Sandy’s telling lesson

There are many lessons to be learned from Hurricane Sandy—about climate change, about the ability of unanticipated events to change the dynamic of a presidential campaign.

Perhaps the most telling lesson, however, has to do with the role of government in people’s lives. When Mother Nature asserts her power and push comes to shove, people want government to come to the rescue.

The common view of the hurricane was that it bolstered President Obama’s re-election odds by giving credence to his faith in government and undercut Mitt Romney’s anti-government stance that led him to state, during the primary, that FEMA’s role should be returned to the states.

But Romney was simply pandering to his far-right base, and even it doesn’t really want to get rid of FEMA. Those Tea Party types may say they want to cut the size of government, but what they really mean is that they want to cut the money the guy next door is getting. When they need to be rescued during a hurricane, they want FEMA to be there.

This is true of the rich as well as the poor. As Matt Taibbi points out in Rolling Stone, nobody lives off the government more than Mitt Romney’s wealthy supporters, whether it be via subsidies (like Doug LaMalfa), bailouts, tax breaks, selective regulation or “carefully carved-out protections from competition” like Medicare’s ban on price negotiation that benefits Big Pharma.

These are the very people who don’t want to pay taxes, but want their airplanes inspected, their sea walls solid and their food safe to eat. What Sandy showed is that even they have to admit they need government.