President (To Win Colorado) See Full Big Line

(D) Joe Biden*

(R) Donald Trump

80%

20%↓

CO-01 (Denver) See Full Big Line

(D) Diana DeGette*

90%

CO-02 (Boulder-ish) See Full Big Line

(D) Joe Neguse*

90%

CO-03 (West & Southern CO) See Full Big Line

(D) Adam Frisch

(R) Jeff Hurd

(R) Ron Hanks

40%

30%

20%

CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado) See Full Big Line

(R) Lauren Boebert

(R) J. Sonnenberg

(R) Ted Harvey

20%↑

15%↑

10%

CO-05 (Colorado Springs) See Full Big Line

(R) Dave Williams

(R) Jeff Crank

(R) Doug Bruce

20%

20%

20%

CO-06 (Aurora) See Full Big Line

(D) Jason Crow*

90%

CO-07 (Jefferson County) See Full Big Line

(D) Brittany Pettersen

85%↑

 

CO-08 (Northern Colo.) See Full Big Line

(D) Yadira Caraveo

(R) Gabe Evans

(R) Janak Joshi

60%↑

40%↑

20%↑

State Senate Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

80%

20%

State House Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

95%

5%

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
September 25, 2013 08:27 AM UTC

Shutdown Fears Impacting Flood Relief After All

  • 7 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

Earlier this week, Vice President Joe Biden traveled to Colorado to survey flood damage, and promised in a news conference Monday that any potential shutdown of the federal government would not impact federal response efforts to this month's devastating floods along the Front Range. The potential of a shutdown looms larger each day as the GOP-engineered impasse over "defunding Obamacare" drags on towards next Monday's deadline.

utahng

And as the Denver Post's Allison Sherry reports today, Biden was not quite right in that promise:

A group of 120 Utah National Guard engineers has been told to wait a week to help rebuild U.S. 36 between Estes Park and Lyons because of the gridlock surrounding funding the federal government, Pentagon officials said Tuesday.

Instead of sending out a team this week to help Colorado active-duty troops already on the ground, Utah's Lt. Col. Hank McIntire said he will send out a smaller group of 50 to get equipment ready in hopes that Congress strikes a deal to keep the federal government open beyond next week.

"If there were no budget issues, the whole contingent would be going now," McIntire said. "We're doing what we can and what the budget allows us to do."

Clearly, Biden's interest was in reassuring nervous Colorado flood victims that help would continue to flow to them no matter what. We assume that Biden was referring specifically to recovery services provided through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which would likely be prioritized if there is a shutdown. But with an organization with as many moving parts as the United States federal government, it seems almost impossible to guarantee no disruptions to emergency services in the event of a government shutdown. There's just too many diverse functions of government that would be affected.

This announcement from the Utah National Guard yesterday prompted Colorado Democratic Party chairman Rick Palacio to renew his call for Republicans to stop "threatening to shutdown the government and halt critical flood-recovery efforts," despite Biden's statement that flood relief wouldn't be affected by a shutdown. Reading this story, the onus appears still very much on Republicans who appeared with Biden to keep his promise–and the only way we see to do that is to not allow the government to shut down at all.

Comments

7 thoughts on “Shutdown Fears Impacting Flood Relief After All

    1. Why? Democrats are holding the country hostage to protect Obamcare. Biden, Polis, and Perlmutter should explain themselves. 57% of Americans say pull the plug. Why are Democrats not listening?

      1. Why is the Senate voting today (Wednesday) instead of Monday? Because Republicans refused to hold the continuing resolution vote under what used to pass as regular Senate order.

        And who's talking about throwing in yet another change to the CR if the Senate passes it without defunding the ACA? Republicans in the House.

        Finally, what's one of the few things that will continue working if the government shuts down because there's no continuing resolution? Obamacare – it's largely funded by sources outside the general revenue stream.

    1. VP Biden has been known to chew on his foot now and again…

      In this case I'm guessing he was thinking about FEMA vs. the overall effort. I'm not sure, but FEMA might be funded with a block allocation of money that isn't all spent yet; if so, they'd have the money to continue their work.

      I do wonder if Utah was being subtle and trying to tell Congress to hurry it up with the spending bill. The National Guard would probably be "paid" like the rest of the troops in a shutdown situation – they'd be given IOUs for their pay and required to show up anyway – so their concern about the shutdown might be overblown.

Leave a Comment

Recent Comments


Posts about

Donald Trump
SEE MORE

Posts about

Rep. Lauren Boebert
SEE MORE

Posts about

Rep. Yadira Caraveo
SEE MORE

Posts about

Colorado House
SEE MORE

Posts about

Colorado Senate
SEE MORE

63 readers online now

Newsletter

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay in the loop with regular updates!