Tags
Emergency management, Eric Cantor, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Hurricane Irene, Republican, Ron Paul
Barely a single day following Irene’s destructive warpath up the east coast, politicians are already arguing over how the hurricane is going to effect the federal budget. And that is, of course, to be expected — Irene was an expensive lady.
What shocks me, though, is the Republican suggestion that we should withhold aid from the east coast.
Ron Paul’s argument seems to be that since the gulf gets hit with hurricanes, everyone else should be prepared, too (though we here in the gulf largely get shielded by Cuba). He has already begun his attack on FEMA, which he describes in such a way that had I not read this article, I would have believed to been the words of a 14 year old complaining about his parents saying ‘no’ to drugs:
“FEMA is not a good friend of most people in Texas,” Paul said. “All they do is come in and tell you what to do and can’t do. You can’t get in your houses. And they hinder the local people, and they hinder volunteers from going in.”
There is certainly cause for a restructuring in FEMA — it does contain waste, as does any other major program in this country (I’m looking at YOU, “defense budget”, whose greatest…nay, seemingly only real expense… is the research and maintenence of equipment we have no need for). However, the idea that state and local governments should handle their own emergency funding is ludicrous — to begin with, such disasters are well beyond the scope of what local governments are able to handle. Not every city is a prosperous den of commerce… and I dare say that the hardest hit would be the poorest communities and rural areas. Some of these “local” governments cannot even afford to maintain their own waterlines.
I overheard a (non-politician) Republican on a web forum a little while ago expressing how FEMA encourages people to go and live where-ever they please, because they are “covered” for free (by tax dollars). And just when I thought I had heard all of what the “in practice” fiscal ignorance of this party had to offer… Nobody ever lives “where-ever they please” unless they can already afford the steep costs of insurance and can cover the ever-increasing property values — that holy privatized grail of the GOP — because those kinds of businesses are always seeking to maximize profit. Not to mention that once you have a claim, they turn into snakes, using every legal loophole imagineable to get out of paying, or waiting weeks (or even months or years) before providing relief. Insurance is not disaster relief.
The worst offender, however, seems to be Eric Cantor, who has decided to use Irene as another excuse to tie up the budget and see how many more cuts he can try and force out of the situation. Bravo, Eric — using disaster and the ruination of people’s lives as a foothold for making more cuts that will likely effect those some of those same people in the coming months. How dare you use an act of God as an excuse to further your political agenda?
More and more, I began to realize how Godless the “holy” Republican party is.
Chaotic Thought 