White House vows quick action as Harvey
aid estimates soar
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[September 01, 2017]
By Susan Cornwell and David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Estimates of the
size of a Hurricane Harvey aid package for Texas and Louisiana rose on
Thursday, with one proposal being drafted for $150 billion, while the
White House promised to make a request for funding soon to Congress.
The Trump administration will make a request to the U.S. Congress
shortly for funds to help recovery efforts from Harvey, which caused
devastating flooding, White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert
said.
He told reporters that an aid funding request will likely come in stages
as more is known about the storm's impact.
Trump has prepared a request to Congress for an initial $5.9 billion in
aid, an administration official said.
U.S. taxpayers are likely to face a bill for Harvey near the $110.2
billion for 2005's Hurricane Katrina. Estimates on the amount of the
Harvey aid varied widely.
Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat from Houston, was crafting
legislation for $150 billion in emergency funding through nearly
two-dozen government agencies and departments.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on Wednesday the state could need more
than $125 billion.
Figures of $50 billion to $80 billion were cited by Republican
Representatives Pete Sessions of Texas and Leonard Lance of New Jersey
on Fox Business Network.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster relief fund had only
$3.3 billion when the storm struck.
A Republican leadership source said Congress was expected to consider
and vote on an initial allocation of Harvey aid in the first half of
September.
IMPACT ON BROADER GOVERNMENT FUNDING ISSUE
The urgency of aiding areas hit by Harvey may also complicate a broader
fiscal policy showdown that is coming in late September.
When Harvey plowed into the Texas coast this week, Congress and
President Donald Trump were already struggling to deal with the debt
ceiling, which is a cap on how much money the federal government can
borrow, and the need to approve a temporary federal budget bill by Oct.
1 to prevent a government shutdown.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told broadcaster CNBC on Thursday that
the impact of Hurricane Harvey spending could bring forward the deadline
by which the nation's debt ceiling needs to be raised by "a couple of
days." He repeated that the limit needs to be raised by Sept. 29
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White House Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert speaks about the
situation in Texas, after Hurricane Harvey, during a news briefing
at the White House in Washington, U.S., August 31, 2017.
REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
Financial markets have been anxious about the possibility of the
debt ceiling not being raised, which could cause a U.S. credit
default and send economic shockwaves worldwide.
A Trump administration official and a prominent House of
Representatives conservative both said on Thursday that hurricane
aid funding should not be tied to the debt limit.
Bossert said the administration wants a "clean" disaster relief
supplemental measure, free of unrelated measures, including any
effort to raise the federal debt ceiling.
Representative Mark Meadows, the Republican chairman of the
conservative House Freedom Caucus, told the Washington Post that
attaching Harvey aid to a debt-ceiling increase would be a “terrible
idea ... conflating two very different issues.”
Meadows told the Post, "We’re going to fund Harvey relief without a
doubt, but I think it just sends the wrong message when you start
attaching it to the debt ceiling.”
That left open the possibility that the aid package could be linked
to a broad, short-term budget measure that must pass by Oct. 1 to
prevent a government shutdown.
The prospect of that linkage was seen as making a government
shutdown less likely because of the urgency of getting aid to
hurricane-hit areas, and that has been reassuring to financial
markets.
Asked if there was still a chance of a shutdown, House tax committee
Chairman Kevin Brady told Fox News Channel on Thursday, "We are
going to keep this government open, we are going to pay our debts on
time."
(Additional reporting by Eric Beech and Makini Brice; Editing by
Kevin Drawbaugh and Cynthia Osterman)
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