Sandy, Oklahoma and Disaster Relief: Some Will Lose No Matter What Happens

It must be very uncomfortable in Congress right now. Imagine that just a few months ago some Representatives and Senators either voted against relief for Hurricane Sandy or insisted on offset cuts for disaster relief. Now in the wake of Oklahoma, where possibly the worst tornado ever recorded destroyed countless building,homes and lives, these same people will have to appropriate funding for Oklahoma.
Now, if they vote yes with no offsets or other attachments for Oklahoma, it will be used against them as being more partial to Oklahoma than New Jersey and New York, infuriating those two states, and rightfully so. After all, how can disaster relief be easier for one state to get than another?
On the other hand, these same members may choose to follow the same tactic and insist on disaster relief to be scaled back or tied to offsets causing needless and harmful delays in people and towns receiving the assistance they need to rebuild. This will cause incredible outrage amongst Americans.
This would be nothing new in today’s “no budge” political climate except for one thing that I am sure has these congressmen and women squirming in their seats a little bit. Midterms.
Next year many of these members and many other seats will come up for re-election and the members of Congress that chose to hinder disaster relief for Sandy victims are in an unenviable position. They are literally damned if they do, damned if they don’t. Natural disasters have a horrible way of coming at bad times, and no worse time than now because these elected officials have to answer for whatever they choose. They will either deny or attempt to deny disaster aid or they won’t. Regardless they will anger and alienate either one large group or another.
This is not something that will fade from peoples minds when the midterm elections arrive, in fact, it will be close to that time that the disaster aid should be starting to flow. If the money is delayed, anger and frustration will be rampant but unlike New Jersey and New York, Oklahoma is a Republican state and many members that made disaster relief difficult for Sandy were Republicans.
For those members right now it will be interesting to see if they are willing to play politics a second time with disaster aid.
Whether they do or not, fiscally conservative Karma has come back and there will be some back sides that get bit.