Romney flip flops on killing FEMA: ‘I will ensure FEMA has the funding it needs’

 By David Edwards/Raw Story

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has changed his tune about his promise to “absolutely” eliminate the federal agency charged with providing relief to the millions of Americans who have been devastated by Hurricane Sandy.
During a Republican primary debate earlier this year, the former Massachusetts governor had said that abolishing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was “the right direction” and eliminating all federal disaster relief was important because “we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids.”
“It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before it’s paid off. It makes no sense at all.”

But after repeatedly ignoring reporters’ questions about that topic in the wake of this week’s super storm, Romney reversed course in a statement on Wednesday.
“I believe that FEMA plays a key role in working with states and localities to prepare for and respond to natural disasters,” the candidate said. “As president, I will ensure FEMA has the funding it needs to fulfill its mission, while directing maximum resources to the first responders who work tirelessly to help those in need, because states and localities are in the best position to get aid to the individuals and communities affected by natural disasters.”
George Haddow, who worked as a deputy chief of staff at FEMA in the 1990s, told the Boston Globe on Wednesday that Romney’s vision for the agency mirrors that of President George W. Bush, who presided over the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina.
“The problem is it doesn’t reflect the reality of major disasters,” Haddow explained.
“You need FEMA, and you need a large FEMA,” University of Houston professor of economics Thomas DeGregori agreed. “FEMA can do things that no state or local government can do, and often has experience and expertise that they don’t have.”

Connecticut governor calls Ron Paul an ‘idiot

By David Edwards/Raw Story

Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy (D) shocked CNN’s Christine Romans Wednesday with his response to Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul’s suggestion that FEMA wasn’t necessary for responding to natural disasters.

“I think he’s an idiot,” Malloy stated.

“That’s blunt,” Romans replied, laughing. “That’s quite blunt.”

Malloy continued: “We’re spending $900 million a week in wars, and he is arguing about whether we should spend some amount of money? FEMA now has currently $900 million budget available to it. This is a ridiculous conversation. Really don’t understand what he’s talking about, and I’m not sure he does.

“The reality is that this storm was handled in such a way that we have preserved hundreds of lives, without this warning system, without this system of response. We would not be standing here with as few people who have died in this massive storm that stretches from North Carolina through Quebec.”

The governor has asked residents to immediately report any damage in an effort to secure federal funding.

Watch this video from CNN’s American Morning, broadcast Aug. 31, 2011.

Mitt Romney: Federal Disaster Relief For Tornado And Flood Victims Is ‘Immoral,’ ‘Makes No Sense At All’

By Brad Johnson




Asked about federal disaster relief for recent tornado and flood victims at last night’s GOP debate, candidate Mitt Romney called the spending “immoral” and said the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be privatized. With greenhouse pollution on the rise, the United States has been struck by a “punishing series of billion-dollar disasters.”

Embracing a radical anti-government ideology from the most extreme elements of the Tea Party, Romney said that the victims in Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Massachusetts, and other communities hit by tornadoes and flooding should not receive governmental assistance. He argued it is “simply immoral” for there to be deficit spending that could harm future generations:

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. [...] We cannot — we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before it’s paid off. It makes no sense at all.

Watch it:

From its founding, the federal government has served the Constitutional goals of domestic tranquility and general welfare of the American people by aiding the victims of climate disasters. Romney’s extremist stance in favor of corporate “disaster vultures” would leave the United States in ruin, with only rich and well-connected people like the Romneys assured of getting food, water, shelter, and protection when disaster strikes.

If Romney actually cared about the welfare of future generations, he would take action to arrest global warming pollution instead of supporting the oil company agenda, and would cut subsidies for billionaires instead of balancing the budget on the backs of the poor and vulnerable.

Transcript:

KING: Governor Romney? You’ve been a chief executive of a state. I was just in Joplin, Missouri. I’ve been in Mississippi and Louisiana and Tennessee and other communities dealing with whether it’s the tornadoes, the flooding, and worse. FEMA is about to run out of money, and there are some people who say do it on a case-by-case basis and some people who say, you know, maybe we’re learning a lesson here that the states should take on more of this role. How do you deal with something like that?

ROMNEY: Absolutely. 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.

Instead of thinking in the federal budget, what we should cut — we should ask ourselves the opposite question. What should we keep? We should take all of what we’re doing at the federal level and say, what are the things we’re doing that we don’t have to do? And those things we’ve got to stop doing, because we’re borrowing $1.6 trillion more this year than we’re taking in. We cannot…

KING: Including disaster relief, though?

ROMNEY: We cannot — we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before it’s paid off. It makes no sense at all.

Ron Paul: ‘Why Not?’ Abolish FEMA, Government Should Not ‘Take Care Of Us When We Do Dumb Things’

By Tanya Somanader

This morning, Libertarian hero Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) announced that he will join the motley GOP presidential field, marking his third run for the office. Offering further insight into his presidential sensibility, Paul told CNN host Wolf Blitzer today that he would do away with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), even at a time of unprecedented need.

Viewing the agency as unconstitutional, Paul questioned why federal funds should pay to protect citizens from natural disasters and concluded, “It’s a moral hazard to say that government is always going to take care of us when we do dumb things“:

BLITZER: On the whole issue of FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, do you want to see that agency ended?
PAUL: Well, if you want to live in a free society, if you want to pay attention to the constitution, why not? I think it’s bad economics. I think it’s bad morality. And it’s bad constitutional law. Why should people like myself, who had, not too long ago, a house on the Gulf Coast and it’s – it’s expensive there and it’s risky and it’s dangerous. Why should somebody from the central part of the United States rebuild my house? Why shouldn’t I have to buy my own insurance and protect about the potential dangers? I mean it’s – it’s a moral hazard to say that government is always going to take care of us when we do dumb things. I’m trying to get people to not to dumb things. Besides, it’s not authorized in the constitution.
BLITZER: And if there’s a disaster, like flooding or – or an earthquake or Hurricane Katrina, what’s wrong with asking fellow Americans to help their – their – their fellow citizens?
PAUL: Nothing. And I think Americans are very, very generous and they have traditionally. The big problem is Americans are getting poor and they’re not able to voluntarily come to the rescue.But to coerce people, to ask them to help, that is fine and dandy. But when you bankrupt our country and nobody has a job and then they say, well, FEMA needs to bail out everybody, then all we’re doing is compounding our problems.

Watch it:

Paul’s brand of morality is particularly callous given the numerous natural disasters destroying Americans’ homes and livelihoods across the country right now, from floodsto tornadoes to wildfire fires. Gov. Nathan Deal (R-GA) requested FEMA to respond to the devastating tornadoes that tore across the southern states, leaving at least 290 dead. Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) is telling Mississippians that are victims of disaster-level flooding to register with FEMA to receive federal aid.

After wildfires tore across Paul’s own state of Texas, Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) pleaded for even more FEMA aid. Perry said that “the ‘severity and magnitude‘ of the fires was so great that FEMA should direct other federal agencies to step in and help run the fire-fighting effort in those counties.”

Paul’s suggestion that Americans are “dumb” for being victims of natural disasters is not only heartless, it seriously calls into question his credibility to preside over the country’s welfare.

Mike Lee Suggests FEMA, Federal Poverty And Food Safety Programs Are All Unconstitutional

By Ian Millhiser

Last week, ThinkProgress highlighted a lecture by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) where he claimed that federal child labor laws violate the Constitution. Under Lee’s vision of the Constitution, basic labor protections such as child labor laws, the minimum wage, and bans on race and gender discrimination all must be “done by state legislators, not by Members of Congress.” Yesterday, in an interview with Utah public radio host Doug Fabrizio, Lee doubled down on this call for a return to failed constitutional vision that spawned the Great Depression, suggesting that even victims of Katrina-like disasters cannot constitutionally receive aid from the federal government:

LEE: The listener identifies an issue with flood and disaster relief—should that be a federal prerogative or is that a state power? I think a compelling point can be made that’s one thing that states historically have focused on…and I think that’s one area where we ought to focus—one of many areas where we ought to focus — on getting that power back to the states, keeping that money in the states to begin with.

FABRIZIO: But could Louisiana, for example, have dealt with Katrina?That would have absolutely broken the bank. Should the federal government, in an ideal way, should the federal government have been involved in that at all?

LEE: Well, look, they were, and I generally make a practice of not unnecessarily and futility going back a few years and saying we shouldn’t have done that because the fact is that we did. But looking forward…states will prepare differently if they understand that it’s their responsibility rather than that of the federal government.

Nor are disaster victims the only people Lee would leave out in the cold. Earlier in the same interview, Lee also claims that all federal anti-poverty and food safety programs also violate the Constitution:

QUESTION: Are you saying that if the government would have stayed out of it, the country could have worked out the issues that are being dealt with by these programs, like poverty, like food safety…?

LEE: I’ve never said that isn’t the role of government. What I’ve said is it’s not necessarily the role of the federal government. I think it’s important to ask the question, not just “should government do this? What is the proper role of government?” But “which government are you talking about?”

QUESTION: You said the framers intended state lawmakers deal with that, not the federal law?

LEE: Absolutely.

Listen:

Of course, Lee’s bizarre ideas call into question whether he has actually even read the Constitution. As ThinkProgress has explained, the Constitution gives Congress broad authority to regulate interstate commerce and to raise and spend money to benefit the “general welfare.” These two powers easily enable Congress to regulate the national food market and to provide a basic safety net to the poor and the unfortunate, regardless of what Lee may claim.

For the folks at home who are keeping track, this means that Lee has now suggested that child labor laws, FEMA, food stamps, the FDA, Medicaid, income assistance for the poor, and even Medicare and Social Security violate the Constitution. Like Joe Miller before him, it turns out that there’s only three things Mike Lee likes in a sentence: a noun, a verb, and “unconstitutional.”

M.C.L Comment: I know the idiots that voted for this douche is going "Yeah Lee everything is unconstitutional you tell em'" but these folks don't get this guy is about letting corporations to benefit from the people that would be getting that government aid.