers Cruz to have "misspoke" on the completely crooked claim that "two-thirds" of the bill wasn't about Sandy, which is (cough) a generous interpretation. As for his definition of "pork," it is in the eye of the beholder, and Ted Cruz seems to believe that disaster prevention, rebuilding efforts, infrastructure strengthening, and you-name-it can all be hand-waved away as the Bad Stuff that only bad government officials would support.
What Cruz appears to be really complaining about, when you get past either the misunderstanding (translation: lying) or misspeaking (translation: still lying) revolves around that extraordinarily greasy definition of "pork." He still objects to Hurricane Sandy aid, says his spokesman, because so much of money earmarked for response and rebuilding wasn't really an "emergency."
“When regions face serious disasters causing extensive damage, the federal government has an obligation to assist with assets to address the emergency,” Frazier said. “Sen. Cruz strongly supports this role of government, but emergency bills should not be used for non-emergency spending and that unfortunately is what made up nearly 70 percent of the $50.5 billion HR 152 bill.”
Cruz's argument appears to be that emergency responses—say, fishing people out of the water or putting little orange cones in front of the washed-out bridges—should of course be promptly funded, but rebuilding those bridges or buildings or neighborhoods either shouldn't have been or should have been put on another burner until the Senate, in all its glorious efficiency and wisdom, finally felt obliged to take it back up again.
So, ya know, there's the next thing for intrepid reporters to ask Sen. Ted Cruz. Should the federal government help rebuild, in Texas, or is their job done as soon as the flood waters recede? Is Texas on their own again, come next October?
