Cantor Ties Disaster Relief To Budget Cuts

26 August 2011 |permalink | email article

A Body Politic blog on Thursday called attention to the pivotal role of Rep. Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, and how he would respond to two pivotal national concerns—the earthquake epicenter in his own Congressional district, and Hurricane Irene, bearing down furiously on the East Coast and perhaps the worst of its kind since 1893. The answers are in and predictably disappointing. Cantor’s position is radically simple: the federal government will help his district and elsewhere in earthquake damaged areas but there’s a condition: Democrats need to cut the budget to pay for relief spending.

Worse still, as Irene approaches, a scary Cantor repeats the same mantra even though Virginia is in the line of the storm. Playing Dr. No he insists aid must be paid for by cutting spending elsewhere in the budget. Despite Cantor’s disordered logic the scenario is real: Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell has declared a state of emergency in Virginia.

Flip-Flop Politics

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is widely touted as a likely Republican vice presidential nominee. At a Reagan Library speech last week he denounced entitlement programs like Medicare for having “weakened” the American people, harkening back to the days when “our communities, our families, our homes, and our churches and synagogues” took care of people. Only a few months ago Rubio sang a different tune: “When my father got sick, Medicare paid for his numerous hospital stays. And as he reached the end of life, Medicare allowed him to die with dignity by paying for his hospice care…America needs Medicare.”

Mitt Romney is suddenly backing away from a view of climate change he pushed earlier this summer. “Do I think the world is getting hotter” Yeah, but I don’t know but I think it it’s mostly caused by humans.” Suddenly he has tilted, grabbing some of Rick Perry’s ideas about the environment. That is, let’s not spend a dime doing anything about it.

What They Said

All this suggests that Perry is rapidly becoming the front running and consolidating the lead. In this is also a problem. The attacks on Perry will no doubt escalate and come from all sides. There are six months to go so Perry will have to take a lot and risks the Democrats and media defining him.—Conservative Erick Erickson@RedState.com

His primary flaw appears to be a chesty, quick-draw machismo that might be right for an angry base but wrong for an antsy country, Americans want a president who feels their angry without himself walking around enraged.—Peggy Noonan’s biting Wall Street Journal column on Rick Perry.

 

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