Congress has failed to reach a deal to provide recovery funds for Puerto Rico and several states, due in large part to Trump’s opposition. Now, Congress is taking a two-week break.

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WASHINGTON — Senators are hoping to convince President Donald Trump to help Americans recovering from devastating natural disasters all across the country, as the president balks at spending another dollar on Puerto Rico. A group of Republican senators headed to the White House on Thursday afternoon to try to reach some kind of agreement with the president, who has repeatedly suggested that Puerto Rico has gotten too much money and that it is misusing the funds. The deal will also need to be agreeable to Democrats, who have refused to budge on providing funding for Puerto Rico along with other disaster-stricken parts of the US. “I’m going to go see what he’s interested in,” said Sen. Rick Scott, whose home state of Florida was hit by Hurricane Michael last year as it tried to recover from Hurricane Irma the year before. Tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans also moved to Florida after Hurricane Maria in 2017.



“Best-case scenario is that we come to an agreement on something that we can get this aid moving,” he said. “We’ve got problems happening with my state, the Southeast ... we’ve got the Midwest, so we’ve got to get moving.” Scott added that he’s disappointed with Democrats for not moving on aid that both parties agree on for now, and dealing with contentious funds — i.e., money for Puerto Rico, where aid has already lagged behind resources for mainland states — later. “Puerto Rico’s success is America’s success, and Puerto Rico’s recovery is America’s recovery,” Scott said in his first speech on the Senate floor this year. People recovering from natural disasters all across the country, from the West Coast to Puerto Rico to the Midwest and the South, are struggling to rebuild and survive day to day as Congress again failed to pass a disaster relief bill this week, stalled on the president’s unwillingness to provide more disaster relief for Puerto Rico. Congress is now beginning a two-week break through April 29.

via Lillian Nieves Lillian Nieves has been struggling to afford groceries and medication for her husband as Puerto Rico's food stamp funding runs out.

“It’s been really hard. In the community where I live, it’s been really hard because many people are lower income and don’t have many resources,” said Lillian Nieves, one of 1.3 million Puerto Ricans who saw significant cuts to their food stamp checks starting March 1. The island’s food stamp program has been short on funding since February, and additional money for the program is supposed to be a part of a disaster relief deal in Congress.



Nieves told BuzzFeed News that she and her husband, who has cancer and has to use adult diapers for the rest of his life, lost their home and all their possessions during Hurricane Maria. The food stamp checks meant that she could make sure they both ate and could still afford to pay their electricity bill and buy diapers and medication for her husband.

Nieves and her husband’s food stamp funds were cut in half in March, from around $402 per month to $202 per month. Without additional emergency food stamp funding, Puerto Rican authorities say they will have to cut people’s checks even further or start to remove people from the program entirely. “Honestly, Puerto Rico needs help — we need it more than ever. We are in a very dire situation, emotionally, mentally, economically,” Nieves said over the phone from Río Piedras, Puerto Rico. “We are US citizens too. There are many people dying of hunger and need.” Meanwhile in Georgia, farmers are struggling to stay in business after a rough 2017 season in which crops were infested with whiteflies, followed by the battering of Hurricane Matthew last year and a downturn in crop prices. “I don’t know if I can ever repay the amount of debt I have now,” said Justin Long, a fifth-generation cattle, cotton, and vegetable farmer. He said that if some disaster aid were to come through, he could at least try to restructure his debt a little better with banks, and start planning for the future of his farm, which he had hoped to pass down to his sons. “Both sides of Congress, both sides of the Senate, just cannot get along, and the American public is having to pay the price for it,” he said. “No matter if they’re Republicans or Democrats, we elected them to serve us, and they’re doing a very shitty, shitty job.” Long said that while he doesn’t blame just one party, the idea that Democrats are stopping aid from coming to Georgia and other states because they want funds for Puerto Rico, a territory, makes him angry. “That’s what they’re using for leverage against their own people, and that just burns me,” he said. In October, Trump visited Georgia to talk to farmers in the aftermath of the hurricane. Now, with the disaster aid still tied up in Washington, Long, who is also the Decatur County Farm Bureau president, said he’s hoping the president hasn’t forgotten the state.

via Justin Long Justin Long says he's deep in debt and unable to restructure it after Hurricane Matthew hit his farm in Decatur County, Georgia.