The Week in Review -- September 23, 2011
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In this week's Carson Courier:
- The Week in Review
Over the past year, we have had record flooding on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers and other rivers in the Midwest, devastating tornados in the South and Midwest, wildfires in the South and West, earthquakes in Virginia, and Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee. These disasters have caused billions of dollars in damage and impacted millions of Americans.
This week, Republican leadership in the House pushed through the Continuing Appropriations Act, which offset increases in spending for disaster relief with reductions in spending on the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing loan program. This program has already produced up to 42,000 good-paying American jobs and cleaner American cars. The cuts proposed to this program can have a significant impact in Indiana as well. In Connersville, Indiana, Carbon Motors has begun refurbishing and cleaning-up a shuttered and contaminated automotive plant with the potential to bring 1,550 new direct jobs, 500 collocated supplier jobs, and 8,000 indirect jobs — creating over 10,000 new green American jobs of national importance in a region experiencing double-digit unemployment rates.
These Natural disasters are an emergency that have taken everything away from countless Americans. Funding to help them rebuild their homes and their communities should not be used to score political points. At this time of high unemployment, it is irresponsible to reduce funding for a program that will help to produce the next generation of fuel-efficient automobiles and create thousands of high paying American jobs. Both the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers oppose this cut.
Families across the country have endured hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and wildfires. In these times of crisis, it is our responsibility in Congress to support local communities and aid in their recovery. The Senate responsibly provided emergency disaster relief in a year of record number of disasters without making unprecedented and harmful cuts that could jeopardize American jobs and delay aid. As we have seen this year, disasters can strike anywhere in the country, and House Republicans are setting a dangerous precedent by requiring that disaster aid be offset, especially when Americans are struggling to rebuild their homes, businesses, and communities. Disaster aid has traditionally been a bipartisan issue, as lawmakers from both parties have historically agreed to provide emergency funds for disaster victims without offsets. Eight times under George Bush we responded to hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, other disasters, fires, and we did so by emergency funding. The Republicans supported President Bush's requests; they ought to support President Obama's request.
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