Stalin
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2008
- Messages
- 3,293
Today texas - tomorrow the rest of the red states
"Trump plans to visit the flood zone Friday, making a phony display of concern—eight years after his first administration rejected Kerr County’s application for a federal grant to build a flood warning system. At the White House, Trump dismissed any link between the disaster and the major cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) implemented since he took office in January, despite reports that two NWS offices in central Texas were severely understaffed.
Trump has shut down any federal programs addressing climate change and effectively banned research into global warming. Yet there is ample evidence that climate change played a major role in the Texas floods. A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, releasing it in record amounts—such as the 18 to 20 inches of rain that fell in parts of the Hill Country. In Kerr County, more water fell in four hours than flows over Niagara Falls in a full day, overwhelming the Guadalupe River and sweeping away dozens of summer camps, RVs and homes.
Texas embodies the degradation of American capitalism, where staggering inequality is combined with political reaction and brutality. Despite—or rather because of—the immense wealth accumulated by billionaires in oil, gas, tech, weapons, ranching and healthcare, the social conditions facing the majority of Texans are among the worst in the country.
According to the annual ranking conducted by CNBC, Texas was the worst of the 50 states in terms of quality of life in 2024, after having ranked 49th in the three previous years. The state ranks 49th in terms of the proportion of adults who are high school graduates, 48th in terms of child health, and 50th in the proportion of the population covered by health insurance. Unemployment benefits are so low that Texas workers recoup only 10 percent of average living costs if they are laid off, according to Oxfam.
Nearly 43 percent of Texas households struggle to afford basic necessities such as housing, child care and healthcare, and 14.2 percent of Texans live below the abysmally inadequate federal poverty line. The state ranks 45th in state expenditures per capita, and little of that spending goes into public social services. Particularly in rural and inner-city areas, there is a high level of social vulnerability, due to factors like poverty, unemployment, poor education, and discrimination against minority black and Hispanic populations (who actually make up the majority of the state’s people).
Healthcare is a particularly critical deficit. According to the United Health Foundation, Texas is near the bottom, with only 182 primary care providers per 100,000 residents. One-fifth of all Texas adults with a credit score have medical debt that has gone to collection. Abortion has been illegal in Texas since the Supreme Court decision in 2022, and the state pays a bounty for information leading to the arrest of healthcare workers and others who assist them in providing abortion services.
While social services are starved, state funds are lavished on the forces of repression—the state police, the Texas Rangers, the Texas State Guard and the National Guard, much of it deployed as part of Abbott’s “Operation Lone Star,” an $11 billion anti-immigrant rampage in which state forces have joined with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to round up and imprison migrant workers.
Texas maintains a vast prison system, the largest in the United States. The state has 8 percent of the US population, but accounts for 33 percent of all US executions, by far the most of any state. The law-and-order frenzy is bipartisan: In the major cities of Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, all run by Democratic mayors, the police departments take up the lion’s share of funding, frequently more than all social services combined.
In terms of physical infrastructure, the state’s performance is perhaps even worse than on social benefits, if that is possible. Only a few months ago, the Texas state Senate blocked legislation to establish a statewide emergency response plan, at a cost of $500 million. This would have been directed at protecting the population from not only flash flooding, but from wildfires, tornadoes and hurricanes, all of which are common in the state.
A survey conducted by the state government last year identified more than $50 billion in flood control needs, but the state government has provided only $1.4 billion, less than 3 percent of what is required. Infrastructure spending represents less than 0.5 percent of the $322 billion state budget. This particularly affects rural areas like the flood zone along the Guadalupe River.
comrade stalin
moscow
"Trump plans to visit the flood zone Friday, making a phony display of concern—eight years after his first administration rejected Kerr County’s application for a federal grant to build a flood warning system. At the White House, Trump dismissed any link between the disaster and the major cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) implemented since he took office in January, despite reports that two NWS offices in central Texas were severely understaffed.
Trump has shut down any federal programs addressing climate change and effectively banned research into global warming. Yet there is ample evidence that climate change played a major role in the Texas floods. A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, releasing it in record amounts—such as the 18 to 20 inches of rain that fell in parts of the Hill Country. In Kerr County, more water fell in four hours than flows over Niagara Falls in a full day, overwhelming the Guadalupe River and sweeping away dozens of summer camps, RVs and homes.
Texas embodies the degradation of American capitalism, where staggering inequality is combined with political reaction and brutality. Despite—or rather because of—the immense wealth accumulated by billionaires in oil, gas, tech, weapons, ranching and healthcare, the social conditions facing the majority of Texans are among the worst in the country.
According to the annual ranking conducted by CNBC, Texas was the worst of the 50 states in terms of quality of life in 2024, after having ranked 49th in the three previous years. The state ranks 49th in terms of the proportion of adults who are high school graduates, 48th in terms of child health, and 50th in the proportion of the population covered by health insurance. Unemployment benefits are so low that Texas workers recoup only 10 percent of average living costs if they are laid off, according to Oxfam.
Nearly 43 percent of Texas households struggle to afford basic necessities such as housing, child care and healthcare, and 14.2 percent of Texans live below the abysmally inadequate federal poverty line. The state ranks 45th in state expenditures per capita, and little of that spending goes into public social services. Particularly in rural and inner-city areas, there is a high level of social vulnerability, due to factors like poverty, unemployment, poor education, and discrimination against minority black and Hispanic populations (who actually make up the majority of the state’s people).
Healthcare is a particularly critical deficit. According to the United Health Foundation, Texas is near the bottom, with only 182 primary care providers per 100,000 residents. One-fifth of all Texas adults with a credit score have medical debt that has gone to collection. Abortion has been illegal in Texas since the Supreme Court decision in 2022, and the state pays a bounty for information leading to the arrest of healthcare workers and others who assist them in providing abortion services.
While social services are starved, state funds are lavished on the forces of repression—the state police, the Texas Rangers, the Texas State Guard and the National Guard, much of it deployed as part of Abbott’s “Operation Lone Star,” an $11 billion anti-immigrant rampage in which state forces have joined with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to round up and imprison migrant workers.
Texas maintains a vast prison system, the largest in the United States. The state has 8 percent of the US population, but accounts for 33 percent of all US executions, by far the most of any state. The law-and-order frenzy is bipartisan: In the major cities of Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, all run by Democratic mayors, the police departments take up the lion’s share of funding, frequently more than all social services combined.
In terms of physical infrastructure, the state’s performance is perhaps even worse than on social benefits, if that is possible. Only a few months ago, the Texas state Senate blocked legislation to establish a statewide emergency response plan, at a cost of $500 million. This would have been directed at protecting the population from not only flash flooding, but from wildfires, tornadoes and hurricanes, all of which are common in the state.
A survey conducted by the state government last year identified more than $50 billion in flood control needs, but the state government has provided only $1.4 billion, less than 3 percent of what is required. Infrastructure spending represents less than 0.5 percent of the $322 billion state budget. This particularly affects rural areas like the flood zone along the Guadalupe River.
The Texas flood disaster: Trump’s Hurricane Katrina
The state is home to 84 billionaires, including the world’s richest man, yet officials refuse to fund the social infrastructure needed to safeguard the population from predictable natural disasters.
www.wsws.org
comrade stalin
moscow
