Reblog: During a CNN debate at the height of the GOP primary, Mitt Romney was asked, in the context of the Joplin disaster and FEMA’s cash crunch, whether the agency should be shuttered so that states can individually take over responsibility for disaster response.

“Absolutely,” he said. “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 the opposite question, what should we keep?”

“Including disaster relief, though?” debate moderator John King asked Romney.

“We cannot — we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids,” Romney replied. “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.” The clip was flagged by Huffington Post blogger Eric Zuesse.

Are you listening New York Staten Island folks? How about you folks from Atlantic City, New Jersey? All in favor of having nearly bankrupt states handling disaster claims and clean up? How about Halliburton privatizing FEMA, former VP Cheney’s company, that continues to make out like a bandit in Iraq and Afghanistan – how do you think that will work out? How would this work in economically hurting states like Rhode Island, or California, or Iowa, or Florida?

Are all of Willard’s friend’s going to be rewarded privatization -for-profit contracts to replace federal agencies like unemployment, education, road/bridge building, VA services, disaster, etc.? What will the United States look like then – how united will we all be? And, most importantly, who will be the most hurt by privatization? Why, the people that were sold on the idea that the wealthy will look out for them, the Fox News believers that don’t have a pot to pee in in the first place but have been told that their ‘ship’ will be in and they will get to eat at the same table as Bill Gates, and the haters that want their Whitehouse back from its Black occupants (or so I am told daily on the internet) – because they are going to get as hit by higher fees (actually soft taxes) and higher user costs for everything like the rest of us non-wealthy folks – voter party distinction won’t absolve anyone!
Think before you vote: Ask yourself, what’s in it for me (and take off your Fox-hued colored glasses when you answer)?The Massachusetts lesson is that the middle class and less fortunate people really got hurt and our hurt was spread across all political designations. Our cost of living fell, folks packed up and left the state in high numbers. If the whole country suffers the same fate as Massachusetts did under former Governor, where are you going to pack up and move to? Google it.