NYT Editorial aimed at Mitt: "A Big Storm Requires Big Government"

[ProfessionalLeftist]

Most Americans have never heard of the National Response Coordination Center, but they’re lucky it exists on days of lethal winds and flood tides. The center is the war room of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, where officials gather to decide where rescuers should go, where drinking water should be shipped, and how to assist hospitals that have to evacuate.

Disaster coordination is one of the most vital functions of “big government,” which is why Mitt Romney wants to eliminate it. At a Republican primary debate last year, Mr. Romney was asked whether emergency management was a function that should be returned to the states. He not only agreed, he went further.

“Absolutely,” he said. “Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better.” Mr. Romney not only believes that states acting independently can handle the response to a vast East Coast storm better than Washington, but that profit-making companies can do an even better job. He said it was “immoral” for the federal government to do all these things if it means increasing the debt.

It’s an absurd notion, but it’s fully in line with decades of Republican resistance to federal emergency planning. FEMA, created by President Jimmy Carter, was elevated to cabinet rank in the Bill Clinton administration, but was then demoted by President George W. Bush, who neglected it, subsumed it into the Department of Homeland Security, and placed it in the control of political hacks. The disaster of Hurricane Katrina was just waiting to happen.

MORE...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/opinion/a-big-storm-requires-big-government.html?smid=fb-share

[Laura PourMeADrink]

1. Life under Romney - 50 disparate emergency

action groups. Warning: don't live in Mississippi

[johnlucas]

24. How many times we gotta tell these jackasses that Confederacies don't work?

Leave small time stuff to states. Everything else needs to go to the national level.
That argument was proven TWICE.
Time to hang it up.
John Lucas

[MADem]

31. Oh, come on--if it's a LEGITIMATE storm, your house has ways to protect itself! It will shut down

prevent damage from happening!!! That's all King Mittwit is saying!!!!

(I'm sure I need at least one of these for those who don't get my clever wit!)

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

34. I don't think you needed that smiley, but I guess better safe than, you know.

[MADem]

35. I've seen some people get shut down because their cleverness was not taken!

I always whip that thing out, just to be safe!

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

37. Right. The sarcasm icon is a prophylactic smiley.

[Lucinda]

2. TY!

[flamingdem]

3. K&R

[spanone]

4. nice short stinger......k&r....

here's the rest of it....

The agency was put back in working order by President Obama, but ideology still blinds Republicans to its value. Many don’t like the idea of free aid for poor people, or they think people should pay for their bad decisions, which this week includes living on the East Coast.

Over the last two years, Congressional Republicans have forced a 43 percent reduction in the primary FEMA grants that pay for disaster preparedness. Representatives Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor and other House Republicans have repeatedly tried to refuse FEMA’s budget requests when disasters are more expensive than predicted, or have demanded that other valuable programs be cut to pay for them. The Ryan budget, which Mr. Romney praised as “an excellent piece of work,” would result in severe cutbacks to the agency, as would the Republican-instigated sequester, which would cut disaster relief by 8.2 percent on top of earlier reductions.

Does Mr. Romney really believe that financially strapped states would do a better job than a properly functioning federal agency? Who would make decisions about where to send federal aid? Or perhaps there would be no federal aid, and every state would bear the burden of billions of dollars in damages. After Mr. Romney’s 2011 remarks recirculated on Monday, his nervous campaign announced that he does not want to abolish FEMA, though he still believes states should be in charge of emergency management. Those in Hurricane Sandy’s path are fortunate that, for now, that ideology has not replaced sound policy.

[freshwest]

5. Telling the truth! We are a huge country. We get more done UNITED than DIVIDED.

United we stand, divided we fall...

To be picked over by vultures...

Get a clue, Mittens, or get out of the way.

[reformist2]

6. Mitt thinks disaster relief is something young missionaries can do with care packages...

I really don't think he understands the permanent organizational structures and chains of command you need when disasters strike on the scale we're now seeing. Either that, or he simply doesn't care...

[Blue Owl]

7. Grover Norquist wants to drown government -- but who drowns in the end?

n/t

[liberalmike27]

18. I'd love

to see Grover drowned (ha).

[Historic NY]

23. yup..

[volstork]

8. Turning regulation back to the states

got us the tragedy that is the recent fungal meningitis outbreak. 347 cases and 25 deaths have occurred due to lack of state oversight at the NECC in Massachusetts. Enough said.

[ejbr]

9. k & r n/t

[young_at_heart]

10. I don't understand---WHY is it immoral?

'He said it was “immoral” for the federal government to do all these things if it means increasing the debt.'

Increasing military spending also increases the debt!

[Beartracks]

15. I guess Mitt thinks the poem on the Statue of Liberty is immoral, too. n/t

[kardonb]

16. don't understand

For Mittens , it's "immoral" if someone does not get rich in the process .

[eyewall]

26. That's it.

[Beartracks]

11. Private sector can't/won't do stuff unless it can make a profit.

And by its very nature, disaster response is not really a profit-making activity. NOT responding is more profitable -- kinda like for-profit health insurance, which makes more money by DENYING care.

===================

[Chorophyll]

14. Well said. nt

[jsmirman]

12. It's why Ayn Rand was a pitiful idiot

it's sad that people don't realize how dumb her "philosophy" is.

I guess it has an appeal for people who want to call "being an asshole" a type of philosophy.

[Chorophyll]

13. Kick and DU Rec.

Huge kick.

[Beartracks]

17. Mitt's response to a disaster: "Let [insert state's name here] go bankrupt."

We saw how Romney treat's any enterprise on the brink of disaster: "let them fail." It's what he thought of troubled automobile manufacturers, and the entire city of Detroit. Why would he care any more for a state swamped by hurricanes or devastated by late freezes? In his and the Republican party's opinion, it's your own fault for not planning ahead and having vast sums of money set aside for such contingencies; you've obviously failed somewhere.

==================

[Beartracks]

19. What's with the neo-Feudalism, Mitt?

The whole of Western development and democracy left fiefdoms and serfs and warrior-kings far behind.

Forget the 1950s; Mitt Romney is aiming for something much farther back on the timeline of history.

=================

[Cha]

20. And, as President Obama said..he's "not for big government or small government but

A SMART GOVERNMENT" And, that's what he's Going FOR!

[VPStoltz]

21. But Robbedme will be in Ohio (gee, who'd a thunk Ohio) to raise the $ big gov. shouldn't spend.

[ohheckyeah]

22. And just who would pay the private sector?

The federal government. And who would profit if it was given to the private sector? We all know that answer.

[Segami]

25. K&R

[zentrum]

27. Can you imagine the California earthquake

....that's coming, happening under Romney?

Whether it's illegal wars, Katrinas, or lack of safety regulations in industry---huge numbers of people die under Republican rule.

[pklaz96]

28. Immoral?

How is helping communities during a devastating hurricane 'immoral'?
Is that a Mormon concept, or just another Rmoney position? If so, it will change before this post is transmitted.

[Kurovski]

29. K&R. (nt)

[ProudProgressiveNow]

30. K&R nt

[Up2Late]

32. Yup.

I fully agree.

[DallasNE]

33. Another Problem, Not Identified, For Romney

Indeed, his comments to privatize FEMA is a problem in spite of him giving his busy Etch-A-Sketch another hard shake. It is still another reminder that Romney has no core principles beyond whatever it takes to get elected.

The other problem is the nature of this storm and how it is a stern reminder about the problems of climate change and just how miserably wrong the science deniers are. This alone should be ample reason for not voting for Romney, piled on top of all of the others.

The choice in this election is the most stark and clear cut since the 1932 election yet there are so many low information and racist voters this time around that they are on the verge of voting wrong on what should be a no-brainer election.

[jmondine]

36. A big population requires big government

I believe in government of, by, and for the people, all 300 million of us. There is no way a small representative government could possibly serve and protect a population of that size from those who would harm and oppress us.