Sep 6, 2005 3 min read

The post-hurricane chaos unfolding in obliterated New Orleans, where daily life has disintegrated into a wet and lawless squalor, offers the chance for all Americans to address the role and importance of the federal government. Forget for a moment the heated debate over whether federal aid, mostly in the form of National Guard mobilization and help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, came quick enough to stave off the widespread looting and human misery gripping the Big Easy. That issue is important, but it’s part of a much larger picture involving where people turn for help when disaster strikes.

And just where do states, even in the conservative, Republican-dominated Deep South, look for such assistance? Invariably, it’s the same big, bad, overspending, too-powerful federal government.

You know, the one that many of that region’s politicians and residents, by virtue of their ballot box performance, otherwise castigate as something that should be greatly diminished in one’s daily life. The federal government, goes their well-worn mantra, is a tax-taking machine that robs people of the power to control their own destinies, economic and policy-wise.

How many times have we heard from the states’ rights crew that states do a much better job on just about anything, anyway, and thus a diminished federal presence is highly desirable?

It’s funny how a hurricane or two sends many of those same politicians clamoring for help from, well, the federal government.

In this case, understandably so, because the natural disaster is so big that people are going begging for necessities such as food, water and medicine; and the breakdown in law and order has fomented thuggery among those with more animalistic tendencies.

There’s also the matter of rebuilding the area, including a proposed $10 billion recovery bill in Congress, according to the Associated Press. That would come on top of the 1,400 National Guardsmen a day being deployed into the city to restore order.

Both of those actions constitute increased federal spending – something sure to be a bane to all the balanced-budget advocates who’ve railed for years about how federal spending is out of control. When it comes to money for other social welfare programs, they have no problem wielding big scissors and advocating smaller government. People should become more self-reliant and responsible, they say, and not look to the government for help at every turn.

But make no mistake, what’s going on in New Orleans, and what took place last year when Florida was repeatedly hit with hurricanes, is nothing but federal welfare.

Tax dollars from citizens across the county, in places like Pennsylvania that are unhit with the disaster, will be used to help the unfortunate thousands of miles away, and ultimately to help rebuild a city in another state.

Fortunately, most of them will think it’s a good idea, agreeing that you should help a neighbor in need, and that a nation should act like one.

That’s a lesson more people need to remember, especially the next time they hear an opportunistic politician or proselytizing televangelist trying to score points by demonizing the federal government or its spending.