He Won’t Provide Emergency Aid to Fix Vulnerable Levee System
President Bush is in the Bay Area this weekend. So far, the trip is not going well. His approval rating in California is at 32 percent, and has been in the low 30s for quite a while — we’re such trendsetters here, aren’t we?
An event that was to have taken place at the famed Hoover Tower on the campus of Stanford University had to be moved to a private residence because over a thousand or so protesters showed up and blocked the entrance.
The president also found himself placed in an akward situation by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose popularity has been as low as the president’s but is now slightly ahead.
[Schwarzenegger] pressed his case Friday in a private meeting with President Bush — a visit that carried some political risk for the governor, given Bush’s ebbing popularity among California voters.
The two spoke for about 15 minutes … with the governor calling for more money to fix California’s aging levee system…
Word from the White House was mixed. In a conference call with reporters before Air Force One even landed in California, a Bush advisor said federal officials would speed environmental permits so repairs could begin on 29 vulnerable levees in the Central Valley.
White House officials also said the federal government might share the cost of fixing the levees, which has been a priority of Schwarzenegger’s in his third year in office.
But the Bush administration declined to issue a federal disaster declaration — a vehicle for additional federal funding and something that Schwarzenegger had requested.
It is “legally inappropriate” to declare a disaster before it happens, said James L. Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
The idea of a Bush official worrying about what is legally appropriate is a bit of hoot. As Fabian Nuñez, the speaker of the state Assembly, put it, Bush’s response to the request was, “Bush to California: Drop dead.”
Still, the governor’s actions are curious. Usually these matters are worked out in advance so that actual meetings are pro forma. It appears that Schwarzenegger staged the confrontation, hoping to distance himself from the unpopular president by making a request he knew Bush would have to refuse.
Come on, guys, give George “White Trash” Bush a break…I mean, why bother with a mere governor when you are the decider on the future of Planet Earth and you’re talking, daily I presume, with the Big Guy upstairs?
Why is this response any different than the response to Katrina and Louisiana? After all, isn’t it the Bush mantra to “let ’em eat cake, or mud, or whatever?