Anyone who has seen the images of Joplin knows the Missouri community was struck by a truly devastating tornado.
The human tragedy is heartrending.
Being there and seeing the damage up close provided a sense of just how extensive and widespread and thorough the destruction is. Block after block of leveled houses and apartments;
hundreds of businesses reduced to rubble; schools, churches, medical facilities and infrastructure badly damaged; crumpled vehicles by the dozens.
Large numbers of volunteers and groups, many of them faith-based organizations from the area and from longer distances, arrived to help in any way they could and have exemplified the best American spirit of aiding those in need.
The monstrous Joplin tornado was one of a series of disasters in recentweeks as tornadoes and flooding have ravaged a number of areas.
In Joplin and elsewhere, private and volunteer support has been important in dealing with the tragic effects. Everywhere you turned in Joplin there were volunteers, but also police, firefighters, emergency medical personnel, National Guard, local, state and federal government representatives including FEMA, which was on the scene quickly and established communication links and aided with logistics and know-how.
The role of government agencies and professionals has been critical. “If everthere was a time that government deserved a pat on the back, it’s now,” wrote columnist Mike Pound in the Joplin Globe.
This occurs against a background of debate about the role and financing of government and the allocation of governmental resources.
Government-bashing is a popular sport and many insist the only solution to our current public financial dilemma is to dramatically shrink the size and function of government.
Few would argue that we do not need to see reductions in governmental spending. The rub comes in when we try to find agreement over where cuts can or should be made.
It is painfully clear that vast resources and funding have been and will be needed for disaster relief in Joplin and for the rebuilding of that community. And, again, this is only one of a number of recent natural disasters. On his visit to Joplin, President BarackObama pledged to provide “every ounce” of federal resources needed to help the Joplin victims.
Predictably, with robotic orthodoxy, Eric Cantor, Republican House majority leader, said he would oppose approving disaster relief funds unless there were offsetting spending cuts elsewhere.
There were some quick if not well-founded suggestions about where offsetting cuts might be made. What about foreign aid? That’s always an easy target. However, the public has a badly distorted sense of how much funding goes to foreign aid. While surveys have shown Americans believe as much as 25 percent of the U.S. budget goes to foreign aid, the actual figure is considerably less than 1 percent. And keep in mind that Israel is the largest recipient of U.S.
aid and there’s no clamor in Congress to cut aid to Israel.
Although the aid to Israelis generally unrestricted, other U.S aid has strings attached. In most cases what we are providing is credits for foreign countries to buy U.S. equipment or commodities, so the money actually goes to U.S. firms and for U.S. jobs.
When it comes to the budget, almost nothing is as simple as it seems.
And Mr. Cantor might have a somewhat different perspective on disaster relief if his own constituency was involved.
Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, whose state of Mississippi has experienced some major disasters, disagreed with Cantor. He points out that emergencies are not predictable and may require Congress to provide extra funding.
Missouri Republican Sen. Roy Blunt, a fiscal conservative, is asking for the federal government to pick up the full cost of Joplin’s recovery.
Arkansas’s entire congressional delegation recently wrote letters toObama and FEMA urging a “quick, comprehensive response” for federal assistance to areas of Arkansas hit by flooding and tornadoes. Visiting a Northeast Arkansas area badly damaged by flooding, Sen. John Boozman said, “When we have devastation like this, this is what having government is all about … to help rebuild communities.” The Republican senator is also strongly committed to cutting federal spending.
Determining where to spend and where to cut involves competing claims and contradictory strains, but, as Obama said in Joplin, “This is not just your tragedy. This is a national tragedy, and that means there will be a national response.”
This is no time for political games. There should be no question about providing needed government assistance.
HOYT PURVIS IS A JOURNALISM AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS PROFESSOR.
Opinion, Pages 13 on 06/12/2011