Last night through this morning, a string of deadly tornadoes ripped through 6 states across the Midwest and the Southeastern US— Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, and Tennessee. With each passing moment, the death toll has risen as emergency response teams dig through the rubble and destruction left behind by the mid-December storm systems.
Just in the state of Kentucky alone, at least 70 people are presumed dead from the catastrophic weather event, with officials such as Democratic Governor Andy Beshear estimating that the count could rise upwards of 100 as the KY National Guard and emergency response teams continue to work diligently.
And now Rand Paul wants help.
The Conservative Kentucky senator penned a pretty desperate letter to President Joe Biden today, pleading with the Biden White House for expedited federal relief aid to the victims of the 200+ mile deadly tornado that tore through his state last night and early this morning.
Stay up-to-date with the latest news!
Subscribe and start recieving our daily emails.
Now, I am the first to agree, as a born and bred Kentuckian myself, that the state absolutely, desperately needs the funding that Paul is asking for, and it’s the right thing for him to do, as a senator of the state, in requesting such from the President.
My issue here is the fact that Paul is proving once again that he’s a big, fat hypocrite, considering he’s downright infamous in Congress for voting “No” when pretty much anywhere else asks for the same sort of federal funding he finds himself requesting from the government now.
As a true, blue fiscal Conservative, when it comes to federal spending or aid of any kind, there’s very little that Rand Paul won’t slap with an uncompassionate, heartless, “NO.” In fact, it’s often seemed as those the Kentucky GOP Congressman damn near makes a hobby out of turning down much-needed federal disaster relief. At least, when the disaster isn’t affecting him, anyway.
Back in 2017, Paul’s name was one of just 17 senators that voted against an emergency $15.3 billion federal relief bill slated to help victims of Hurricane Harvey. The damages seen in Florida as a result of Hurricane Harvey were not much at all unlike what we’ve seen in Kentucky today. They just weren’t in Kentucky, so why would Rand Paul care, right?
And that’s far from the only disaster relief Paul has made a show out of resisting. In 2013, Rand Paul joined 31 of his fellow Republican senators who voted to shoot down the $50.5 billion relief aid package for Hurricane Sandy.
Even Paul’s first year in the Senate was riddled with his fiscal Conservative selfishness, joining 38 Republicans in 2011 to vote against a major FEMA funding package, in spite of the fact that his own Old Kentucky Home was the US’s largest recipient of FEMA funding ($293 million), mostly due to a severe ice storm in 2009.
Yet, none of his own histories seems to matter to Paul, when he wrote to President Biden today as if they were old friends.
“Last night and early this morning devastating storms swept across multiple states, including Kentucky. A single tornado from that system may have been on the ground for over 200 miles, and a large swath of the Commonwealth has been severely hit,” Rand’s letter to the President reads. “As the sun comes up this morning we will begin to understand the true scope of the devastation, but we already know of loss of life and severe property damage.”
“The governor of the Commonwealth has requested federal assistance this morning, and certainly further requests will be coming as the situation is assessed. I fully support those requests and ask that you move expeditiously to approve the appropriate resources for our state.”
It worth noting here that Rand was the ONLY senator in Congress to vote in favor of keeping the government’s purse strings closed up tight when it came to the Senate’s first coronavirus aid package.
His excuse for blatantly trying to screw the American people without an ounce of shame in his heart?
Congress never did what he wanted and made cuts to spending to offset the cost of any federal aid that wasn’t going to his state.
“This isn’t the first time we’ve had emergency money,” Pual very publicly whined on the heels of the passing of the first COVID-19 aid package. “This is probably the tenth time we’ve done emergency money in the past two or three years. So everything is an emergency.”
As a Kentuckian, I can tell you right where to shove it, Rand. All you gotta do is ask.
Featured image via Flickr/Gage Skidmore, under Creative Commons license 2.0
