One technique Repubs use to undermine government is to gain control of it by complaining about public spending since lots of people resent paying taxes. Then, they redirect tax dollars to rich and connected Repubs, starving public programs of funds. Then, they point out that those broke-ass programs suck since they don’t serve the public. Then, they use that twisted logic to justify further cuts that benefit themselves and their cronies.
This scam has been operating all my life in the county where I live, which went for Trump by around 75% in 2020 and 2024 and in which no Democrat holds any elective office and hasn’t for as long as I can remember. I’m currently experiencing how that plays out in real life in an incredibly annoying way.
Our property was flooded after the two hurricanes, and since our water is supplied by a well that was underwater for a few weeks, we don’t know if it’s safe to drink or not. We’ve been using bottled water ever since we got home, which is expensive and a pain in the ass.
I contacted the county health department to find out how to get our well water tested. A woman in environmental services there said the county used to test residents’ water samples but “the state took that away” several years ago. She said now testing is done through state-certified private labs and referred me to the closest one, which is more than 30 miles away.
When I called, the private lab folks told me to drive to their facility (60-mile roundtrip), pick up some testing bottles, go home and collect samples, return the bottles with samples to the facility and pay $50 bucks for the test. I will do it because I need to know if our water is safe.
Theoretically, I could get a commercial water service out here to test our well water, but that would be a pain in the ass because we’re so far out in the boonies that it’s hard to schedule such visits, and that type of company would have an incentive to sell me purification equipment I don’t necessarily need.
But hey, privatization leads to greater government efficiency, amiright? And Florida being Florida, I’ll eat my fucking shoe if the awarding of these state lab certifications is on the up-and-up. I guaran-damn-tee you someone is shoveling money at Repubs.
This is a single small example of how the scam works in a corrupt red state, which doesn’t allow counties to provide water testing services for residents but DOES allow donors to install a $45K golf simulator in the governor’s mansion. (I may have made this observation aloud at the county health department.)
But that’s small potatoes. This country is about to get a much more robust lesson in how Repub grifting screws taxpayers when the billionaire clowns in the Trump administration destroy public programs and funnel trillions into their own pockets. And lots of idiots who vote will conclude that the government sucks because it’s not working for them.
Open thread.
