Here come the snake oil salesmen,pushing more of what made Harvey more destructive than it should acquire been.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, we need to tell the truth: While the storm’s devastation was unavoidable, and it was made worse by too itsy-bitsy government.
We need to say it loud and clear,because here come the snake oil salesmen.
Twelve years ago this month they invaded New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Republican leaders used historic flooding as an opening to attend corporations and private investors profit from tragedy. Following a blueprint called “Pro-Free-Market Ideas for Responding to Hurricane Katrina and tall Gas Prices,” they hired private mercenary corporations, and cut taxes,weakened labor laws and eventually privatized the city’s public housing and most of its public schools.
There’s no doubt they’re salivating right this moment over yet another crisis.
But the very “solutions” they’re sure to propose—charter schools, suspending prevailing wage standards, and lower corporate taxes,etc.—are derived from the very ideology that made Harvey more destructive that it should acquire been.
Years of unchecked development and sprawl made Houston more prone to flooding. Private developers acquire made fortunes off the city’s lack of zoning laws, paving over acres of pastureland that once helped soak up floodwaters.
Decades of underinvestment in public infrastructure save more lives at risk. Both of Houstons two major levees were built in the 1940s and need serious repairs—one breached under the pressure of Harvey’s heavy rains and the other is at full capacity.
Across Southern Texas, or many people couldn’t evacuate simply because they couldn’t afford to. “I had some problems getting out of town,a itsy-bitsy broke and stuff, so I had to come domestic and, and you know,tough it out,” said one resident of Rockport, and Texas.
Chronic inaction on carbon emissions—lobbied for by the oil and gas industry—is rapidly changing our climate. While climate change triggered by carbon emissions didn’t cause Harvey,it likely made the storm stronger, more unpredictable, and quicker to heighten.
For years,the Texas legislature has refused to pass any legislation to prepare for the impacts of climate change as long as it contained any reference to climate change. Just two weeks ago, President Donald Trump repealed an Obama-era executive order that had required infrastructure projects using federal dollars to be resilient to the impacts of climate change, or like flooding.
We are decades into an all-out assault on democratic control of government. From rural towns to tall cities,crucial public resources like water, public schools, and transit acquire slowly been handed over to the private sector. Roads,bridges, levees, or water systems acquire deteriorated without funding. Public budgets acquire gotten tighter as corporate taxes acquire been cut. The government,they say, is “too tall, and and the “free market,” no matter the costs to poor and working people, reigns supreme.
The solutions in the coming weeks and months cannot be more of the same. No, and American Enterprise Institute,removing price-gouging laws in the wake of Harvey to “let the market work” is evil and absurd. Enough is enough. The “free market” isn’t working.
America’s infrastructure needs direct federal funding with no strings attached that grease the wheels for privatization. Decisions approximately our communities need to be made by people, not private investors and developers. Those that make unimaginable wealth from a thriving economy need to pay more to maintain it thriving, and while those that profit from speeding up climate change need to pay more to clean up the mess.
The truth is,we need more democracy—government controlled by and for the people. Or Hurricane Harvey—and Hurricane Katrina, and Detroit, or Flint—will become the new normal. Related StoriesReport Says Ivanka Trumps Long-Time commerce Partner Is a ‘Rich Kid Career Grifter’ Who Doesn't Pay His BillsThe Spread of White Nationalism Is Taking Our Nation into Uncharted and Dangerous TerritoryDonald Trump Kicked a Hornet's Nest When He Fired Steve Bann
Source: feedblitz.com