Americans for Prosperity: $60 Billion Sandy Aid Package ‘A Disgrace’ - Fort Lee, NJ Patch

A funding bill that would provide more than $60 billion in aid for the Hurricane Sandy recovery effort is currently being debated in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. The primary beneficiaries of the aid would be Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey, three states that took the brunt of Sandy’s wrath and have seen damage estimates continue to rise well above President Barack Obama’s funding request.

The bill has been divisive. In both the Senate and Congress, legislators are questioning the appropriations, the allocation of the funds, the total, and the need to approve the aid all at once. Despite their differences, the majority of the country’s elected leaders in Washington D.C. agree that, in some form, the victims of Sandy are in need of federal financial aid.

Steve Lonegan, a former Bogota mayor, disagrees.

New Jersey’s Americans for Prosperity State Director called on legislators to reject the bill, saying that aid would be a burden on the country’s taxpayers and would be misspent at all levels of government by officials glomming for every last nickel.

The bill, he said, would lead to a spending free-for-all and is merely an attempt to secure funding for wasteful endeavors by appealing to emotion.

‘Tragic things happen every day to people – worse things than having your house flood – and we don’t hand them a check,’ he said. ‘Having your shore house flood doesn’t rank.

‘This is not a federal government responsibility. We need to suck it up and be responsible for taking care of ourselves.’

Read more at Patch.com.

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