Let Them Eat Paper Towels
And the Trump administration seems increasingly to see this tragedy as a public relations issue, something to be spun — partly by blaming the victims — rather than as an urgent problem to be solved.
.. And as The Washington Postnotes, there’s a very telling piece of editing: One segment showed Forest Service workers clearing a road, but it cut off just before the official being interviewed praised local efforts: “The citizens of Puerto Rico were doing an outstanding job coming out and clearing roads to help get the aid that’s needed.”
Puerto Ricans behaving well, it seems, doesn’t fit the official story line.
.. Meanwhile, it took almost three weeks after Maria struck before Trump asked Congress to provide financial aid — and his request was for loans, not grants, which is mind-boggling when you bear in mind that the territory is effectively bankrupt.
.. Puerto Rico was in severe financial and economic difficulty even before the hurricane, and some of that reflected mismanagement. But much of it reflected changes in the global economy — for example, growing competition from Latin American nations — reinforced by policies imposed by Washington, like the end of a crucial tax break and the enforcement of the Jones Act, which forces it to rely on expensive U.S. shipping.
.. Puerto Rico is hardly the only U.S. region suffering difficulties in the face of global economic change — and such regions can normally count on federal support to help limit the hardship. What do you think West Virginia would look like if Medicare and Medicaid didn’t cover 44 percent of the population?
.. what would happen to employment in health and social assistance, which provides jobs to 16 percent of the state’s work force, which is vastly more than coal mining?