Letter from Congressman McClintock

       Dear Friends,

    Politicians from both parties in Washington are filling the Hurricane Sandy Emergency Relief bills with billions of dollars of pork--spending that has nothing to do with hurricane relief.

    The bills before the House amount to $50 billion - that averages about $450 from every household in this country.

   How much of that is actually providing emergency repairs for the storm damage?

    There's $2 billion for highway repairs anywhere in the country, including American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands that aren't even in the same ocean as Hurricane Sandy.

    $16 billion (about $150 for your family) goes to quintuple the same sluch fund that paid for such projects as a "Doggie Day Care Center" in Ohio and a "Day at the Circus" for Nyack, New York.

    There's $111 million for weather satellites. How can a weather satellite possibly be damaged by a hurricane?

    About $6 billion is for future public transit programs entirely unrelated to any storm damage.

    Of the $50 billion, only $4 billion is to be spent this year. More than 90% is for future years. We're just starting the 2014 budget process and spending that they admit they can't use this year ought to be given the scrutiny of the normal reviews and not pushed through as "emergency relief".

    Hurricane victims are hurt - not helped - when legitimate emergency relief is used as camouflage for billions of dollars of pork barrel spending.

    Regards,

    Congressman Tom McClintock