THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Big deal! You have a president who historically avoids paying people whenever possible so don't expect any help from the government. The House is ready and willing to fund the necessary relief but it is all waiting behind some asshole's wall demands.

Disaster recovery funds for victims of California’s wildfires and other natural disasters has emerged as a bargaining chip in the battle to build President Donald Trump’s border wall.

Members of Congress formally launched negotiations Wednesday on a spending deal to keep the government from shutting down against on Feb. 15, a discussion that hinges on Trump’s demand for $5.7 billion to build a wall — “or Physical Barrier,” as he tweeted Wednesday — on the southern border with Mexico.

But other less-controversial government funding is also tied up in the discussions, including as much as $14 billion for communities in California, North Carolina, Florida and Puerto Rico that have been pummeled by fires, flooding and hurricanes in the past two years.

“In the next 16 days, our task is clear: finalizing appropriations legislation that responsibly funds much of the federal government,” House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey of New York said in her opening remarks at the meeting to resolve the spending impasse. “We are very close to agreement on the other six appropriations bills,” aside from homeland security spending, Lowey said.

The House has twice passed disaster aid funding bills, once in December, when the chamber was controlled by Republicans, and once in January under Democratic control. The funding would go to government agencies like FEMA, the Federal Highway Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help communities rebuild from disasters, as well as funding for the U.S. Forest Service and Army Corps of Engineers to help prevent future fires and flooding. The Senate, however, has not passed its own disaster legislation.

California, alone, requested more than $9 billion for wildfire recovery in November to help with tasks like debris removal and rebuilding homes, schools and roads destroyed by the fires in Butte County and Southern California last year.

Aides in both chambers say the best hope for passing disaster aid is to tack the recovery money onto any spending deal that’s reached on homeland security, including money for a border wall or barrier.

Washington just emerged from its longest shutdown in history, which closed roughly a quarter of federal government from Dec. 22 to Jan. 25. President Trump finally agreed to sign short-term funding legislation that reopened the shuttered agencies for three weeks, while convening a congressional committee to hash out a deal on border security funds. Members of Congress from affected states are arguing the stalled disaster relief legislation needs to also be part of those discussions.

“I think there’s good consensus on both sides among my California colleagues” to move the disaster aid funding as part of the broader spending package, said Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa, whose Northern California district includes the town of Paradise and other communities devastated by the 2018 Camp Fire, the most deadly in state history.

That fucking wall is a real dog in the manger and don't even ask about the balding stooge who is making it so.