Secular Café: Did Hurricane Sandy Save Obamacare?

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Did Hurricane Sandy Save Obamacare? Feb 27th 2013, 02:00 The Washington Monthly - The Magazine - Did Hurricane Sandy Save Obamacare? Book review: The Sympathetic State: Disaster Relief and the Origins of the American Welfare State by Michele Landis Dauber University of Chicago Press, 378 pp. Quote: The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is a relatively recent creation, but, as Dauber shows, federal disaster assistance stretches back to the early days of the Republic when Congress began to provide help for the victims of the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-12 and during the War of 1812. By the Civil War era, Congress had passed fifty relief bills covering everything from Mississippi River floods to the devastation of the Kansas grasshopper plague of 1874. Even fervent believers in states' rights rarely expressed constitutional qualms about federal disaster relief. Between 1860 and 1930, there were more than ninety additional federal relief provisions, in addition to the millions expended in the South after the Civil War. From time to time, a few southerners voiced halfhearted constitutional objections that were uniformly disregarded. There was a nearly complete consensus that disaster relief fell within Congress's power to tax and spend for the general welfare. New Deal advocates, including FDR's lawyers, cited Federal disaster relief as a precedent, making comparisons between natural disasters and economic collapses. Don Farber concludes Quote: It is no coincidence that the conservative Republicans who loathed the AHCA as unconstitutional also called for the abolition of FEMA. Mitt Romney parroted these positions in his presidential campaign. That might not have been a problem if Hurricane Sandy had not intervened in the last days before the election, reminding Americans of how much they have always expected the federal government to come to the rescue after disasters. But few of us—and surely few of the more fervent believers in the jurisprudence of original intent—are aware of how far back this attitude stretches in American history. The teabaggers would feel betrayed, I'm sure.

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