Justin's Political Corner

With Hurricane Sandy bearing down on the entire east coast, it’s worth remembering back to when Mitt Romney was in his severely conservative primary phase. He told CNN’s John King during the June 13, 2011 Republican presidential primary debate that federal disaster relief was “immoral” because deficit.

Severely conservative Mitt also picked severely conservative Paul Ryan for his running mate, the guy who attempted to cut a new disaster aid fund that “budgets help for victims of hurricanes, tornadoes and floods before they occur.” Luckily for the entire east coast this week, party leadership nixed that idea.

But what happens with the next monster storm under Romney/Ryan? The Ryan budget, fully embraced by Romney, would make such deep cuts in federal funding that disaster relief would have to be passed on to states and localities. Romney,which is specifically what he is saying should happen in that clip. But funding for states and localities is also so sharply curtailed that they’ll be hard pressed to respond to disasters. Which, as he made clear at the debate, is exactly what will force his ultimate goal: privatizing disaster relief.

h/t: Joan McCarter at Daily Kos