Hearing the stories and viewing the images from the tragedy that befell us two months ago still brings me to tears. So many are still in need; so many in so much pain. Small businesses are staggering under immense rebuilding costs with greatly reduced revenue. Many will have to shut their doors.
It seems that my concern about the suffering people of Western North Carolina is not shared by the GOP-controlled N.C. General Assembly. Last month, General Assembly leadership crafted a bill in the dark and brought it up for a vote less than three hours later. Though they claimed the bill was a “disaster relief bill,” only 11 pages out of 131 had anything to do with helping WNC.
The law included one paragraph stipulating an additional $227 million from the rainy day fund be transferred to the Hurricane Helene Disaster Recovery Fund. That money is to “remain unspent until appropriated by an act of the General Assembly.” They are not sending money to folks in need; they are moving it from one fund to another in Raleigh.
The rest of the bill was a massive reshaping of state government to take power away from those state offices won by Democrats (governor, attorney general, state schools superintendent) and giving it to the General Assembly and their designees. I’ve been following politics for a good long while, but I can’t say that I’ve ever seen anything so cynical, mean-spirited and cruel. It was so bad that three Republican House members from Western North Carolina voted against it. Gov. Roy Cooper has vetoed it, but you can count on it coming up for a veto override vote in December.
It seems like Republicans in the General Assembly are focused on making life easier for themselves. Shame on them.
— Cinda Chima
Asheville
