Insult? Meet injury.
Courtesy of Democracy Labs earlier this week, an interactive map showing how Donald Trump’s House budget bill impacts hurts every district and county in the country. Yours included.
Take my district for example, there in the western mountains of North Carolina. We’re still recovering from the natural disaster last September when Helene devastated our area. Now comes a GOP-made disaster:
Edwards, a Republican represents NC-11 district.
The district has 143,465 Medicaid/CHIP recipients.
The district would lose $ 1.80 billion in funding under the Republican budget.Senators:
Thom Tillis (R)
Ted Budd (R)
Speaking of NC-11 … Heather Cox Richardson notes that slashing Medicaid/CHIP for our district adds insult to injury (I’m adding HCR’s links):
The third story is that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has denied North Carolina’s request that it honor a commitment made by President Joe Biden to pay for 100% of the costs for removal of debris after Hurricane Helene devastated the western part of the state in September 2024. That storm killed 107 people in western North Carolina and destroyed or damaged 75,000 homes, as well as destroying roads and leaving mounds of debris.
As Zack Colman of Politico reported yesterday, the storm hit in the last weeks of the 2024 presidential campaign, and Trump undermined FEMA’s response, lying that it was not present and telling North Carolinians that the Biden administration could not help them because it had taken money from FEMA for undocumented immigrants. None of what he was saying was true, but MAGA mouthpieces picked up his criticisms and exaggerated them, claiming that the federal government intended to steal people’s land, that Biden had directed the storm to western North Carolina, and that 28 babies had frozen to death in FEMA tents—all lies, but lies that slowed recovery as riled-up people who believed them refused assistance, threatened officials, and demanded investigations.
Trump suggested he would respond more effectively to voters in North Carolina, and two of the hardest-hit counties there, Avery and Haywood, backed him in 2024 by margins of 75.7% and 61.8%, respectively, similar to those it had given him in 2016 and 2020.
Once in office, though, Trump began to talk of eliminating FEMA. Now the White House has told North Carolina residents they’re on their own as they try to dig out from Hurricane Helene.
MAGA, y’all.
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