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Wednesday, October 31, 2012

UPDATE: Daily Kos: FEMA and "morality"

Daily Kos: FEMA and "morality":


FEMA and "morality"

Mitt Romney is now trying to walk away from his statement to John King that to add additional funds to FEMA was "immoral" because it increased the deficit.
1. Most states and local government CANNOT run a deficit - while they can sell bonds, the interest and repayment of those bonds have to be within in a balanced budget.  And in many cases they most go to a referendum to have the authority to burden the government with the bond debt.  That means they lack the resources to respond to emergencies.
2.  While all governments COULD have emergency funds set aside for the inevitable crises, often it is simply not enough.  Some catastrophes are simply too large -be they terrorist attacks like Sept. 11, 2001, hurricanes, earthquakes.
3.  Many crises cross state boundaries - it is far better to have one point that can move immediately to coordinate, especially since many of the resources that need to be applied are federal.
4.  To insist on cutting other government services to pay for emergencies is itself immoral.   It would be the same


Augusta Thomas - 90 years old and still an activist

a Vice President of the American Federation of Government Employees, who produced the video below
who attended kindergarten with Martin Luther King Jr.
who was a civil rights activist
watch
pass on
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