The GOP's Inability to Plan for the Future: Katrina, Volcano Monitoring and Pandemics

The flaw in the Republican Party's argument about government, is that it hates it too much to make it work. It's that simple.

The basic foundation of our country is the government. Made up of three branches, the government should provide to its citizens whatever they feel it should provide. It's that simple.

There are those who say it should be small, but the truth is, it is what ever the people decide it should be. For many, those who are buying into the idea government is bad, are actually blaming themselves. They have been sidetracked into forgetting the government is us.

Which brings me to the following clip on the swine flu pandemic. It took Democratic Rep. David Obey, the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committe, to envision a need to include funding for a possible pandemic during the economic recovery to insure such an event would not make things worse. But the Republican platform has never had a desire to plan ahead or invest in the future, so they managed to remove funding for such an outbreak, branding it "pork." Some spineless Democrats bought into this hot button rhetoric and end up looking foolish for doing so (Sen. Chuck Shumer). From Gov. Jindal's misstatement about volcano monitering to Sen. Olympia Snow's insistence to remove pandemic funding, the snake bit GOP just can't get anything right. Chris Matthews, Keith Olberman and Chris Hayes have a few things to add.