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user-inactivated  ·  2529 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Louisiana's Governor Declares State Of Emergency Over Disappearing Coastline

So, I'm just gonna throw a few random things out there. I really feel what you're saying, I do, and I agree with you on an emotional level. Though, also emotionally speaking, a large part of me wants to believe it's a lot more nuanced than that because I have a hard time believing government leaders everywhere are making "bad choices" on what should be "easy decisions."

With Hurricane Katrina, if I remember correctly, the problem of the flooding was both the result of disappearing wetlands that act like a coastal buffer as well as the failing levies due to a neglected infrastructure. So while global warming was partly to blame for it, a huge part of the blame lies on the shoulders of local and regional governments and organizations who have been neglecting their responsibilities to oversee upkeep. This does tie into taxes because the funding for upkeep has to come from somewhere. While I don't like the idea of corporations skirting their responsibilities to pay their fair share of taxes, you have to admit that 10% of a state's income is pretty significant. Those numbers add up and if that money went away, it'd be even harder to pay for the levies and roads and bridges and on and on.

I think another part of the problem is that political leaders depend on public perception to get elected. When your future employment rests on whether or not people think you're doing a good job, it can be easy to fuck up, and even if you make the right decision, not everyone is gonna believe that's the case. I can point to a lot of times in my city and state politics where people had to make easy decisions that were unpopular because they were expensive or ran counter to public opinion and got absolutely creamed come the next election. Louisiana is a primarily red state and while I try not to stereotype, denying human causes in climate change and giving corporations a lot of leeway are very common Republican talking points. That's a rock and a hard place right there.

I've heard the picture for Louisiana is pretty bleak, for infrastructure and schools and healthcare and all sorts of things and I heard they were bad before Jindal came in and made it all worse. If I had to imagine being governer of that state now, Republican or Democrat, I'd be looking at money like water in a drought that needs to be collected and rationed. Something tells me that keeping the needs of the public in mind and trying to keep as much money coming into the state as possible as doing a dance on a knife's edge. If oil companies were even 5% of my state's income, I'd dance around that rhetoric pretty cautiously myself.