Mittens: The Government Won’t Be Here to Help (So Call 211)

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There’s some joke with the punchline “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help!” Righties love that one. They’re big on self-reliance, except when they need help themselves. Then they scream bloody murder if the government isn’t there pronto, even though rightie politicians keep cutting funds for whatever it is that is needed. Somehow, the connection between gutting the budget of the National Forest Service and the NFS not putting out forest fires right away doesn’t click together in their brains.

Yesterday the freshly nominated Mitt Romney and his buddy Bobby Jindal toured a town flooded by Hurricane Isaac. Since Mittens doesn’t think the government should do anything to help anybody who doesn’t already hold an investment portfolio worth something in the six figures, I wondered why the hell he bothered. What would he say to the people he met?

Now we know —

Romney shook hands with National Guardsmen outside the U.S. Post Office and talked with a local resident, Jodie Chiarello, 42, who lost her home in Isaac’s flooding.

“He just told me to, um, there’s assistance out there,” Chiarello said of her conversation with Romney. “He said, go home and call 211.” That’s a public service number offered in many states.

Would the government at least provide her with goggles and a snorkel so she can find her submerged phone? Probably not.

Did Mittens say anything else? This is all I could find —

Romney, who chatted with a handful of storm victims and shook hands with first responders, didn’t have too much to say. “I’m here to learn and obviously to draw some attention to what’s going on here,” Romney told Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who he accompanied to the Jean Lafitte town hall to meet with emergency workers. “So that people around the country know that people down here need help.”

That snippet of conversation represented the bulk of Romney’s public remarks in Louisiana on Friday.

Jindal may be a doofus, but he’s a doofus who probably wants to run for public office again someday.

His host, Jindal, is now calling on the federal government to expand the rebuilt flood protection system that prevented serious flooding in New Orleans during this week’s storm. That system, built after flooding from Katrina devastated much of New Orleans, cost the Army Corps of Engineers $14.5 billion. It doesn’t extend as far as Jean Lafitte, which is situated in Jefferson Parish, and has been affected by a series of hurricanes, including Katrina, Rita, Cindy and now Isaac.

“It is absolutely critical that the Corps, and certainly our delegation working them, but that the Corps and the federal government look at those other levees,” Jindal said Thursday. Lafitte is included in a proposed ring levee that the state hopes to build, but there are no concrete plans to build yet.

Romney was silent on whether, as president, he would support paying for such an expansion. Romney’s running mate, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, has proposed eliminating $10 billion a year in disaster spending and requiring Congress to pay for emergencies by cutting from elsewhere in the budget. That proposal was blocked by GOP leaders.

You know that deep inside, Mitt Romney feels much tender pity for those people who lost everything in the flood, and he hopes they can build shelters for themselves from scrap lumber and perhaps get a few hot meals from the local church ladies. But in Mitt’s World it’s not government’s job to help people who are sitting around whining because they just lost everything they own to a storm. Tax money spent on moochers like Jodie Chiarello may threaten his tax cuts. And if people need money to rebuild, they can always borrow from their parents, right, Mitt?

11 thoughts on “Mittens: The Government Won’t Be Here to Help (So Call 211)”

  1. Ah, yes – the famous “compassion” of Mitt Romney.

    Telling a peron who’s homeless because of Isaac, to ‘go home, and dial 211’

    Now THAT’S the Mitt Romney we all know!
    And most people loathe.

    He hates people who are less rich than himself.
    And he especially hates poor people.

    I’m waiting for the time when, against his will and better judgement, he’s introduced to some more poor people in LA, made homeless due to flooding, and pulls a New Orleans version of Greta Garbo, and says, “Levee me ALONE

    Oh yeah, and Bobby Jindall, go do the anatomically impossible thing that Clint’s empty chair insisted that Mitt do.

  2. Romney at the RNC: “President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans… And to heal the planet… My promise is to help you and your family.”

    “So Bobby, don’t call us for help with the levees…”

  3. So it rained, over two *feet* of rain in three days, more or less. Willard sleeps in the morning after Eastwood destroyed him, and flies to inspect what you people are doing. Asks the most penetrating question of his life:

    “Did the water come from the sky, or the rivers, or the ocean?”

    Now that is pure leadership.

  5. A telling statement: “I’m here to learn and obviously to draw some attention to what’s going on here,” Romney told Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who he accompanied to the Jean Lafitte town hall to meet with emergency workers.

    I thought business people knew everything there was about anything. He doesn’t have a clue how a government works; none of the Republicans have a clue. The first thing he needs to learn is that the Federal Government of the United States of America IS NOT a business. During my 30 plus career with the Federal Government, I never attained a management grade level; but, I would bet that I could run this whole Government better than any Republican Neanderthal.

  6. “Why, it’s might white of that ol’ Massah Romney to go down amongst those po’ folk so’s to bring all that attention down theah.”

    I can imagine that Republicans have learned to tune out disasters in that part of the world, but I think the rest of us could manage to remember the victims of Isaac without help from Mitt Romney. He may say he wants to bring attention to the disaster, but I think what he means is GET attention for being down there mixing with the po’ folk.

    He can’t ever pretend to connect with regular people successfully. It’s pathetic. Talking to a woman who’s lost her home and telling her to go home and call 211? The mind boggles. A competent plutocrat would have been able to feign sympathy long enough to hand her off to a minion, muttering a noncommittal “oh, how awful” or something. A politically saavy one would have had minions equipped and ready with some giveaways, or strings ready to pull, so he could have said, “Oh, that’s awful. I tell you what – you just give all the details to Mindy, here, and she’ll make sure you’re signed up to get the help you need,” even if no help ever ended getting delivered.

    He obviously left prep school having flunked the courses in noblesse oblige and faking the common touch when dealing with your inferiors.

  7. biggerbox,
    Mitt meant go to her OTHER home.
    Or her other other home.
    Or her other other other home.
    etc.

  8. Romney is more than happy to assist people in need – if they are Mormon! PBS had a special on recently, showing huge warehouses of food and other supplies that the Mormon church has assembled to help Mormons in need. However, if you are a non-Mormon – forget about it! You are on your own! This is the kind of man Willard Romney is, and anyone who is even toying with the idea of voting for this reptile, should never, ever forget it. He is NOT a Christian!!!

  10. He said: “I’m here to learn and obviously to draw some attention to what’s going on here,”

    I hear: I’m here to capitalize on the suffering of others by projecting myself as Presidential and caring. I also want to draw attention to whatever deficiencies can be found in the Obama administrations poorly managed FEMA operations, here in this glorious state where the trees are just the right height although they lean toward the west. I’m told that’s because Texas sucks,ha,ha,ha, not really, it’s that Alabama blows. No ,no. Im’ just kidding, a little levity is always a good prescription for adversity.

    God bless America and may the blessing of Nephi be upon you.

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