Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – The Feds are now all over everything that has anything to do with disaster relief. Of course, Inhofe and Coburn, they can’t go out there and say, [mocking] “There’s going to be waste and abuse in the appropriation of any funds.” Inhofe says of course they’re going to get federal dollars in Oklahoma, but we’re going to offset them with spending cuts. Doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose of transferring responsibilities back to the states? Check out today’s transcript for the rest…
Begin Mike Church Show Transcript
Mike: I have the story from the Huffington Puffington Post last night, “Oklahoma Senators Jim Inhofe, Tom Coburn, Face Difficult Options On Disaster Relief.” Since Oklahoma is a heartland, flyover, very red conservative state, I think it is safe to say that if Oklahoma and Oklahomans cannot withstand or cannot — how do I want to phrase this? Please don’t misunderstand what I’m about to say, for those of you that are Oklahomans or may know Oklahomans. I’m trying to discuss this in the political sense of the situation, which is why it’s good to have the story about how Inhofe and Coburn have voted on various disaster relief. If Oklahoma — it does have, because I heard Governor Mary Fallin’s press conference yesterday. I listened to the whole thing start to finish. Governor Fallin said on several instances that there are many communities in Oklahoma that are already marshaling together their applications to get, and I’m quoting here, to get “matching federal funds” for disaster relief. I was watching this. You have the police chief and then the fire chief, then whoever is the civil defense air captain or whatever. Then they have this procession of various public and government officials. Fallin weaves back in and out. She speaks several times during the presser. In each in instance, there is a mention that there are federal dollars, boatloads of federal money on the way.
Certainly as I sit here in the largely rebuilt by federal leviathan dollars City of New Orleans, and as some of you sit in the largely rebuilt by federal dollars Upstate New Jersey cities and tidal communities that are being rebuilt after Hurricane Sandy, and of course you could point to other hurricanes that have hit Alabama, floods that have hit Alabama, tornados that hit Greensburg, Kansas and other natural disasters. No one is pointing a finger at Oklahoma and saying: You guys aren’t worthy. Good for me but not for thee. That’s not the point of this. My only point in bringing this up is that all 50 of the states in the Union and majorities of the people in all those states, I would hazard a guess to say, are all of the opinion now that the first call that is to be made after any natural disaster, it doesn’t even matter what it is, the 911 number to dial when you need dollars and you need them fast is to call FEMA, to call the federal leviathan.
It is an indication of just how ingrained — this is now a part of life. The federal government, the national government is the first responder of choice after the fact. It is who governors turn to. It’s who city mayors and state legislators turn to. Even though this began innocently enough as, [mocking] “We can’t let these people that have lost everything due to a flood, we can’t really let them rebuild, come on, we’ve got to do something.” Aren’t your heartstrings tugged at? It now has metastasized and become now part of how we govern ourselves. The Feds are now all over everything that has anything to do with disaster relief. If Oklahoma — of course, Inhofe and Coburn, they can’t go out there and say, [mocking] “There’s going to be waste and abuse in the appropriation of any funds.” Inhofe says of course they’re going to get federal dollars in Oklahoma, but we’re going to offset them with spending cuts. Doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose of transferring responsibilities back to the states?
Ultimately, at the end of the day, the restoration of any town in the United States, after it has been dealt a blow by any natural disaster, ought to be the business of the people that lived nearby and/or the volunteer efforts of people that will migrate to the site. I guarantee you right now listening to this program, we can take phone calls from people that are in either their trucks or their cars or maybe on a train or something of that sort that, out of the kindness and goodwill of their hearts, wishing to do some Christian charity as they have been called to do, are on their way to Moore, Oklahoma to pitch in, to see what they can do, to volunteer their time. I guarantee you there are thousands, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. It is disturbing, or the trend is disturbing, that there is not a solitary municipality in the United States that is now prepared to deal with a natural disaster without turning to Mordor on the Potomac River for boatloads of federal money.
We are now all inextricably linked. All the talk of nullifying and seceding and, [mocking] “We just won’t give them our money. If they come make us pay our fines for Obamacare, we just won’t fork it over.” Yeah? What are you going to do when you have a natural disaster and you tell them: Hey, Moose, Rocko, help the Feds find a checkbook. This has now become part of the fabric of American life. I suppose if that’s the way people want it and they do not understand that the largesse and the amount of funds that are appropriated for these things are never equal to the task at hand. They’re always in excess and there’s always corporatism and cronyism. I guess as long as people are getting their couches restored and refrigerators shipped on site, then all is well and right with the world. I thought for a fleeting moment Oklahoma has, like Texas, a rainy-day fund. I guess they’re going to tap into it, but you’re going to get matching federal funds. I wonder what part of the original Constitution grants the power for the matching federal funds.
End Mike Church Show Transcript
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