New Jersey representatives fought hard to enure the House approved the Hurricane Sandy relief aid package. Congressman Rob Andrews (D-1st Dist.) told NJ Today Senior Correspondent Desirée Taylor that he hopes the measures will be approved by President Barack Obama by the first week of February.
Andrews said the Democrats knew that most House Republicans would be opposed to the measure. “I give credit to our governor and our New Jersey congressional Republicans who worked very hard to bring as many of their colleagues along as we could in favor of Rodney Freylinghuysen’s amendment,” he said. “They got I think 38 people in the Republican Party for it. We got 191 Democrats and that was the combination we needed to win.”
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While Andrews said he didn’t want to assume the motives of Congress members after being asked if the reluctance to support the aid package was a bias against the northeast, he said, “It’s the first time we’ve had a major disaster and people talked about finding ways to cut the budget to pay for it was when New Jersey and New York and Connecticut were hit. I don’t think that’s fair. As the governor said the other day, they picked the wrong state to try to start changing the rules on.”
Andrews pointed out that New Jersey has supported disaster measures for other states in their time of need, which is an appropriate use of federal dollars.
“Government sometimes has to play a constructive role and one of those times is now when we’ve had a devastating storm that has crippled an economic engine that provides, by the way, 15 percent of the taxes paid to the United States of America,” Andrews said. “New Jersey, New York and Connecticut pay more than 15 percent of all the taxes collected in the country and the economic engine generating those taxes was crippled and needs to be fixed.”
While many have said the Senate is likely to pass the relief package and send it to the president, Andrews said he won’t assume passage until he sees the vote. “But I’m hoping the whole process will be on the president’s desk in the first couple weeks of February at the latest, maybe here in January,” he said. “It would be great to have it done by the end of the month.”
Andrews said he believes the House will support President Obama’s gun control initiatives.
“I think the House will support a proposal that says no one should be able to buy a gun if they’re a felon or dangerous person. Everybody should have a background check. And I don’t think there’s any reason in this country for someone to be able to own a gun that can fire 30 bullets in 30 seconds,” he said. “I think the president’s on the right track and I’m going to support him.”