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MSNBC / Alex Wagner: With L.A. wildfires, Republicans suddenly want to play politics with disaster aid [View all]
MSNBC / Alex Wagner - With L.A. wildfires, Republicans suddenly want to play politics with disaster aid
Because California is a blue state, Republicans want it to bend to the will of the GOP in order to get disaster relief.
Jan. 16, 2025, 2:50 PM EST
By Alex Wagner
This is an adapted excerpt from the Jan. 14 episode of “Alex Wagner Tonight.”
Los Angeles is in its second week of fighting the largest fires the city has ever seen. The fires have already collectively burned an area more than twice the size of Manhattan, displaced more than 100,000 people and killed at least 27.
While those fires are still actively burning — and authorities are still searching burned-out houses for the dead — how is the Republican leader of the House, Mike Johnson, responding?
Well, he’s threatening to hold hostage federal disaster aid. “I think there should probably be conditions on that aid,” Johnson told reporters Monday. “That’s my personal view. We’ll see what the consensus is. I haven’t had a chance to socialize that with any of the members over the weekend because we’ve all been very busy, but it’ll be part of the discussion.”
Mind you, Johnson represents the disaster-prone state of Louisiana. In 2022, the last year for which we have data, Louisiana received $34 billion more from the federal government than the state paid the federal government, according to the Rockefeller Institute of Government.
In that same year, the report found California paid $83 billion more to the federal government than the state got in return. And 2022 isn’t an anomaly. California is the fifth-biggest economy in the world, on its own. The state literally subsidizes the rest of the country, year after year.
/snip
Because California is a blue state, Republicans want it to bend to the will of the GOP in order to get disaster relief.
Jan. 16, 2025, 2:50 PM EST
By Alex Wagner
This is an adapted excerpt from the Jan. 14 episode of “Alex Wagner Tonight.”
Los Angeles is in its second week of fighting the largest fires the city has ever seen. The fires have already collectively burned an area more than twice the size of Manhattan, displaced more than 100,000 people and killed at least 27.
While those fires are still actively burning — and authorities are still searching burned-out houses for the dead — how is the Republican leader of the House, Mike Johnson, responding?
Well, he’s threatening to hold hostage federal disaster aid. “I think there should probably be conditions on that aid,” Johnson told reporters Monday. “That’s my personal view. We’ll see what the consensus is. I haven’t had a chance to socialize that with any of the members over the weekend because we’ve all been very busy, but it’ll be part of the discussion.”
Mind you, Johnson represents the disaster-prone state of Louisiana. In 2022, the last year for which we have data, Louisiana received $34 billion more from the federal government than the state paid the federal government, according to the Rockefeller Institute of Government.
In that same year, the report found California paid $83 billion more to the federal government than the state got in return. And 2022 isn’t an anomaly. California is the fifth-biggest economy in the world, on its own. The state literally subsidizes the rest of the country, year after year.
/snip
4 replies
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