Christie to Congress: Send Help Now

Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie criticized U.S. lawmakers for stalling on the delivery of desperately needed federal aid to parts of his state that remain under floodwaters from Hurricane Irene, reports Mediaite.com.

“We don’t have time to wait for folks in Congress to figure out how they want to offset this stuff with other budget cuts,” Christie said during a joint press conference with Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano. “Our people are suffering now, and they need support now. [Congress] can go down there and get back to work and figure out the budget cuts later.”

The office of Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., had previously stressed the importance of trimming other parts of the budget to make room for Irene relief because of shortages in FEMA’s budget.

“You’re going to turn it into a fiasco like that debt-limit thing where you’re fighting with each other for eight or nine weeks, and you expect the citizens of my state to wait?” said Christie, who referred to the situation as being neither a “Republican or a Democratic issue.”

“They’re not gonna wait, and I’m going to fight to make sure that they don’t. I don’t want to hear about the fact that offsetting budget cuts have to come first before New Jersey citizens are taken care of.”