Sandy Relief Slowed by Pork

Many of those provisions listed aren't of primary concern or relevance to Hurricane Sandy relief in terms of the destruction on shore communities in New Jersey and New York. The Secret Service for one doesn't provide immediate relief to Sandy victims. I mean stuff like National Park service, in lieu of people who are looking for practical provisions such as insurance or for re-engineering water works for cities and towns takes precedence her over the DEA or FBI who lost "office equipment" and "furniture." Sandy didn't particularly rip through New York City, I mean what I saw of 30th and Broadway to 42nd and Wall Street indicated that the major city areas were relatively unscathed. And I haven't seen any information citing that governmental agencies had these problems where Sandy tore through their buildings and flung off furniture from inside the building to the outside. Note that $15 million is being used for construction of NASA facilities, the sand berms is tacked on almost like an after thought.

Also the most detailed listing that is provided is $1 million for the DEA to replace 15 vehicles and equipment. I mean seriously, what are they driving, Mercedes Benz E-Class? Because even if you presume that the D.E.A. is driving around in top class luxury cars which are priced around $50,000 a vehicle, you still come up with $750,000 for funds leaving $250,000 for equipment. Which begs to question, how does $250,000 worth in equipment get lost by Sandy? Did they seriously leave 15 $50,000 vehicles with $250,000 worth of outfitted equipment in the middle of the storm because they were trying to do their civic duty as... drug enforcement agents?

It's really totally preposterous. A 2010 Hummer H3 maxes out at $40,000 being generous. And they are not the sort of car that you lose or have to completely ditch due to a hurricane. Much less if you do have equipment in there, at the very least it should be safe, unless you had that thing parked right on the coast for whatever unimaginable reason possible. It's not that there love isn't given to these agencies, it's that these agencies aren't being candid with the provisions they have lost due to Sandy yet expect millions of dollars from relief aid by earmarks instead of requesting it from the government outright.

>and equipment
you honestly have no idea how expensive replacing all that kit is. it's not the vehicle thats expensive, it's the fancy pomegranate in it. and that's not including replacing all the expensive computer equipment they lost to the storm.