From the Washington Post: Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) will insist that any federal aid to deal with the tornado in his home state must be offset by budget cuts.
“He will ask his colleagues to sacrifice lower priority areas of the budget to help Oklahoma,” spokesman John Hart said. Should other Republicans join Coburn, it could set up a fight similar to the January tug-of-war over Hurricane Sandy funding. That aid package was delayed by GOP opposition and ultimately passed with mostly Democratic support.
In a statement, Coburn said that “as the ranking member of Senate committee that oversees FEMA, I can assure Oklahomans that any and all available aid will be delivered without delay.”
It is truly a shame that whenever such disasters occur and people are in desperate need, there are some who have no problem holding up the process. The sooner the people of Oklahoma get the aid they need, the better. Despite his platitudes of aid delivery without delay, the course which he wants to take almost ensures delay. What is worse is that this is regarding his own constituents. Lucky for him, he will not be seeking re-election, so he does not have to worry about facing the voters again. Otherwise, I am sure they would not forget this.
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