Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder committed one of the worst sins imaginable for a public servant: He poisoned his own people. Why? To pinch a penny.
Now he's got to turn to his GOP-led state government and the Republican Congress to help foot the $767 million bill to fix Flint's water infrastructure. It seems government's always the problem until you've got a problem—even if you engineered that problem yourself. The irony hasn't been lost on Democrats, reports Amber Phillips.
"Republicans disparage government all the time as intrusive, too involved, and detrimental to our society. Gov. Rick Snyder is a leading cheerleader of that theory," Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said on the Senate floor on Tuesday. "He denigrates government every single chance he gets. But to whom does he turn when he needs help cleaning up the mess he has created? The federal government."
But it's not just Snyder who is in a tough spot. The GOP-controlled Congress is about to be asked to help with the man-made disaster in Flint, and it's not going to be an easy sell among fiscally conservative Republicans watching their backs in an election year.
But to turn down requests to help provide the most basic service of clean water to a mostly poor, majority-black city will almost certainly invite Democratic attacks like the one Reid launched at Snyder on Tuesday.
As it should. The continual short-sightedness of Republican politicians is wreaking havoc on the country in a million different ways. But they damn well better help the city they helped destroy and the residents they have poisoned on the path to "fiscal responsibility." Right on cue, GOP lawmakers are already trying to shirk responsibility.
"While we all have sympathy for what’s happened in Flint, this is primarily a local and state responsibility," Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), the second-ranking GOP Senate leader, told the Detroit Free Press's Melissa Nann Burke recently, adding that he sees the federal government helping in some capacity, but not with "a blank check."
You weren’t elected to sympathize, John, you were elected to fix problems. Now’s your chance to do something useful—that directly impacts American lives. Don’t waste it.