No, I'm saying that the obvious right thing to do is for the agencies that they were working for to pay their benefits as they were promised. If there is something wrong with the New York Heath benefits for police and firemen, then New York should fix it, not pass it off to the federal government.
Sounds like their misplaced complaint is with their unions not congress. Each of them applied for their respective jobs with said unions and were made aware of their benefit packages and chose to work for them. So the union screws them and Jon Stewart finds a way to bash the GOP instead of the union leaders. GOP = Hate unions Unions = Hate their own workers but it's GOP's fault Thats what I got out of the clip.
Does anyone have any idea how many people they want to cover with this bill? Maybe these guys deserve special treatment due to the extraordinary circumstances of their illnesses, but we're talking about a 7.4 billion (with a b) dollar expenditure. Seems quite excessive to me. Don't get me wrong; I agree with Red here. These guys have unions, they should have city and state support as well. If Congress needs to get involved, it seems like they should only have to supplement the coverage these guys should already have. Also, what does it take to break up a fillibuster? I ask because Dems have controlled both branches of Congress for quite a few years now. Did they not have enough votes to get it done on their own? Why is it suddenly a cause for address now, just before at least some of the power swings back to the GOP?
maybe they are asking the feds to cover medical expenses, because i believe it was the federal government that stepped in and said the environment was safe to work in, later finding out it wasnt. many of these guys should have been working with more protective gear. if i remember correctly (which is always a big if with me) the epa failed miserably in their ground zero assessments. just a thought. eta: this doesnt mean i agree with them, just looking for what might be their reason to ask for the feds to step in and pay.
i think lasalle is falling victim to the emotional "whatever, 9/11 first responders can never be wrong about anything" argument. jon stewart is of course happy to encourage this point of view, because it paints the GOP as heartless, and like i said, he is the liberal version of fox news.
