Friday, March 11, 2011

Another Way The GOP Budget Plan Can Kill


An 8.9 magnitude earthquake hit Japan It was the largest known earthquake to hit Japan and one of the largest in history, and the ensuing tsunami has been devastating. Tsunami waves are now reaching America's west coast.
What does that have to do with the GOP budget proposal? Glad you asked. Via Sam Stein:, one of the provisions in the house Republicans proposed budget is to drastically cut the tsunami warning and response system:

WASHINGTON -- Thursday night's massive earthquake in Japan and the resulting tsunami warnings that have alarmed U.S. coasts, seem likely to ignite a debate over a previously little-discussed subsection of the spending bills currently being debated in Congress.

The House full-year continuing resolution, which has not passed the Senate, would indeed make steep cuts to several programs and functions that would serve in a response to natural disasters (not just tsunamis) home and abroad. According to Sobien, the bill cuts $126 million from the budget of the NWS. Since, however, the cuts are being enacted over a six-month period (the length of the continuing resolution) as opposed to over the course of a full year, the effect would be roughly double.

As for NOAA, the House GOP cuts are even deeper. The House spending bill is roughly $450 million below the president's 2011 budget requests. The Senate Democratic bill would be $110 million below that request. The White House-allied Center for American Progress, argued that the House spending bill would actually cut $1.2 billion from the president's budget requests, likely by taking into account that the bill does not provide NOAA the funding increase requested for the Joint Polar Satellite System.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/11/tsunami-relief-gop-budget-cuts_n_834479.html

The Republican philosophy of 'cut now, regardless of the future consequences' is going to kill a lot of people over time. Can't have that 'big government" doing things that actually might help people. I'm sure that the big corporations will be happy to deal with any tsunamis that occur.

2 comments:

Fearguth said...

If the GOP had its way, it would welcome a bicoastal tsunami that would wash all those liberals and socialists out to sea.

Demeur said...

Big corporations would sell us all tsunami insurance then use the fine print not to pay off. Then we'd be forced to rebuild like New Orleans. See how wonderfully that's going.