The House of Representatives failed to pass on Thursday a plan to provide funds for medical treatment for rescue workers and residents of New York City who are ill after being exposed to the toxic dust and debris at ground zero following the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. An organized effort by House Republicans shot it down.
Some wildland firefighters were exposed to the toxic materials when they were serving on Incident Management Teams that were assigned to the disaster.
Here is a very entertaining video that shows Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) ripping into a Republican who indicated that he would vote no. It is believed that Weiner was yelling at Rep. Pete King (R-NY) who said he would vote against the bill for procedural reasons.
FirefighterCloseCalls has an excellent report on this shameful lack of support for our felow firefighters.
Here is a record of how your Representative voted. A two-thirds vote was required for approval.
U. S. Representative Denny Rehberg, who is suing the Billings, MT fire department over a fire that burned some of his undeveloped land, voted against the bill.
I expect this to be the silliest silly season we’ve seen in our lives.
I may be missing nuance, but I’m pretty sure this was 0% about firefighters and 100% about scoring political points on both sides.
The Democrats wanted to use the 2/3rds rule so they could embarrass the Republicans locally in NY metro. Remember that FDNY’s firefighters’ IAFF local endorsed Bush in ’04, and last year was the best showing of Republicans in the NYC suburbs in 15 years.
The Republicans wanted to use the simple majority rule so they could introduce amendments that would force Democrats to take votes that could be used against them in competitive districts nationwide (like voting for benefits for illegal aliens).
Expect this nonsense on every bill between now and the first Tuesday in November.
A “shameful lack of support for our felow firefighters?” Actually they didn’t do it for the FF on the 1st attack on the Towers, or for cancer deaths for Wildlanders or toxic exposure for Haz Mat. So I get not giving it for one event. To not give it to all others that are LODD is “shameful.”