You see the problem with Federalizing all problems washing up on the beaches and marshlands of Louisiana: Washington is so far away and so detached from real life in real places that they actually have obstructed rational actions to minimize the damage. Governor Bobby Jindal has been begging, begging the Feds to allow Louisiana to dredge and build barrier islands to protect the coastline - the Feds dithered - some of the key players went to fundraisers and white water rafting while the permits sat on desks. Without the Feds, the states would have acted within days to minimize the damage. Here's a cruel critique, particularly pay attention to James Carville's brutal (!) comments about his party's governance:
Just as with Katrina, when all attention and responsibility is focused on the center, it freezes and makes less accountable the people in authority on site. So nothing gets done and crises become buck passing exercises. Our founding fathers understood this - they suffered under ignorant and indifferent governance from London and fought a brutal 'cousin's' war to free themselves from central control. Then they designed a government that left most governance to the states.
But our 'progressive' leadership, sometimes abetted by statist Republicans were impatient with the pace of change - they didn't want to sell their ideas 50 times, they wanted to 'save' the world. So by hook and crook they have 'progressively' undermined federalism to the point that when anything happens anywhere in America, everyone immediately turns to the 'Big Daddy' to fix it. I actually feel sorry for BHO as I did for W, it's impossible to be the big daddy of 315 million people spread over 3.5 million square miles.
And it's idiocy to try.
It's time for some Federal humility, don't you think?
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