In the Book of Enoch, a second century BCE Jewish Apocrypha, the Behemoth (who is also referenced in the Book of Job) is the land monster and Leviathan the sea monster (there’s also Ziz, the sky monster, but we’ll save him for another day).

Last week on the East Coast, Behemoth and Leviathan squared off, as the latter tried to rip the shreds out of the former with his proxy, Hurricane Irene. Behemoth stood his ground, despite taking on some fairly significant damage.

But another couple forces of nature, both Jews, faced off in the aftermath of the fierce land-water battle, albeit somewhat indirectly.   In Leviathan’s corner stood United States Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.),  defiant in the face of disaster relief, suggesting that additional assistance for storm-ravaged places and people be contingent on removing dollars from elsewhere in the budget.

Standing up for those on land was Paul Krugman, noted leftist, Nobel-winning Princeton professor and New York Times columnist.  Krugman flung back on Cantor like a whirling earthen dervish, calling Cantor out as both hypocritical and callously indifferent to the plight of the suffering.  Hypocritical because Cantor supported an Iraq war of almost a trillion dollars without raising revenue to pay for it, and because he voted against a similar pay-as-you-go bill in 2004 when his Virginia was hit by an earlier tropical storm.

Moreover, said Krugman, the long-term ails of the budget hardly preclude short-term humanitarian spending, especially when borrowing rates are at absurdly low levels.

Cantor has shot back at his critics, and there’s been some support for his position, including a statement from Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan, a well-known budget hawk.  Some voices say, for instance, that even if we don’t know the specifics of natural disasters, we know they will ultimately happen, so we ought budget more comprehensively for them in advance.  

On this particular battle between diametrically opposed Jews, it’s an easy choice to side with Krugman, for a few reasons.

First, and most importantly, when disaster strikes, it’s time for us to step up collectively as a nation and be mensches. Yes, we can quibble about whether and how to support ongoing federal programs, and to determine which are bloated, which are ineffective. But in times of severe turmoil, we act to assist first and ask the tougher questions later.

(Mensch would not be the first word that comes to mind, for instance, when considering Mike Brown, former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) who was so utterly incapable of understanding the need for critical and immediate action in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Brown, not surprisingly, has spoken in favor of Cantor’s position.)

Second, Cantor’s statements regarding affordability of crisis response don’t ring true in the immediate wake of months of budget-slashing by the House majority.  The bill that Congress  ultimately passed to allow a debt ceiling increase would substantially reduce both domestic and military spending severely if a designated supercommittee cannot do its job and provide an alternative path to austerity. Surely one of the reasons from the conservative side of the aisle in promoting that position was to ready ourselves for the things that really matter. We respectfully posit that events that wreck the lives of countless Americans would fit within those parameters.

Which brings us to the third argument, namely, that we ought prepare better for future unknown disasters. This has to be one of the most disingenuous arguments of all. What’s always the first thing that gets cut from any budget, from the household to the national? Rainy day funds, reserve accounts, monies for what might happen, sometime, down the road, in some version of the future. Deficit hawks pounce on those kinds of expenditures like a vulture on a rodent. So we’re not buying what Cantor’s supporters are selling on that one.

Many on the right side of the aisle are running away from, or at least staying mum about, Cantor’s comments, and they are wisely pragmatic in doing so.  For the time to wax merciless about spending is not on the heels of widespread power outage, mass destruction and human injury, suffering and death. It sounds bad because, well, because it is.

Cantor is a highly intelligent man with a bright future serving his party.  But on this issue, he is dead wrong. Lending a helping hand in the face of severe adversity is the right thing to do. In this moment, his Leviathan-like maelstrom should give way to the face of a gentle giant. There’s plenty of time for political debate about fiscal policy. It’s just that right now isn’t the time.