The left has been trying to whip up controversy over a comment Mitt Romney made at a GOP primary debate last year, when he answered a question about whether he’d abolish FEMA by saying he’d like to privatize a whole lot of government programs. Did Romney specifically say he’d privatize FEMA? No, but his answer did suggest it. And because there aren’t any other political controversies for the media to cover this week, it’s blown up into a major news story.
Here’s Romney’s actual comment from the GOP debate:
As David Frum points out, Romney never actually called for the elimination of FEMA at the debate. He was evading the question. That’s not exactly commendable, but it also isn’t unusual for a politician:
Watch without prejudice, though, and you realize: that’s not what he said. Instead, he evaded a question from CNN‘s John KIng about FEMA by offering an answer that generically endorsed federalism without committing Romney on FEMA either one way or the other.
It’s a familiar politician’s trick.
Still, that doesn’t answer the question of whether Romney wants to eliminate FEMA. If only there was some way to find out his actual position on this issue. Maybe this Politico article from yesterday can give us some clues:
The Romney campaign stressed Monday that states should take the lead in responding to emergencies like hurricanes. But the campaign said Romney would not abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“Gov. Romney believes that states should be in charge of emergency management in responding to storms and other natural disasters in their jurisdictions,” Romney spokesman Ryan Williams said in a statement. “As the first responders, states are in the best position to aid affected individuals and communities, and to direct resources and assistance to where they are needed most. This includes help from the federal government and FEMA.”
A campaign official added that Romney would not abolish FEMA.
Yes, but would he abolish FEMA or not? It’s all so ambiguous. What we need is more reporters out there demanding answers over and over again until we get to the bottom of this.
I think Romney was only suggesting that some federal agencies should be outsourced to the stated or to private industry to save money and be more efficient. He never suggested that FAMA's role be eliminated. He never even suggested that FEMA be outsourced. Only that all agencies should be examined for the efficacy.
Governor Romney wanted to let Detroit go bankrupt (his editorial, not mine). n nMr Romney wanted to let home foreclosures hit bottom (his words, not mine). n nHe says we can't afford FEMA and we should turn it over to the states. (his words, not mine)…….. n n nThe Governor is a very dangerous man. Certainly the wrong type of leader for these precarious times.
I think Detroit is bankrupt. (But don't tell anyone.)
He wanted Detroit automakers and the unions to go through a managed bankruptcy to clear out unhealthy management and labor practices with the Federal government backstopping loans and warranties moving forward–which is what happened, except: a) the government cemented in a labor union preferences and unconstitutionally shafted bondholders, b) the government expanded its corporate crony semi-fascistic autarky by investing taxpayer billions in corporate shares (which we wil probably never get back), c) the government perverted the process further by doubling down on Rube Goldberg electric cars with the Volt. n nHome values cannot be indefinitely propped up by throwing taxpayer money after families who cannot afford homes they never should have bought in the first place. n nThe first line of action in a natural disaster is states and localities. n nAs noted by mike_ste, Detroit, another Democratic utopia, has ended up where Obama's utopian United States must inevitably end up, one legal fig-leaf away from receivership.
Thanks for this. Too often liberal attacks are unbelievably (and unbearably) superficial, as in the post above. I admire people who take the time to try and explain the reality. I, on the other hand, opted for snark (though I'm glad someone got the reference). nBut since I'm responding, I'd add to your second point that propping up home values keeps some people from purchasing their own home. Letting the market hit bottom, perhaps after easing the slide, would help lots of (responsible) people.
I live in Northern Virginia, and our housing market has remained, interestingly enough, healthy. There is a lower-end foreclosure market but new building and resales continue at consolidated levels at a stabilized (if not trivial) discount from the bubble highs–but not at distress levels. There isn't a spiral downwards–bankers are liquidating foreclosures at an orderly pace and these are not dragging down the rest of the market–though folks who bought at the crest of the market may be underwater. But we may be in a privileged spot due to net benefit from tax dollars & when/if sequestration kicks in, we'll see–but for now you see home construction everywhere. n nBut for darn sure, too many libs let slide the descent of Democratic municipalities into bankruptcy when making liberal points about stories that should bring that up: the auto defaults, or the consolidation of the Camden City police force into a non-union county force.
The government also made sure that UAW members kept their pensions and that non-UAW members, whether or not they belonged to other unions, lost theirs. n nAsk employees at Ohio's Delphi plant how much the auto bailout helped them. They committed the offense of belonging to the wrong union. n nAnd let's remember that the bondholders that Pres. Obama demonised as wealthy hedge fund managers were acting on behalf of low income retirees, former teachers, school bus drivers, etc. who in their entire careers never earned what an average UAW member did.
Detroit went Bankrupt long before Romney's 'Editorial'. It was morally bankrupt before it became fiscally bankrupt. n n(And if you don't believe me then I must ask: how do you elect a convicted felon Kwame Kilpatrick as mayor AFTER his conviction?) n nA decentralized FEMA would also be more effective. n nMost families that participated in Obama's Mortgage Restructuring program ended up right back into default and foreclosure. n nAnd lastly: GM still went bankrupt. GM is also on track to go bankrupt again thanks to the fact that it's losing money on EVERY CAR it sells.
Romney did not say "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt". He wrote an OpEd piece in 2008 for the NYT, whereas the NYT created the headline "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt". Romney recommended a managed bankruptcy. Bush had already made payments to Detroit to keep them solvent until a solution was reached. Obama put GM into bankruptcy, ousted the CEO and replaced with a friendly face, protected the unions and sold off Chrysler to Fiat. n nWith regard to disaster relief, he said, rightly so, that states should be in charge of the actual work, which they are now. And with regard to FEMA, and all federal agencies, he said we should not look at what to cut, we should look at what to save.
As a friend of mine says, NYT = Not Yet True.
Now tell the rest of the story, 333maxwell. nGov. Romney wanted the auto industry to go thru an orderly bankruptcy and come out as a going concern, just as many airlines had done. And he wanted to offer federal loan guarantees to assure that financing would be available. Instead, we got a perversion of the law where normal bankruptcy priorities were disregarded in order to reward Pres. Obama at the expense of retired teachers and janitors, and auto workers who belonged to non-UAW unions, or to no union. n nAnd we got a government-owned GM that makes faulty, overrpriced and dangerours products that nobody wants to buy, even with huger government funded buyer incentives — not because management thinks there is a market for the product, and not even because the product cuts pollution, but simply because the product satisfies some fantasy on the President's agenda. n nI don't have time to research your half truths on the other topics. Maybe someone else does. [cont'd]
[cont'd] You say that Governor Romney is a very dangerous man? Not nearly so dangerous as our fantasy ridden, naive, lawbreaking and lying President Obama, the liars who are willing to spread any half-truth, no matter how distorted, to advance his agenda, the incompetent reporters who refuse to call out the lies, and the fools who swallow the lies. And only the fools have an excuse; they can't help it. n n
Why do I think we'd survive without FEMA? nAnyway, headline at RCP: "Clinton Rallies Dems in MN". Now, if three months ago someone had predicted here at Contentions that on October 30 Bill Clinton would be rallying Democrats in Minnesota, even the Pollyanas amongst us (me, for one) would have scoffed. The Big Gun, a week out, in MN? Maybe Ohio, Iowa, Nevada, Colorado, Virginia, Florida. Or, if things were looking good for Obama, NC. Or if the race were truly a nail biter with Romney up slightly, maybe PA – the quadrennial tease. But under what circumstances would we have thought Clinton would be in Minnesota? nDon't get cocky, keep calm and carry on and all that. But, MN? nOh yeah – Obama is dumping money into MI, too. nBut Nate Silver says… nAnd the bookies in Vegas say… nAnd Intrade….
Both reps and dems know about Intrade which is a very small market. It actually doesn't cost much to alter the odds there. McCain's campaign used to make Intrade buys in order to keep their numbers afloat. I'd expect Obama is doing the same.
just read Bloomberg News' analysis of NYC subway and NJ PATH tunnel damage. n njust figure the real debate might be about who pays for what is so far estimated at $10-50BIL in infrastructure damage. n nand, was already looking forward to see how Christie, being himself and governor, might frame this whole issue. FEMA's role. n n
The Democratic lackeys in the media long ago ceased to be about "news" or "journalism"–it's like when you pass by a house with a yard containing a small, yip-yap of a dog, one of those long-haired miniature terriers or poodles–the dogs go bark! bark! bark! bark! That's what they do, there's no information content in it. Same with our MSM, it's just their way of saying hey! hey! hey! And then they circle round and smell each other's hind parts to reestablish social unity. But life on the street goes on.
I can understand your anger at the mainstream media because there's nothing mainstream about the radical right GOP.
Repetition is not argument. Nor word play. Your statement is an attitude–semantically considered it has no content at all. It's a toot on a harmonica. n nA really annoying mental tic of left-wingers in general that has leaked into the discourse of the Democratic hacks is the totally unjustified pretense–fantasy, actually–that somehow the left-wing and the Democratic Party are somehow "mainstream" or "the majority" as in representing the democratic will of the majority of the American people. That's really not what MSM "mainstream" means. In a democratic context it only means well-propagated, or establishment, or dug-in. The mouthpieces of the ancien regime but not "mainstream" per se. n nThere are more conservatives than liberals and more folks identify with the G.O.P and are registered as such than with the Democrats and yet we are continually bombarded by these fictoids as to how liberals are this big natural majority. n nTemporary hegemony is not the same thing as being "mainstream" or the "majority". What induces, not anger, but irritation, is the continual yapping of the lap poodles of the Democratic minoritarian (and temporary) cultural hegemony as if their bark-bark-bark not only is probing, incisive investigations into capital-T Truth (or even coherently intelligible) but the representative discourse of The People. n nIt ain't. It's chi-chi bull purveyed by a bien pensant elite that is incapable of succeeding in the market the more unvarnished its ideological pretentions are. Hollywood ant-war babblings against neocons regularly tank at the domestic box office. Newsweek was sold for a dollar and then went bye-bye into Tina Brown's net holdings, the Washington Post can't make a dime on its liberal Weekly Reader cub reporting and is kept, barely, above water by Kaplan for-profit education ventures, the New York Times business model requires regular infusions of cash from foreign angels. Fox cleans up in the news ratings etc. n n No, the GOP ain't radical and the MSM's effete product is a cultural brand, like Ralph Lauren–wavering between downscale boobery reaching for recherche hipness, and upscale disposable fashion with pretentions of Popular Front solidarity.
Totally wasted on HillelA, besht, which is ok, as we don't want to panic-stampede his herd, but o, what a delight of a read for the rest of us. When the muse inspires… Sh'koyach, as you folks say!
There is nothing to add to Besht123's reply except to note Jonah Goldberg's recent column about the press's failure to report on Benghazi, and for me to point out that HillelA has shown us once more what a trooll he is.
If he was smart he would, FEMA is too big and is just DHS anyways.
Assuming there is a need for temporary housing where there is electricity and, as of Thursday, subway service, I just tried to volunteer an apartment I own in the least affected bit of the North Central Bronx. n nnyc.gov led me to a FEMA site for coordinating donations of goods and services, a form far too intimidating, so, I gave up. n nMy sincere apologies to anyone reading this who needs this kind of help. n nIt was interesting to find Pennsylvania had it's own housing site for the displaced, humming away. There might be an interesting way to contrast how states respond, while FEMA mostly acts as a big co-ordinator. n nJust read that the United States Navy has deployed several amphibious carriers to act as offshore bases, with the Coast Guard's support, yet, wait for it, they still need FEMA orders to actually DO stuff.
Shortly after the Katrina disaster, residents of my home, California, faced a huge disaster of their own. I don't recall the exact number but it was at least 3 and maybe as many as 5 simultaneous enormous brush/forest fires. Here in California such fires can consume hundreds of thousands of acres, can move 40 miles in an hour, have flames that jump 40 or 50 feet in the air, and can burn at 1200 degrees farenheit. These fires were in Malibu, San Diego, Laguna Beach and the Antelope Valley. I particularly remember the Antelope Valley fire because it moved about 40 miles in the space of an hour threatening a cabin I own. These fires are not only fought with fire trucks, but water dropping helicopters and aircraft. They threatened hundreds of thousands of homes, coming within 10 or 20 feet of thousands of homes and consuming hundreds of homes. Massive evacuations were required and completed. Afterwards, with very little loss of life, some commenters contrasted the efficient response in California to the chaos in New Orleans. In California, and all of the western states there are various agreements for mutual support where municipalities and state agencies agree to coordinate their responses to major disasters. The firefighters who saved my cabin(and about 50 more) near Valencia, California had travelled from Gilroy and Santa Clara California, about 400 miles away, to fight the fire. Local officials are eminently more capable of responding right away and appropriately than FEMA is. As a somewhat bitter side note– my cabin is on National Forest land. There was a federal fire station just a 1/4 mile from the nearest cabins. They did nothing to protect the cabins. They explained afterward that they didn't fight building fires and had no authority to protect the five cabins literally a 1/4 mile up the road that burned to the ground before the helicopters and other fire trucks could get there. n nI have little doubt that Romney is right. It is better for local governments to take responsibility to coordinate disaster relief by a series of agreements like we have in California. The only big dispute that came out of this was a complaint from Orange County (where Laguna Beach is located) that Los Angeles (City and County) refused to loan out their helicopters and aircraft. L. A. apparently had 14 helicopters. But it also had two major fires burning covering hundreds of square miles and threatening a lot of homes (and, indeed, many were lost in Malibu and the Antelope Valley). So maybe the residents of Orange County will vote to spend more money on helicopters in the future. The federal government helped out very little and FEMA was mostly good for coming in late and making loans for rebuilding.