Democrats in Colorado have been trying to use the fear of a government shutdown effectively shutting down the Colorado flood relief efforts. But both Vice President Joe Biden and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have promised a shut down would not affect those efforts.
As the Huffington Post reported during Biden’s visit to Colorado last week:
Vice President Joe Biden assured Colorado flood victims on Monday that the looming government shutdown would not cause them to lose federal aid.
During a visit to a Federal Emergency Management Agency resource center in Greeley, Colo., Biden promised cuts would not be made to such resource centers as a result of the “dysfunction of Congress.”
“I don’t want folks that are here in shelters or watching on TV seeing the dysfunction of Congress and thinking that all the relief efforts that they’re now betting from … are going to shut down,” Biden told flood victims. “They will not shut down, even if the Congress doesn’t fund the federal government.
Three days later, a FEMA spokesman told the Washington Post essentially the same thing:
“The response in Colorado will not be impacted by a government shutdown and we won’t see an impact to the individual assistance being provided to disaster survivors,” [FEMA spokesman Dan] Watson said.
One report found that a Utah National Guard unit was delaying their response to the flood because of a possible government shutdown, but that doesn’t have to happen. Obama’s Defense Department can make sure that Guard units don’t skip a beat on flood recovery, the Washington Post notes:
A planning document [pdf] the Pentagon drew up in advance of the possible government shutdown in October 2011 said National Guard duties would be terminated unless the Secretary of Defense approves those duties.
No, a government shutdown will not shut the flood recovery efforts down. It’s nothing more than brinksmanship BS.
That is a surprise!!