Most of New York’s congressional Republicans broke party ranks this week and condemned the Trump administration for stripping millions of dollars from the FDNY’s 9/11 health care program — even as GOP leaders and lawmakers from other states remained conspicuously silent.

As first reported by the Daily News last week, the Treasury Department has over the past four years siphoned about $3.7 million from the FDNY’s World Trade Center Health Program, which covers medical services for New York firefighters and other first responders suffering from 9/11-related illnesses.

Treasury officials have maintained they only took $2 million, that the department is working to get the cash back to the FDNY, and that the withdrawals were caused by a bureaucratic snafu in which money was pulled from the 9/11 fund to cover some of the city’s unrelated Medicare debt.

Still, the stealthy 9/11 cash crunch prompted immediate outrage from Democrats — and this week, all but one of New York’s typically Trump-loyal House Republicans added to the backlash.

Read More →