Ted Cruz was right: the Sandy bill was full of pork

I like the way Ben Domenech at The Federalist starts right out heading off Chris Cillizza's screed at the pass. Then he goes on to explain - well, let's just give the floor to Ben:

Chris Cillizza, the Clown Prince of Fake News noted for his blue-framed glasses and his inability to deal with criticism, has rolled out another conventional wisdom claim that deserves debunking but should not require it given its utter departure from the facts. Headline: “Why Chris Christie is right. And Ted Cruz is wrong.”  The subject, as you may imagine, is the debate raging between a vindictive soon to be jobless Chris Christie, having played the part of Salacious B. Crumb in 2016 to no avail, and Cruz, who is having to justify to the press why he voted against the Sandy relief bill when Texas will clearly be in need of something even more sizable to rebuild after Harvey.

The truth, despite Cillizza’s claim, is that the Sandy bill contained everything but funding for a traffic study in Fort Lee. Here’s an easy way to tell whether a bill primarily contains emergency spending: the spending is right now. It’s an emergency. Here’s a way to tell when it isn’t: when the spending is directed at things that have nothing to do with said emergency, and are instead funding things years into the future. The Sandy relief measure was an example of the latter.

Here’s the CBO score. Note when the bulk of money was actually expected to be spent. According to CBO’s outlay tables, 24 billion dollars of the allocated funds weren’t expected to be spent until 2016 or after. The hurricane, for reference, was in 2012. And according to CBO, nearly 4 billion of the spending in that bill didn’t even pretend to be for emergencies: 3.459 billion was actually designated as non-emergency spending.

The bill itself is here.  Its summary is here. Cruz’s statement at the time on the Sandy bill is here.   And the Roll Call vote is here. Here is a Heritage report about the bill at the time. Here is fiscal hawk Tom Coburn on the problems with emergency disaster bills. And here are some things you will find if you read all of these, including specific spending in the Sandy relief bill that has nothing to do with emergency needs or any relation to disaster relief:

16,000,000,000 dollars for Community Development Block Grants (11 billion higher than HUD was requesting at the time)
600,000,000 for State and Tribal Assistance Grants under the EPA
348,000,000 for “construction” for the National Park Service
100,000,000 for Head Start
50,000,000 for the Historic Preservation Fund at the NPS
45,000,000 for upgrades to NOAA aircraft
22,000,000 for upgrading NOAA weather equipment
50,000,000 for “construction” for Fish and Wildlife Services
24,000,000 for the Defense Working Capital Fund
10,000,000 to Small Business Administration to plus up grants to organizations seeking to participate in disaster relief
4,400,000 for “capital improvement” to the Forestry Service
3,000,000 for oil spill research
2,000,000 for the Smithsonian’s famously leaky roofs.
1,000,000 for new cars for the DEA.
1,000,000 to the Legal Services Corporation.

There’s more than that, but this seems to be the most obvious examples. Consider this question: even today, five years removed from Sandy, how much of these billions of dollars in appropriated taxpayer money remains to be spent? And if there is significant money, would Governor Christie support repurposing those funds for immediate and direct disaster relief for the people suffering and dying right now in Houston? If not, why not? Or will he even admit such money exists?

The core point here is the same as in the social media memes / taunts that have been causing dustups lately: the one that shows the guy in the big cowboy hat praising the Lord that an angel has been sent to rescue him from the floodwaters - there's a Gadsden flag thrown in for good measure - and a FEMA person in a rescue boat saying, "Actually, we're from the federal government," and the one that says, "Everybody okay with using socialism to clean up after Harvey? OR shall we let the free market take care of things? Askin' for a friend." The vulgar implication in such memes is that there is a big role for the federal government to play in society and the lives of the citizens that comprise it generally speaking. They're advocating statism.

In a Facebook tangle I got involved in, the guy who put up that second meme didn't try to deny it. He said that's exactly what it was saying, and went on to coin - or perpetuate; I don't know that he came up with it - a phrase: "What's your #personalHarvey?"

Talk about an elastic concept. How far shall we stretch that one?

Actually, the private sector has been rocking the recovery effort in Texas:

• Gallery Furniture, a Houston-based chain store, opened two of its nearby locations to residents seeking shelter.
• HEB Grocery, which has more than 150 stores in Texas, sent its mobile kitchens to Houston to provide meals, pharmacy services, and ATMs.
• Wal-Mart is delivering nearly 800 truckloads of supplies to the region. It says it plans to send another 1,700 next week.
• KL Outdoor in Michigan is paying the shipping costs to send 2,000 kayaks to the region. Bass Pro is providing 80 boats.
• Duracell is sending out free batteries to anyone impacted by the storm.
• Anheuser-Busch InBev has sent more than 155,000 cans of drinking water.
• Airbnb activated its disaster response program, called “Urgent Accommodations,” which lets evacuees find lodging, with all service fees waived. Those with rooms to spare can use Airbnb to offer their space for free.
• Mobile carriers are issuing waivers and credits to customers in the area.
• The owner of the Kansas-based Vapebar sent a truck load of diapers, nonperishable food, telling a local news channel that ” a lot of bad things are happening down there right now and we need to help them out.”
• Volunteer Houston launched the Virtual Volunteer Reception Center on Monday, which lets those who want to help get matched with relief organizations and agencies.
• A multitude of businesses are donating large sums of money for relief efforts, including Aetna, Amazon, Boeing, Caterpillar, Wells Fargo, Home Depot, Coca-Cola, Lowe’s.
• Waffle House has become an indicator of how bad a weather disaster is because the restaurant chain is so determined to keep operating in the worst conditions.

One more thing about the Facebook tangle: I mentioned how humbling and gratifying it was to see the GoFundMe account I set up for my stepson, whose house burned down in the spring, fill right up with contributions. Another commenter, who aligned with this "personal-Harvey" idea  said that when she lost her house, there was no crowdsourcing. I responded, "The advent of crowdsourcing is a perfect example of the beauty of the free market. Someone sees a need in society and applies human ingenuity to address it - and makes a profit!" The commenter I was responding to disappeared from the thread.