Krugman on Romney’s FEMA gaffe: "There’s something pathological here."

[kpete]

Krugman on Romney’s FEMA gaffe:

So let me just take a moment to flag an issue others have been writing about: the weird Republican obsession with killing FEMA. Kevin Drum has the goods: they just keep doing it. George Bush the elder turned the agency into a dumping ground for hacks, with bad results; Clinton revived the agency; Bush the younger ruined it again; Obama revived it again; and Romney — with everyone still remembering Brownie and Katrina! — said that he wants to block-grant and privatize it. (And as far as I can tell, even TV news isn’t letting him Etch-A-Sketch the comment away).

There’s something pathological here. It’s really hard to think of a public service less likely to be suitable for privatization, and given the massive inequality of impacts by state, it really really isn’t block-grantable. Does the right somehow imagine that only Those People need disaster relief? Is the whole idea of helping people as opposed to hurting them just anathema?

It’s a bit of a mystery, calling more for psychological inquiry than policy analysis. But something is going on here.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/31/disasters-and-politics/
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/10/fema-case-study-difference-between-democrats-and-republicans

[WCGreen]

1. If it is privatized, they will only go after the stuff profitable to fix...

Simple as that.

[wiggs]

2. Whenever there's a pot of money, the RW will find a way to bleed it dry for

the benefit of a few. Education, social security, fema, military for sure, medicare, etc. It's like chum for sharks...sugar for ants....

Allocate it, and they will come.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

3. Be sure to follow the link to Kevin Drum's piece.

[Viking12]

4. The comments are AWESOME!

"If you keep reacting to storms too quickly, the people will get lazy and stop fighting storms themselves."

"In addition, it (govt action) risks causing loss of business for the funeral industry."

LOL

[Sekhmets Daughter]

5. The people who read

Mother Jones are awesome.

[marions ghost]

6. Pathology--Krugman nails it

Rethuglicon Fat Cats DO NOT CARE who gets hurt.

Dems care. And Obama cares.

-------------------

This is what we are dealing with in this country. This is the bottom line. In some ways I am glad to see it for what it is.

The pathology at the root of the R party, no matter how many smokescreens they throw up--is visible to all thinking people.