Ted Cruz's claim that two-thirds of the Hurricane Sandy bill 'had nothing to do with Sandy'

Source: Washington Post

Ted Cruz’s claim that two-thirds of the Hurricane Sandy bill ‘had nothing to do with Sandy’

By Glenn Kessler August 29 at 3:00 AM

“The problem with that particular bill is it became a $50 billion bill that was filled with unrelated pork. Two-thirds of that bill had nothing to do with Sandy.”
— Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), interview with NBC’s Katy Tur, Aug. 28, 2017

Hypocrisy watch! Now that Houston and much of southeastern Texas is swamped by Hurricane Harvey, critics (including Northeastern lawmakers) have complained that Texas senators and members of Congress are seeking emergency federal aid but refused to back relief for the victims of Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

The defense, as shown in the quote above by Cruz, is that the Sandy legislation was a bad bill, filled with pork-barrel projects. A similar defense is indicated by a spokesman for Cruz’s colleague, Sen. John Cronyn (R) — that he did vote for Sandy aid, just not the bad bill that was signed into law.

-snip-

The Pinocchio Test

Cruz is repeating a number of myths about the funding for Sandy disaster relief. The vast majority of the spending was for Hurricane Sandy, including elements (such as Smithsonian repairs) that some lawmakers incorrectly believed were unrelated to the storm. The slow rate of projected spending that Cruz had criticized at the time was actually based on how quickly the government had spent funds after previous major storms.

As we noted, we suspect Cruz misspoke about the “two-thirds.” Still, it is wildly incorrect to claim that the bill was “filled with unrelated pork.” The bill was largely aimed at dealing with Sandy, along with relatively minor items to address other or future disasters. He earns Three Pinocchios.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/08/29/ted-cruzs-claim-that-two-thirds-of-the-hurricane-sandy-bill-had-nothing-to-do-with-sandy/