A 9/11 memorial service in New York City on September 11, 2023
December 24, 2024
ALTERNET
The United States avoided a federal government shutdown when President Joe Biden, on December 21, signed into law a three-month stopgap spending bill that had passed in both houses of Congress.
One of the things the bill didn't include was funding for 9/11 first-responders, much to the disappointment of some New York City firefighters.
NY1.com's Noorulain Khawaja reports, "The stopgap bill passed to avoid a government shutdown did not include funding for those suffering from 9/11-related illnesses…. The bill was expected to fund the World Trade Center Health Program through 2040. Currently, the program is only fully funded through 2027."
READ MORE: Trump adviser on plot to take Greenland: 'We have not expanded our country in 70 years'
Khawaja quotes Andrew Ansbro, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York, as saying, "It's not a New York problem, it's America’s problem."
Jim Brosi, president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association, told NY1, "It is unfathomable that these people will not take the responsibility to fund this…. The fact that we keep asking for repeated funding because people keep getting sick, it's disingenuous and it’s very disappointing; 35,000 people that currently have cancer deserve treatment. They shouldn't be worried whether a facility will close, whether they will not receive authorization, or whether or not they will be overwhelmed by medical bills because the government failed to do what they promised to do."
This wasn't the first time firefighters expressed their disappointment with elected officials.
In early October, the International Association of Fire Fighters announced that it would not be making an endorsement in the United States' 2024 presidential race. Although the union endorsed Joe Biden in 2020, it didn't endorse either Democrat Kamala Harris or Republican Donald Trump this year.
READ MORE: 'Never mentioned it once!' Dem says Trump demand came after 'someone wrote him a check'
According to New York Times reporters Lisa Friedman and Maggie Haberman, Elon Musk — the billionaire CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and X, formerly Twitter — is one of the reasons the stopgap bill that Biden signed into law didn't include additional funding for 9/11 first-responders.
Brosi, Friedman and Haberman report, visited Washington, D.C. to "personally thank" House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) for including 9/11 first-responders in a spending bill. That bill, however, didn't pass.
"By day's end on Wednesday, (December 18)," the Times reporters explain, "President-elect Donald J. Trump and Elon Musk, the world's richest man, had scuttled the bill with their criticism that it was bloated and failed to deliver on Mr. Trump's priorities. After a tumultuous standoff, the House and Senate finally approved stripped-down legislation at the end of the week to avert a government shutdown — without providing money for the health fund. Mr. Brosi said he was crushed."
Brosi told the Times, "Obviously we are not against smarter spending, and we're not against cutting wasteful spending. What we are against is universal killing of a bill without looking deeper into individual parts of it that have merit and are not wasteful spending."
The United States avoided a federal government shutdown when President Joe Biden, on December 21, signed into law a three-month stopgap spending bill that had passed in both houses of Congress.
One of the things the bill didn't include was funding for 9/11 first-responders, much to the disappointment of some New York City firefighters.
NY1.com's Noorulain Khawaja reports, "The stopgap bill passed to avoid a government shutdown did not include funding for those suffering from 9/11-related illnesses…. The bill was expected to fund the World Trade Center Health Program through 2040. Currently, the program is only fully funded through 2027."
READ MORE: Trump adviser on plot to take Greenland: 'We have not expanded our country in 70 years'
Khawaja quotes Andrew Ansbro, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York, as saying, "It's not a New York problem, it's America’s problem."
Jim Brosi, president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association, told NY1, "It is unfathomable that these people will not take the responsibility to fund this…. The fact that we keep asking for repeated funding because people keep getting sick, it's disingenuous and it’s very disappointing; 35,000 people that currently have cancer deserve treatment. They shouldn't be worried whether a facility will close, whether they will not receive authorization, or whether or not they will be overwhelmed by medical bills because the government failed to do what they promised to do."
This wasn't the first time firefighters expressed their disappointment with elected officials.
In early October, the International Association of Fire Fighters announced that it would not be making an endorsement in the United States' 2024 presidential race. Although the union endorsed Joe Biden in 2020, it didn't endorse either Democrat Kamala Harris or Republican Donald Trump this year.
READ MORE: 'Never mentioned it once!' Dem says Trump demand came after 'someone wrote him a check'
According to New York Times reporters Lisa Friedman and Maggie Haberman, Elon Musk — the billionaire CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and X, formerly Twitter — is one of the reasons the stopgap bill that Biden signed into law didn't include additional funding for 9/11 first-responders.
Brosi, Friedman and Haberman report, visited Washington, D.C. to "personally thank" House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) for including 9/11 first-responders in a spending bill. That bill, however, didn't pass.
"By day's end on Wednesday, (December 18)," the Times reporters explain, "President-elect Donald J. Trump and Elon Musk, the world's richest man, had scuttled the bill with their criticism that it was bloated and failed to deliver on Mr. Trump's priorities. After a tumultuous standoff, the House and Senate finally approved stripped-down legislation at the end of the week to avert a government shutdown — without providing money for the health fund. Mr. Brosi said he was crushed."
Brosi told the Times, "Obviously we are not against smarter spending, and we're not against cutting wasteful spending. What we are against is universal killing of a bill without looking deeper into individual parts of it that have merit and are not wasteful spending."
'True Ebenezer Scrooge stuff:' Final spending bill leaves SNAP beneficiaries open to theft
Photo by Scott Warman on Unsplash
Photo by Scott Warman on Unsplash
December 25, 2024
Congressional budget watchers concerned with food insecurity are lamenting the loss of a provision impacting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in the final spending deal Congress passed Saturday, which very narrowly averted a government shutdown. The measure is a continuing resolution that will keep the government funded through mid-March at current levels, and includes funding for a few select priorities, like disaster relief.
The final bill did not extend protections for victims of SNAP benefit theft after it was axed from an original spending deal — a move that Bobby Kogan, the senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, called "true Ebenezer Scrooge stuff." Kogan laid blame at the feet of billionaire Elon Musk, who whipped up opposition to the earlier, bipartisan version of the spending deal.
Under the original deal, the SNAP benefit theft protections would have been continued for another four years, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
SNAP benefits, a far-reaching social program that helps low-income Americans buy groceries, is vulnerable to theft through "skimming" — a practice where thieves can take advantage of the relatively low security on SNAP EBT cards by hiding devices in payment machines that allow them to clone card information, including users' PINs.
"Today, I'm thinking about the low-income families across the country who are about to discover that the SNAP benefits they were counting on to buy groceries were stolen after 11:59 pm last night—and who no longer have a way to get those benefits replaced because of this decision," wrote Katie Bergh, senior policy analyst on the food assistance team at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, on Saturday.
Congress approved federal funding for states to reimburse the stolen benefits in 2022. A couple of states reinstate skimmed SNAP funds using state money, according to NBC. Federal funds have so far replaced $53.5 million in stolen SNAP benefits, a dollar amount that has impacted 115,596 households, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
"Ending the process to replace stolen benefits for victims will also make it more difficult to track and stop the individuals behind these crimes, because fewer people will report the crime," wrote Ty Jones Cox, vice president for food assistance at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, in a statement Monday.
Cox said that omitting this protection will lessen SNAP benefits by roughly $1.5 billion over the next ten years, citing Congressional Budget Office estimates.
Congressional budget watchers concerned with food insecurity are lamenting the loss of a provision impacting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in the final spending deal Congress passed Saturday, which very narrowly averted a government shutdown. The measure is a continuing resolution that will keep the government funded through mid-March at current levels, and includes funding for a few select priorities, like disaster relief.
The final bill did not extend protections for victims of SNAP benefit theft after it was axed from an original spending deal — a move that Bobby Kogan, the senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, called "true Ebenezer Scrooge stuff." Kogan laid blame at the feet of billionaire Elon Musk, who whipped up opposition to the earlier, bipartisan version of the spending deal.
Under the original deal, the SNAP benefit theft protections would have been continued for another four years, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
SNAP benefits, a far-reaching social program that helps low-income Americans buy groceries, is vulnerable to theft through "skimming" — a practice where thieves can take advantage of the relatively low security on SNAP EBT cards by hiding devices in payment machines that allow them to clone card information, including users' PINs.
"Today, I'm thinking about the low-income families across the country who are about to discover that the SNAP benefits they were counting on to buy groceries were stolen after 11:59 pm last night—and who no longer have a way to get those benefits replaced because of this decision," wrote Katie Bergh, senior policy analyst on the food assistance team at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, on Saturday.
Congress approved federal funding for states to reimburse the stolen benefits in 2022. A couple of states reinstate skimmed SNAP funds using state money, according to NBC. Federal funds have so far replaced $53.5 million in stolen SNAP benefits, a dollar amount that has impacted 115,596 households, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
"Ending the process to replace stolen benefits for victims will also make it more difficult to track and stop the individuals behind these crimes, because fewer people will report the crime," wrote Ty Jones Cox, vice president for food assistance at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, in a statement Monday.
Cox said that omitting this protection will lessen SNAP benefits by roughly $1.5 billion over the next ten years, citing Congressional Budget Office estimates.
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