Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) is facing significant blowback following her Tuesday announcement that she is asking the Federal Emergency Management Agency to cover all of the cleanup costs from last Friday’s series of tornados that killed nearly three dozen people and caused extensive damage throughout the Bear State.
“I’ve been across our state since Friday, surveying damage, meeting with survivors, and discussing recovery efforts with local leaders, emergency personnel, and volunteers. It’s clear that the cost to clean up the damage those storms created will be substantial,” Sanders said in a statement as reported by local ABC News affiliate KATV. “The federal government is currently covering 75 percent of all costs incurred during our recovery process, but that arrangement must go further to help Arkansans in need. Today, I’m asking the federal government to cover 100 percent of all our recovery expenses during the first 30 days after the storm.”
The problem is that Sanders has repeatedly railed against federal involvement in state and local issues. During her campaign, for example, Sanders proclaimed that Arkansas residents have the “right to be free of socialism and tyranny.” Then, in January, she tweeted that “as long as I am your governor, the meddling hand of big government creeping down from Washington DC will be stopped cold at the Mississippi River.”
WTF??? Why not simply as God for the money?
We really should not be too hard on Governor Sarah — after all, she’s a graduate of that center of academic excellence, Ouachita Baptist College.