August 31, 2011
“He’s and idiot.” Now there’s a Democratic Governor for you! In a moment of purest truth, crystallizing the essence of Ron Paul’s recent anti-FEMA rant, no one could do it better, or with more harmony of syntax. “He’s an idiot.” It’s long overdue, this simple dismissal of Ron Paul. And nowhere is it more obvious than here: this tightfisted Mr. Burns envisioning a world without FEMA. Like my post yesterday about Virginia Congressloon Eric Cantor’s observation that his constituents – chide, chide, chide – had not secured earthquake insurance, Mr. Paul is of the same mind. “We should be like 1900; we should be like 1940, 1950, 1960,” Paul said. “I live on the Gulf Coast; we deal with hurricanes all the time. Galveston is in my district.”
Though it’s less discussed, don’t fool yourself, people like Ron Paul are just as committed to defunding state governments as they are to stripping the federal budget. It’s taxes they detest, and, of course, state governments impose taxes of all kinds. Some, like Paul’s Texas, have no income tax. In the end, anti-tax people are anti almost all taxes. Here, in the bluest county in blue Maryland, Montgomery County, a group has fought property taxes for years and years.
Insurance company bankruptcy is more common than people think, especially in difficult financial times. A major disaster can also result in insurance companies going bankrupt: Hurricane Andrew hit Florida and Louisiana in 1992, resulting in no less than 12 insurance company bankruptcies. But Ron Paul isn’t moved by that. FEMA? No. Just buy some insurance which will be unable to pay out to policy holders which the federal government will not be allowed to assist. Recipe for disaster upon disaster. Ron Paul is an idiot.