GOP Strategist Defends Romney’s Plan To Dismantle FEMA

[cal04]

Mitt Romney’s past comments about dismantling FEMA and privatizing disaster relief have come back to haunt him as Hurricane Sandy begins to wreak havoc on the East Coast. Still, one Republican strategist, Ron Bonjean, agrees with him. On CNN Monday morning, Bonjean, a private consultant who advises GOP congressional leaders, defended Romney, suggesting that even talking about federal disaster relief is politically toxic:

Most people don’t have a positive impression of FEMA and I think Mitt Romney was right on the button. But I don’t think anybody cares about that right now. I think people care about whether or not their power’s on, whether or not their basement’s going to be flooded. And I think that if the president gets too far in front of this and something goes wrong, people are going to remember, hey, my power’s not out, and the president’s talking about FEMA. I’m not a real big fan of FEMA. That could sway their vote.

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Sandy has already caused severe flooding in the Northeast, hours before the worst of the storm is projected to hit. President Obama has declared a state of emergency in 7 states and DC after several governors’ urgent requests for federal aid to combat the storm. Though Bonjean fails to make the connection between FEMA’s services and people worrying about their power going out, the agency has already dispatched emergency power teams to try to reinforce vulnerable power grids before the storm hits and provided hundreds of generators and other back-up power sources. Americans are unfortunately well-acquainted with the agency, despite Bonjean’s insistence that they “don’t care” about it; a recent study of FEMA data found that, since 2006, 4 out of 5 Americans have been affected by weather-related disasters.

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/10/29/1105611/gop-strategist-romney-should-de-fund-disaster-relief-people-dont-care-about-fema/

[Turbineguy]

1. Well it's either that

or get "Heck-Uv-A-Job-Brownie" back. Which do you prefer?

[FVZA_Colonel]

2. They have to try to salvage Romney any way they can.

That comment could be as big of a disaster for him as "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."

[LoisB]

3. Obama's FEMA is NOT Bush's FEMA.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

4. So we should privatize disaster relief?

And of course they will do it without seeking a sizable profit from the government. Where were private companies during Katrina? What about September 11th and the $1 billion spent by FEMA to clean up the wreckage in Manhattan? If they got involved at all, it was at taxpayer expense.

[hughee99]

5. Yes, let's put disaster relief in the same hands as the people

who jack up the price 500% on things like generators when people need them most.