The GOP didn’t just blow it. They keep on blowing it.

The Senate passed a single bill containing the NFIP, FEMA and reconstruction aid. $60b and change.*

The House? They had to bifurcate it, and then turned it into three separate bills because the House GOP couldn’t get enough GOP votes to approve even the NFIP tab. The Senate now has a $51b version, and the House has two bills to cover the $51b balance.

The only aid passed so far is the $9.7b NFIP re-funding package - that helps with those with flood damage and prepares the NFIP for the next inevitable flood disaster. That couldn’t even get full support from the GOP including Rep. Palazzo (above) who demanded appropriations for the NFIP when his own district was affected, but couldn’t care less about those in need of compensation now - at a time when the temps are at or below freezing overnight and are now waiting 70 days for the full reconstruction package to be approved.

You want righteous indignation? Here’s righteous indignation. The GOP has now blocked reconstruction aid from flowing to NY/NJ longer than it took for prior Congresses to act on any number of prior natural disasters - combined (and that includes the initial $60b in aid for Katrina that passed within two weeks of the disaster).

The House spent three weeks sitting on legislation and did nothing. The last minute scramble was wholly avoidable - had they passed the damn thing at the outset.

Instead, the delay harms the rebuilding efforts, causes local municipalities to borrow on credit to cover costs until reimbursed by the feds, and means that some projects can’t go forward until the money is actually available. That’s no way to do business, but that’s the GOP for you. Businesses can’t rebuild because the municipalities can’t get infrastructure rebuilt. Homes can’t get rebuilt for the same reason. That’s irresponsible. It’s wrong.

And it isn’t satire. That’s the facts.

*About that “change” and the allegations of pork. Take a good hard look for pork in the current version that the House is considering - and the version that it could have considered last year. Of the entire $60b, there was only $400m that anyone could identify as pork, and most of that amount was also disaster aid - for prior natural disasters in places like AK - where the fisheries are in real bad shape (and where the AK GOP delegation sought $150m for assistance).

This wasn’t about pork or fiscal responsibility. It’s about screwing the victims of one of the worst natural disasters to hit the country because of politics and the optics of recognizing that the debt ceiling talk is all so much nonsense and offsetting spending cuts ignore that this is what the same Congress previously agreed to spend.