Governor Haley Barbour testified before Congress on Thursday concerning matters on the Gulf Coast a little more than a year after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon. ThinkProgress caught up with him on Friday to ask him who he feels is most responsible for the current situation.
KEYES: Governor, you testified before Congress yesterday on the Gulf Coast. Who do you think has done more harm to the Gulf Coast economy, BP or President Obama?
BARBOUR: President Obama. There’s no question about that. The news media played their part by the way by giving the American people the impression that the whole Gulf Coast was knee-deep in oil and it wasn’t a good place to go for tourism. But the moratorium, $4 gasoline, 9.1 percent unemployment, record deficits, increasing public debt by $3 trillion in two years. Obama’s done more damage to the economy of the country than any private company could possibly do.
For all the screeching about how ineffective President Obama supposedly is, the Right Wing sure does give him a lot of credit for single-handedly destroying everything and, according to Boss Hogg, causing more damage to the Gulf Coast than the largest oil spill in our nation's history.
I'm not entirely certain that Gulf Coast resident's would agree with Governor Boss Hogg on that.
One year after the disaster, chronic illnesses and health-problems are still surfacing and a coalition of public health, environmental and fishing advocates as well as faith-based groups are begging the EPA and the Department of Health for assistance.
A coalition of 154 organizations sent a letter Wednesday to the heads of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services, asking them to take immediate action to address the public health crisis on the Gulf Coast triggered by last year’s BP oil spill. [...]
"We believe action must be taken immediately to help the people of the Gulf coast who are currently suffering health impacts and those who will become ill because of the continuing impacts of the BP oil disaster,” the letter stated. [...]
Among the symptoms being reported by oil-cleanup workers and residents of coastal communities are respiratory and gastrointestinal disorders, vision and memory problems, skin conditions, and bleeding from the rectum and ears.
Did President Obama put the residents of the Gulf in harms way, or was it reckless deregulation combined with carelessness on the part of BP?
Did President Obama cause bleeding from the rectum and ears, or was it the "chocolate mousse" that mysteriously vanished into thin air like a fart in the wind after billions of microbes gorged themselves on it?
It was only four months ago when Republicans in both the House and the Senate voted in favor of defunding the Environmental Protection Agency. How is that going to help people along the Gulf who have been poisoned or will be poisoned the next time we have another big oops?
The Paul Ryan Path to Poverty which was recently approved by House Republicans along with 40 Senate Republicans would cause significant economic damage and further deteriorate the health of oil-sickened Gulf Coast residents who are depending on Medicaid and Medicare.
According to the Republicans, including Haley Barbour, we can't afford Medicaid and Medicare because they are cock-blocking the implementation of more tax-cuts for the obscenely rich.
For anyone living on the Gulf Coast or anyone who has friends or family living on the Gulf Coast -- I highly recommend you take a look at this map to see what the impact of the Republican budget would be on your district. This is what your Republican presidential candidates, senators, and representatives are supporting. Not President Obama.