During President Obama’s flight to Detroit, Michigan Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz said President Obama “is disappointed something like this could happen in the greatest country on earth.”
This being the poisoning of the children of Flint, Michigan due to the emergency manager appointed by Governor Rick Snyder (R-MI) the unfiltered, poisoned water of the Flint River to save money.
Last night during his State of the State address, Gov. Snyder tried to spread the failure around by laying partial blame on federal officials and of course, the people who work for him, as Republicans are wont to do.
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Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich, a Flint Democrat, said the governor engaged in “a little bit of rewriting history and a little bit of trying to shift and pass the buck.
“Saying sorry is important, but at the same time you are saying sorry you are blaming other people,” Ananich said.
Snyder tried to subtly pass the buck under a lot of emotion, as he refused to allow his administration emails on the Flint water crisis to be disclosed. Michigan does not currently apply Freedom of Information requests to the Governor’s office and his office has refused to disclose emails on the Flint water issue. Snyder did promise to release his “personal” emails on the matter, but unless he does all state business on his personal email this is not the question that was asked and it is not the same as releasing all of his emails on Flint.
Schultz’s reply was rather pointed when asked if Snyder should resign.
Saying right now we should focus on fixing he problem, Schultz also pointedly said, “I saw the governor yesterday accepted responsibility. Clearly primary responsibility lies with local and state officials.”
Schultz said that even though the primary responsibility is with local and state officials, this won’t stop the federal government from helping. To that end, Schultz explained, “The president … met with the mayor yesterday and he wants to make sure we are marshaling all the resources of the federal government.”
Schultz listed the following ways the federal government is assisting Flint right now, per pool:
-the administration is disseminating public information and helping with water testing
-the CDC is on the ground
-FEMA is there helping in Flint providing water filters and bottled water
-EPA is on the ground
-HUD is involved
Schultz also said that the President would be looking into the notification process between local, state and federal officials.
President Obama landed on the banks of the Detroit River and was met in Detroit by Mayor of Detroit Mike Duggan, U.S. Rep. John Conyers and Wayne County Executive Warren Evans. He will be giving a speech at 3:25 PM Eastern time about the auto industry and is currently touring the 2016 North American International Auto at the Cobo Center in Detroit.
Just a few short years after President Obama rescued the Michigan auto industry from Republicans who wanted to let it die in order to punish the industry for utilizing union workers, Republicans were busy showing everyone just how dangerous it is to be poor in a Republican-controlled state by allowing Michigan emergency managers to punish areas they controlled for being poor by doing things like allowing their water to be literally poisoned.
Rick Snyder has been ducking and dodging the public during his entire time in office, basically erasing citizens’ votes when it suits him. That will teach citizens to try to have a government that represents them.
Snyder ran as a “moderate” Republican and then proceeded to come after unions while giving public resources to corporations and the wealthy and of course, lowering corporate taxes and then punishing the poor for the lack of funds.
In case anyone is confused about where the blame really belongs, just yesterday President Obama vetoed a Republican attempt to kill clean water rules.
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