Republican Jackass of the Week

As I posted on The Facebook earlier this week:

Horrific destruction in Oklahoma. Should we send billions in aid? Without a doubt.
But let's remember that when the same aid was needed in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the two rightwing Teabagger Jackasses from Oklahoma (Sen Tom Coburn and Sen Jim Inhofe) voted NO.

Now Coburn is firing back at everyone who criticized him for demanding that emergency funding should be offset with equal spending cuts somewhere else. He says there's no need for emergency funding, which tends to attract unnecessary "pork" benefiting unrelated issues in other states, since the money is already available in a separate account.

Congress did indeed budget about $18 billion for disasters in 2013. But Coburn had nothing to do with it. The House and Senate funded that amount to FEMA for emergencies without any strings -- or offsets -- attached. Coburn voted against that. And he voted against disaster aid to Hurricane Sandy victims. And he claims he wants offsets for the money that his own state gets.

He can make all these grandiose claims to pander to the far rightwing Teabaggers who elected him. But it doesn't matter. The House and Senate have already set aside that money for just such emergencies with no offsets needed.

So this phony gets the best of both worlds: saying no but getting truckloads of federal money for his state.

Senator Tom Coburn: our Regressive Republican Jackass of the Week. Oh, and a big fat hypocrite.