HuffPo - "Yes He Did - Romney Opposed Federal Disaster Relief"

[TomCADem]

Romney's campaign surrogates have been saying that Romney would essentially do the same thing that President Obama is doing and would, of course, not abolish FEMA, but back in June, Romney was singing a different tune:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-weiler/mitt-romney-fema_b_2045760.html

In June of 2011, during a Republican debate, Mitt Romney was asked how he would deal with disaster relief. This was in the immediate aftermath of the tornado that devastated Joplin, Missouri, killing at least 124 people. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was running out of money at the time and House Republicans, led by Eric Cantor, were insisting that they would not authorize additional funds for FEMA unless there were spending cuts elsewhere (because remember -- no matter how much we cut taxes, we never have a revenue problem. We only have a spending problem). So moderator John King asked Governor Romney whether it would be better to devolve disaster relief to the states. Romney said, "absolutely" and then further added that it would be even better if those responsibilities were left to the private sector, because it's ALWAYS better for the private sector to do anything.

King followed up to clarify that Romney's view of devolving as much as possible from the federal governments to the states and the private sector really did include disaster relief.

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.

When it comes to multi-state disasters, it's simply not possible to manage relief on an ad hoc, local basis. National resources and national coordination are absolutely essential and our increasingly cash-strapped states are simply not in the position to take on such massive interventions. But Republicans have now declared war on FEMA. The Ryan budget, not surprisingly, has called for significant cuts to the agency. And, of course, the party denies that there is such a thing as human-induced climate change, including such effects as significant sea-level rise. In fact, Romney mocked the idea of climate change and the threat of rising sea levels just two months ago during his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention.

[Cha]

1. Thanks Tom..here's a graphic to go with this article

http://theobamadiary.com/