Congress approved $20 billion for FEMA's disaster relief fund as Hurricane Helene was heading toward Florida.

As Hurricane Helene careened toward Florida’s Panhandle, numerous Republicans voted against extending funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Last week, Congress approved $20 billion for FEMA’s disaster relief fund as part of a stopgap spending bill to fund the government through December 20. But the measure left out billions of dollars in requested supplemental disaster funding.

The Senate approved the measure by a 78-18 vote on September 25 after it passed the House in a 341-82 vote. Republicans supplied the no votes in both chambers.

Some of the Republicans who voted against the bill represent states that have been hard hit by Helene, including Florida Representative Matt Gaetz.

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  • nooneescapesthelaw
    424·
    1 month ago

    The reason they voted against it is because alot of other things where bundled in the bill. Congress should put forth a bill for FEMA funding only so that they could help people

    • Doxatek
      15·
      1 month ago

      Not necessarily about this bill in particular but I hate the bill bundling bullshit in general. Sometimes the bill appears to be about something I care about but in the bill is a ton of irrelevant stuff that sometimes I absolutely hate. I wish this wasn’t able to work like this it’s deceptive on purpose

      • nooneescapesthelaw
        3·
        1 month ago

        Agreed, especially because lobbyists will get shit that otherwise wouldn’t pass to be bundled in the bill. One example is the infrastructure bill and all the non-infrastructure related stuff they put in there

    • auzy@lemmy.world
      141·
      1 month ago

      Be more specific

      What was bundled with it specifically that was bad?

      I’m willing to bet the bundling of other items (If any) were relevant items

      • nooneescapesthelaw
        1·
        1 month ago

        It was mainly more money for Ukraine, but now they’re saying stuff about FEMA spending money on illegal migrants or something along those lines (which is not true)

    • eskimofry@lemm.ee
      5·
      1 month ago

      Nice try. But no.

      I bet that the amount of singular bills getting passed through both the house and senate that has spent money on helping common citizens is close to nil in the past decade.

      There is no scenario in which what you describe is the reasoning for the bill getting voted against, especially by republicans.

      You’re reasoning feels like gymnastics to make republicans look good as you don’t have an easy argument to make.

      • Aermis@lemmy.world
        41·
        1 month ago

        They bundle things into bills all the time to make the other side vote on them or look like the bad guy, by using the American citizen as hostage. I wonder why so little bills passed on helping the common man. I’m not taking the Republicans side here but it’s not black and white. Everyone’s reply to the concept of why the Republicans blocked it has been doubt, and it seems the “only” plausible explanation is that they’re all being petty and want to blame democrats for the failed FEMA response.

    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2·
      1 month ago

      wait until you figure out that literally every funding bill for everything has earmarked funding in basically every category.

      It’s also not uncommon to push through a large monolithic funding bill since it’s simply easier than managing like 12 different pieces of legislation instead.