President Trump has made providing aid to fire-ravaged California contingent on that state’s changing how it handles elections.
This meddling in a state’s affairs sets an extremely dangerous precedent. The federal government has long helped all its citizens recover from floods, droughts, fires, hurricanes, earthquakes, and tornados regardless of how they voted in national and local elections.
Helping each other when in need has been a defining virtue of our nation. It is part of what makes America great. President Trump’s actions put that virtue at risk. His holding aid ransom for political concessions also raises crucial Constitutional questions.
The money President Trump is threatening to withhold is ours, not his. Disaster relief is paid from our tax dollars. It is appropriated and spent by Congress, not the president.
The founders insisted on this division of powers, giving Congress control over the nation’s purse strings.
The president’s dealings with California’s Governor Newsom circumvent that Constitutional requirement. President Trump is acting as though he is negotiating a business deal that involves his own funds.
This is surprising, especially from the head of a party that champions states’ rights.
Will future presidents be able to use this precedent to demand political concessions from other states in return for essential aid? Is President Trump opening doors that will be very difficult to close?
The most troubling part of these events is that our fellow citizens are being used as pawns in political games. Twenty-four people have died thus far from the California fires, 17,000 buildings were destroyed, and tens of thousands of people are destitute.
They need our collective help. They do not need to have their plights politicized. There are lessons to be learned from the recent tragedy, ways to avoid a repeat of this devastation.
Those solutions will not be Republican or Democratic, they will human responses to human losses.
Please urge our senators and Representatives to speed unconditional assistance to our fellow Americans and not give into the temptation to use their suffering to score political points.
Edward Schortman
Gambier, Ohio