While the right wing has been trying to gussy up a hissy fit over President Obama NOT rushing down to Louisiana in the middle of a huge disaster, but waiting until he could arrive with minimal disruption of recovery efforts, one GOP Congressman has been…. having a crisis of ideology you might say. NPR has the story.
David Greene interviews Republican Garret Graves, Louisiana's 6th District,. Here’s an excerpt:
Louisiana Flooding Puts A Lot Of Rep. Grave's District Under Water
August 23, 20165:06 AM ET
GREENE: You say traditional response. I mean, there is some aid money that's automatically - comes through. But a lot of people are saying the federal government needs to do a lot more. And I just wonder, I mean, it's - you know, it's Republicans, your party, who are often very wary of federal spending in times of disasters and other times. What are you telling your fellow Republicans right now?
GRAVES: Look, you're right. And I want to be clear. I'm a fiscal conservative as well. However, in this situation, when FEMA comes in and offers folks - I think I've been told - on average, two to $3,000 for a situation like this - let me be clear. You have traditional disasters. And I've been through oil spill, flooding, hurricanes. I've worked all those.
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Graves goes on to say he thinks his people need all the help they can get, and when Greene reminds him of Louisiana Congressmen who voted against aid for Hurricane Sandy, well, he doesn’t have much of a come back. In fact, he actually calls for the government to be more pro-active!
GREENE: Does this - does seeing this in your home state make you a little less of a fiscal conservative?
GRAVES: I don't think so because I actually look at it like this. If someone is upside down on their mortgage, if someone doesn't have cars, if their job is underwater, these people are likely on a trajectory to become a federal responsibility through different poverty programs. And I look at it like the most fiscally appropriate thing to do is to help them get back on their feet right now, to avoid them becoming a long-term liability under many of these programs.
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Read/listen to the whole thing.
Charles P. Pierce has a big piece of the bigger story:
The Disaster in Louisiana Is Emblematic of a Much Bigger Problem
A paralyzed government has failed to address far too many environmental issues.
It turns out there have been some critical infrastructure decisions that have been put off, delayed, or just not completed for a long time now. The weather may have been unprecedented, but the consequences were predictable. Here’s the gist of it:….It's a complex but common story in this time in which it's easier to engineer governmental paralysis than it is to engineer public policy to address even the most obvious major problem—in this case, the fact that Louisiana floods. Period. That should be obvious even to the most brain-dead system of government.
There are critical environmental needs going unaddressed all over the country. This is just one of them.
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I wonder if Congressman Graves is going to development any reservations concerning his party’s position on Climate Change.