No Virginia, there is no Santa Claus.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor prides himself on being consistent. Before all of the missing had been found earlier this year after a category five tornado ravaged Joplin, Missouri, the Virginia Republican announced that he would not support funding for emergency aid without concurrent cuts elsewhere in the budget.
Again, earlier this week, while some were still missing and none of the dead yet buried in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene, Cantor appeared on Fox News to reiterate the same position, telling anchor Martha MacCallum that Congress “will find the money” but “like any family with a sick loved one” will have to decide what otherwise planned spending will have to be cut first. While Democrats as well as some Republicans take the position that, “… a family with credit won’t hesitate, in an emergency, to charge the expenses immediately and rework their budget after the crisis has passed…” many fear that Cantor’s insistence on cuts being agreed upon before emergency aid is appropriated could have catastrophic and perhaps life-threatening consequences.
But while the current Congress inevitably will fail to reach an accord in time to help many of Irene’s victims, Cantor nonetheless proudly announced yesterday that an agreement on cuts to allow for emergency relief had been reached regarding a matter which is much more personal to him.
From The Desperate Blogger
Upon learning of college tuition increases affecting his two oldest children – an unexpected misfortune which followed closely on the heels of his youngest child’s well-publicized Xbox tragedy – the six term conservative and former Minority Whip called a family meeting and announced that the extra tuition could not be paid nor the Xbox replaced without spending cuts elsewhere to offset the expense.
According to Newton Toomey, a longtime Cantor staff member who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity and private nature of the negotiations, “Initially, Rep. Cantor was adamant that either there would be ‘no Christmas’ for the children this year, or, as an alternative, they could each forgo two lunches per week during the school year.” Finally, after 2 1/2 weeks of negotiations which Toomey described as “intense and often combative,” the two sides finally settled on a compromise arrangement under which the three siblings will give up desserts – the youngest for the upcoming school year, and the two attending college for a full 12 months.
Once the deal had been finalized, Cantor reportedly commented to Diana Fine, a prominent local attorney and CPA, “I’m not quite sure how I went so soft in the end, except to say that sometimes every father spoils his children a little…”
When reached for comment, Ms. Fine, who is also Cantor’s wife of 22 years and is rumored to have once been ‘intimate’ with the Congressman, told reporters, “He is my husband. We don’t believe in divorce.”