When you treat government like a business, with the balance sheet driving all decisions – and with no moral compass to guide you – here is what happens.
Yesterday, the House Kill-All-Regulations Committee chaired by Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) held a hearing on the Flint water crisis.
The testimony included that of Keith Creagh, Interim Director of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, the hand-picked scapegoat for Gov. Rick Snyder’s starve-the-beast governance of the state of Michigan, policies that put balance sheet concerns over the duty of government to provide safe drinking water to its citizens. Conspicuous in their absence were Gov. Snyder and the man he handpicked as the “emergency” city manager whose decision led to this man-made catastrophe.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) leaves no doubt about his feelings on the literal poisoning of the children of Flint Michigan:
A news account and the full hearing video is below.
Flint drinking water crisis rattles Congress
Democrats battered the administration of GOP Gov. Rick Snyder – and by extension the Republican Party’s anti-regulation approach to governing.
“This is the consequence of putting ideology ahead of human beings and their needs and their welfare,” said Democratic firebrand Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia. “The difference in political philosophy matters. I do accuse. I do lay this at the doorstep of those who hold that philosophy.”[…]
the focal point of Wednesday’s squabbling was the nearly four-hour House hearing, which was punctuated with applause, groans and sobbing from an audience of Michiganders clad in “Flint Lives Matter” T-shirts who brought along bottles of dirty drinking water for the cameras.
Even as some Democrats thanked Chaffetz for holding it, others derided the hearing as a media stunt – noting that Snyder, who has faced calls for his resignation, was conspicuously absent from Chaffetz’s witness list. Also absent was the former head of the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, who resigned under pressure.
Democrats noted that it was Snyder’s hand-picked emergency manager who, in the name of saving money, had orchestrated the fateful switch of drinking water sources for the hard-hit city’s 100,000 residents – from Lake Huron to the notoriously polluted Flint River. And it was Snyder’s Department of Environmental Quality that failed to heed drinking water regulations that would have prevented the water from corroding old lead pipes and fixtures.
Full hearing video.
Participants:
Joel Beauvais
Acting Deputy Assistant Administrator Environmental Protection Agency->Office of Water
Keith Creagh
Interim Director Michigan->Department of Environmental QualityMarc Edwards
Member Flint, MI->Water Interagency Coordinating Committee
H. “Morgan” Morgan Griffith
U.S. Representative [R] Virginia
Sheila Jackson Lee
U.S. Representative [D] Texas
Dan Kildee
U.S. Representative [D] Michigan
Leeanne Walters
Resident Flint
Justin Amash
U.S. Representative [R] Michigan
Matt Cartwright
U.S. Representative [D] Pennsylvania
Jason Chaffetz
U.S. Representative [R] Utah
William Lacy Clay Jr.
U.S. Representative [D] Missouri
Bonnie Watson Coleman
U.S. Representative [D] New Jersey
Gerry Connolly
U.S. Representative [D] Virginia
Elijah Cummings
U.S. Representative [D] Maryland
Paul Gosar
U.S. Representative [R] Arizona
Michelle Lujan Grisham
U.S. Representative [D] New Mexico
Glenn Grothman
U.S. Representative [R] Wisconsin
Jody B. Hice
U.S. Representative [R] Georgia
Robin Kelly
U.S. Representative [D] Illinois
Brenda Lawrence
U.S. Representative [D] Michigan
Ted Lieu
U.S. Representative [D] California
Cynthia Lummis
U.S. Representative [R] Wyoming
Mark Meadows
U.S. Representative [R] North Carolina
John Mica
U.S. Representative [R] Florida
Mick Mulvaney
U.S. Representative [R] South Carolina
Eleanor Holmes Norton
Congressional Delegate [D] District of Columbia
Gary Palmer
U.S. Representative [R] Alabama
Stacey Plaskett
Congressional Delegate [D] Virgin Islands
Steve Russell
U.S. Representative [R] Oklahoma
Tim Walberg
U.S. Representative [R] Michigan
The federal government declared Flint a federal emergency back in the middle of January and yesterday responded with more specific help.
Feds deploy health ‘strike team’ to Flint
People still hope to see the governor testify and ultimately held responsible. His ideology led directly to the penny wise and pound foolish cuts that created this mess.
Water expert blames DEQ ‘cover-up’ for Flint crisis
At least one Republican saw the governor as the culprit:
WaPo
USA Today
Jan–Thank Goddess for this:
Take that, “Saint” Ronnie! Remember how that old balpoot said “the most frightening words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.'”
Hope the old balpoot is whirling in his grave at the thought of the “poors” in Flint getting some help.
Imagine being a mother in that situation, knowing that your children could be permanently brain damaged, all because the Rethugs value dollars more than human lives. Damn them all.
Thanks for providing writeups and links, Jan!
I can imagine being a mother in that situation. It would be awful. I hate when my baby even has a cold!
Maybe we have found something that even reflexive Republican voters can get angry over. In Kansas, Sam Brownback and his starve-the-beast budget has severely damaged the public schools. His opponent in the 2014 race hammered on that and got close but in the end the voters chose to let their schools deteriorate (last year they had to close early because they ran out of money). Republicans don’t much care for public schools and rarely use them for their own kids education but EVERYONE NEEDS SAFE DRINKING WATER. That is so vital. One of the Republicans, a guy from Florida named John Mica, said that exact thing.
If we can get Republican voters to concede that there are some things that the government has to do, maybe we can get them to agree not to destroy it.
At about 1:32:48:
“In government, we have a fundamental responsibility and that is – this glass of water [places glass in front of him and points at it] – that’s our responsibility to make sure that water is pure and drinkable”
Period. End of conversation about the proper role of government.
More heroes…
The purpose of government is to provide the goods/services – the “general welfare” – a society needs but are not profitable if provided to the whole society. That’s whether you are talking roads, water, “security”, education – not even mentioning the safety net. The Rs want the goods/services without paying for them. It’s a battle I fought and lost at the county level by a 5-1 vote. The 5-1 vote is why I gave up and didn’t run again.
Senate Democrats have filibustered the Energy Bill to force amendments to be added to authorize money for Flint Michigan.
Charlie Pierce wants Bernie and Hillary to use the Flint MI debate locale to go straight at Republicans and their ideology:
The Republicans are on the wrong side of this issue and our candidates need to pound it home: there is an important role for government and “burn it all down” is not a choice.
I taught pensions and deferred compensation for over 20 years, am still teaching a graduate tax course in deferred compensation once a year, and one of the concepts I try to drive home is fiduciary responsibility. In pension law, this is a specific duty of pension managers, but I think the fiduciary notion undelies all of government – government officials, from the President down to the local city councilperson, hold their offices as fiduciaries of the common good. I tell my students that lawyers hold the fortunes and frequently the lives of their clients in their hands – they are the fiduciaries in that relationship, charged with managing those fortunes and defending those lives solely for the benefit of the client, not themselves. So it is with government – those in positions of authority MUST consider themselves and think like fiduciaries, they too hold the lives and fortunes of the public in their hands and they must run the government for the sole benefit of the public, not themselves. These criminals in Michigan – and elsewhere. I’m sure – apparently have never heard about any of that, or if they have, are true criminals and think they can get away with profiting from poisoning children. They must be made to pay for this.
“Fiduciaries of the common good”. Exactly.
And while they certainly are required to be judicious when spending the taxpayers money, another form of fiduciary responsibility, there is no one anywhere who would ever claim that providing safe drinking water is not a necessary role of a city government.
I think that this is where the “businessmen are better than politicians” theory falls apart. A CEO owes an obligation to the shareholders to increase value, in fact if they spend the shareholders money doing good works, they can be sued under the Dodge v. Ford Motor Co. ruling. Shareholder value trumps everything. But when you are an elected official, you are not the CEO … you are the governor, or state legislator … and your duty lies to the well-being of your citizens. The bottom line does not trump the state constitution or the statutes.
When people diss career politicians and lionize businessmen as better suited to run a state or a country, they run the risk that the businessmen just won’t get it. In Wisconsin, Sen. Ron Freaking Johnson (R), who got his start in business thanks to his father-in-law, ran against the establishment. He was out of his depth and had no clue what government did. We get a do-over this year as former Senator Russ Feingold (D) is running for his old seat. I hope that people realize that “career politician” can also mean “person who has dedicated his life to service”. The voting public needs to be wiser in identifying the canards in amongst the talking points.