By Robert Reich
As extreme weather marked by tornadoes and flooding
continues to sweep across Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has requested – and President
Obama has granted – federal help.
I
don’t begrudge Texas billions of dollars in disaster relief. After all, we’re
all part of America. When some of us are in need, we all have a duty to
respond.
But
the flow of federal money poses a bit of awkwardness for the Lone Star
State.
After
all, just over a month ago hundreds of Texans decided that a pending Navy
Seal/Green Beret joint training exercise was really an excuse to take over the
state and impose martial law. And they claimed the Federal Emergency Management
Agency was erecting prison camps, readying Walmart stores as processing centers
for political prisoners.
There are nut cases everywhere, but Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott added to that particular outpouring of paranoia by ordering the Texas State Guard to monitor the military exercise. “It is important that Texans know their safety, constitutional rights, private property rights and civil liberties will not be infringed upon,” he said. In other words, he’d protect Texans from this federal plot.
Now,
Abbott wants federal money. And the Federal Emergency Management Agency is
gearing up for a major role in the cleanup – including places like Bastrop,
Texas, where the Bastrop State Park dam failed – and where, just five weeks
ago, a U.S. Army colonel trying to explain the pending military exercise was
shouted down by hundreds of self-described patriots shouting “liar!”
Texans
dislike the federal government even more than most other Americans do.
According to a February poll conducted by the University
of Texas and the Texas Tribune, only 23 percent of Texans view the federal
government favorably, while 57 percent view it unfavorably, including more than
a third who hold a “very unfavorable” view.
Texas
dislikes the federal government so much that eight of its congressional
representatives, along with Senator Ted Cruz, opposed disaster relief for the
victims of Hurricane Sandy – adding to the awkwardness of their lobbying for
the federal relief now heading Texas’s way.
Yet
even before the current floods, Texas had received more disaster relief than
any other state, according to a study by the Center for American
Progress. That’s not simply because the state is so large. It’s also
because Texas is particularly vulnerable to extreme weather – tornadoes on the
plains, hurricanes in the Gulf, flooding across its middle and south.
Given
this, you might also think Texas would take climate change especially
seriously. But here again, there’s cognitive dissonance between what the
state needs and how its officials act.
Among
Texas’s infamous climate-change deniers is Lamar Smith, chairman of the House
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, who dismissed last year’s report by the United
Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as “more political than
scientific,“ and the White House report on the urgency of addressing climate
change as designed “to frighten Americans.”
Smith is still at it. His committee just slashed by more than 20 percent NASA’s spending on Earth science, which includes climate change.
It’s
of course possible that Texas’s current record rainfalls – the National Weather
Service reports that the downpour in May alone was
enough to put the entire state under eight inches of water – has
nothing to do with the kind of extreme weather we’re witnessing elsewhere
in the nation, such as the West’s current drought, the North’s record winter
snowfall, and flooding elsewhere.
But
you’d have to be nuts not to be at least curious about such a connection, and
its relationship to the carbon dioxide humans have been spewing into the
atmosphere.
Consider
also the consequences for the public’s health. Several deaths in Texas have
been linked to the extreme weather. Many Texans have been injured by it,
directly or indirectly. Poor residents are in particular peril because they
live in areas prone to flooding or in flimsy houses and trailers that can be
washed or blown away.
What’s
Texas’s response? Texas officials continue to turn down federal funds to
expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, thereby denying insurance to more than 1 million people and preventing the state from
receiving an estimated $100 billion in federal cash over the next
decade.
I
don’t want to pick on Texas. Its officials are not alone in hating the
federal government, denying climate change, and refusing to insure its
poor.
And
I certainly don’t want to suggest all Texans are implicated. Obviously, many
thoughtful and reasonable people reside there.
Yet
Texans have elected people who seem not to have a clue. Indeed, Texas has done
more in recent years to institutionalize irrationality than almost
anywhere else in America – thereby imposing a huge burden on its citizens.
How
many natural disasters will it take for the Lone Star State to wake up to the
disaster of its elected officials?
ROBERT B. REICH, Chancellor’s Professor
of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow
at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, was Secretary of Labor in the
Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective
cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written thirteen books,
including the best sellers “Aftershock" and “The Work of Nations."
His latest, "Beyond Outrage," is now out in paperback. He is also a
founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.
His new film, "Inequality for All," is now available on Netflix,
iTunes, DVD, and On Demand.
