Good Government Matters

 Cynics will say that "All politicians lie" or "Both political parties are the same."

They are wrong, especially on the second point, which should have become obvious even before the OBBB passed.

There are two ways in which Republican governance is actively hurting the country - today and in the long run.

The first is that, as Krugman notes, the OBBB guts clean energy funding and tax breaks. This is so manifestly bad policy that it staggers belief. Clean energy is more cost effective than the dirtier forms of energy, while being far more environmentally sound. It's difficult to tell whether this is simply a matter of Cleek's Law or an inefficient and somewhat corrupt giveaway to fossil fuels industries.

The second is simply bad governance, which is a hallmark of Republican rule. Because the post-Reagan GOP has decided that "gubmint bad, taxes worse" we get hollowed out and poorly run public services. In our town, the corrupt/incompetent ruling Republicans decided not to pay the nearby city from which we get our water the market rate. For years. Just didn't pay. Now the town owes tens of millions of dollars after two court losses, and the Republican plan seems to be "appeal the case again, while not setting aside money for when they lose again." Rather than raise water bills a few years ago, they simply plugged their fingers in their ears and stomped their feet hoping the problem would go away.

A far more lethal example just played out in the horrific floods in Texas. As Richardson summarizes, the local officials did not put in flood sirens, because it was expensive. Now, maybe a 100 or more people are dead. Maybe the Trump cuts to NOAA and NWS are also responsible, but the official position of Kerr County officials on installing a flood warning system was "Taxpayers won't pay for it."

Further in the article, you get this perfect GOP response to a tragedy:

Current city officials on Sunday did not discuss the earlier deliberations over warning systems. Dalton Rice, the Kerrville city manager, sidestepped a question about the effectiveness of local emergency notifications, telling reporters at a news conference that it was “not the time to speculate.”

This is the response to school shootings, floods, any crisis that occurs, because GOP policies facilitate them happening, "Don't politicize it!" "Thoughts and prayers."

Of course, the two themes come together. The floods are "historic" and "once a century" which seems to happen a lot, and most climatologists have been saying that crazy weather is exactly the immediate impact of global warming. 

But, by all means, let's gut clean energy. 

The proper role of government is to do for the people that which they cannot do for themselves. This is more or less what Lincoln said many year ago. Even then there was an understanding that government action could be more than the libertarian limits of public safety. Governments could actively improve things, usually be aggregating resources. If Kerr County was too poor to put in a warning system, the state government could have helped. 

Guess who runs the state government.

In the end, the solution would likely have been that federal funds - voted into the budget by Democrats and paid for by wealthier blue states - would have been needed to build a system that might have saved those people's lives. Everything Republicans do - from Reagan to Dubya to Trump, from Gingrich to Delay to McConnell to Johnson - stands in opposition to the idea that government can save and improve lives and Trump and Congressional Republicans are bringing this theology to our national government.