Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Tuesday, January 14, 2025

California Aid

 The wildfires that struck - and continue to strike - residential areas of Los Angeles are already becoming a political football for the atrocious people making up the Republican Party. Routine threats are now attached to relief bills. As Paul Krugman points out, Red States are the ones on the receiving end of most federal tax dollars and an unusually large percentage of federal disaster relief. At no times have Democrats threatened NOT to give disaster relief to Florida for all the hurricanes it faces, even as Florida and southern Republicans threaten to withhold aid from California.

The point Krugman makes is not to say that Red States shouldn't get aid. The point is that California is the main source of federal revenue and what's more, providing aid to fellow citizens is exactly what a national government does. It's not wrong to provide aid; it wrong to withhold it. It tears at the fabric of our common national project.

But isn't that the point of withholding aid? To sic Americans at each others' throats? Isn't that the heart and soul of MAGA?

No comments: