GOP generosity
by digby
This makes shockingly good sense:
Late Monday, Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee outlined their $48.3 billion package, including over $3 billion for refugee accounts. And Senate Democrats are expected to provide in the same range when they mark up their version of the annual appropriations bill on Tuesday.
In his own 2015 budget in March, President Barack Obama requested just $2 billion for refugee assistance — a one-third cut from what had been enacted in January for 2014. But the Appropriations leadership is clearly uncomfortable with this approach and wants more available, given Syria’s bloody civil war and the spreading turmoil in Iraq.
Personally, I think we should appropriate far more to refugee aid (and take the money from unnecessary military spending) but it's good to see that the Republicans aren't so selfishly insane that instead of cutting these funds they are at least keeping the appropriations at the same level they are today.
But like a lot of Americans I can't help thinking that while we must help these refugees we could at least have extended unemployment benefits for Americans too. It's not that they are in as dire a situation as refugees, but the fact is that this wealthy, prosperous nation can walk and chew gum at the same time. If it wants to. It just doesn't.
I'll be surprised if this doesn't bubble up on hate radio. If there's one thing the far right really hates it's foreign aid of any kind. Just look at what they're saying about those poor little kids who are coming over our border. At the very least they're going to demand to pick the "winners and losers" of the refugee lottery. They are very picky about which human beings are worthy of being allowed to live.
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