The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has not yet received the local government damage estimates needed to determine how much disaster-relief funding the agency will need to cover Hurricane Irene’s costs. But almost everyone expects the number to top the $792 million that FEMA currently has in its disaster-relief fund. Capitol Hill is already fighting over how much the fund should get and how it should be paid for.
Since 1990, $110 billion of the $130 billion in disaster-relief funding approved by Congress has been done through supplemental emergency spending. Republicans wanted to change that this year. So when President Obama requested $1.8 billion for disaster relief in his 2012 budget, Republicans passed a bill allocating $3.65 billion in disaster spending, $1 billion of which would help cover fiscal 2011 costs. Budgeting for additional disaster relief spending now would avoid off-budget deficit-spending later.
But House Republicans paid for the disaster-relief funding in part by cutting a program that lends money to auto manufacturers to build more energy efficient cars. Senate Democrats did not want to see this treasured corporate welfare program die so they have not brought the Republican funding bill up for a vote.
“The federal government should be there in time of emergency,” Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., said Monday. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., agrees: “There’s a federal role, yes we’re going to find the money, we’re just going to need to make sure that there are savings elsewhere to continue to do so.”
Around the Bigs
The Washington Post, Princeton economist tapped to head Council of Economic Advisers: President Obama named “Cash for Clunkers” proponent and former Treasury official Alan Krueger to be his chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers as the White House reportedly still has not finished compiling Obama’s post-Labor Day new jobs initiative. White House aides are still split on whether to offer a narrow plan that might pass the House, or offer an aggressive plan that would excite his liberal base but have no chance of passage.
The Hill, House GOP announces jobs plan focused on cutting regs and taxes: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., sent a memo to his caucus Monday detailing the Republican leadership’s jobs agenda for this fall. The memo names 10 specific regulations that are killing jobs and identifies dates that the House will vote to repeal them. “What our list demonstrates is: Washington now has gotten in the way, and we’ve got to make it easier, finally, for small business people to grow,” Cantor said. Cantor’s memo also included some tax items including a proposal that would allow small business owners to deduct 20 percent of their income from their taxes.
The New York Times, Germany Dims Nuclear Plants, but Hopes to Keep Lights On: Now that Germany has shutdown 8 of its 17 nuclear reactors, businesses and consumers are worried they will not have enough power to keep the lights on this winter. “It’s easy to say, ‘Let’s just go for renewables,’ and I’m quite sure we can someday do without nuclear, but this is too abrupt,” Karlsruhe Institute of Technology chief scientist Joachim Knebel told The Times.
The New York Times, Labor Board’s Exiting Leader Responds to Critics: Exiting National Labor Relations Board chair Wilma Liebman tells The Times that conservative critics have the NLRB all wrong. “The criticism is grossly out of proportion to what has happened and what has been done,” Ms. Liebman, told The Times. “We knew we were going to have a boxing match, but we didn’t expect our opponents to come in with a baseball bat.” Liebman, who approved the NLRB’s suit to shut down Boeing’s South Carolina factory, also said, “The perception of this agency as doing radical things is mystifying to me.”
The Los Angeles Times, Afghan Taliban victory predicted in letter: A letter purportedly signed by Mullah Mohammed Omar, predicts imminent victory for the Taliban as more foreign troops leave. The letter promises moderates that the Taliban will not seek to monopolize power.
The New York Times, Astronauts May Have to Abandon Space Station: Six astronauts, including two Americans, will have to abandon the International Space Station, if rocket engine problems that doomed a Russian cargo ship last week are not fixed. So far, the $100 billion space station has been continuously occupied for a decade.
Campaign 2012
Romney: The Washington Post‘s Marc Thiessen previews former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s plan to thwart Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s rise and it sounds a lot like how the Democratic National Committee is attacking Perry: “Look at what happened to Paul Ryan when he proposed a plan to save Medicare, they say. Romney’s campaign will argue that Perry is against the very idea of Social Security and Medicare, and that he will use Perry’s book to scare seniors in early-primary states with large retiree populations, such as Florida and South Carolina.”
Righty Playbook
Walter Russell Mead reads Jeffrey Toobin’s New Yorker profile of Justice Clarence Thomas and pronounces Thomas to be “the Frodo Baggins of the right.” Mead explains: “His lonely and obscure struggle has led him to the point from which he may be able to overthrow the entire edifice of the modern progressive state.”
The Weekly Standard‘s Bill Kristol links to news that New Mexico Gov. Susan Martinez got a perfect score on her concealed-carry permit renewal and wonders if she wouldn’t be the perfect fit for a Perry-Martinez ticket.
The Washington Examiner‘s Mark Tapscott argues that if demographics are destiny, 2012 could be big for Republicans.
Lefty Playbook
The New Republic‘s Jonathan Cohn defends one of the regulations, the Cross State Air Pollution Rule, on House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s, R-Va., chopping block.
Mother Jones‘ Nick Baumann makes a graphical case that Social Security is not the Ponzi scheme that Texas Gov. Rick Perry says it is.
The Washington Post‘s Sarah Kliff reviews state-by-state Obamacare implementation.
