‘While you’re at it, Mr. President, why don’t you peel me a grape?’
Talk about chutzpah. Kris Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state who helped lead the inane Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity (which discovered diddly), delivered a list of 10 demands to the White House to be met if he were to assume the role of President Trump’s immigration czar, a position under consideration but yet to be created (and which seems likely to go to someone else). And it’s a doozy of a list. The most revealing demand is that Kobach “serve as the face of Trump immigration policy — the principal spokesman on television and in the media,” according to the list obtained by the New York Times.
Sounds more like the face of naked ambition.
Kobach also sought to extract a promise for a future appointment as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security “unless Kobach wishes to continue in Czar position.”
Read that as, “I’ll see which job gets me more
public exposure and decide then.”
He also wants 24-hour access to DHS or Defense Department jets to ferry him back and forth to the border — “Czar must be on the border every week” — and home to Kansas on weekends “unless POTUS needs Czar elsewhere.”
Remember, similar trips home on the taxpayers’ dime (though on commercial flights, not government aircraft) helped end Scott Pruitt’s tenure at the Environmental Protection Agency. And access to planes for non-public business isn’t new for Kobach either. results. We are no better off. No improvements, no innovation. Instead, we are barely clinging to adequacy.
It is clear that the status quo is inadequate. It’s time to stop wasteful spending and repeated repairs and instead invest in quality upgrades and redesign through effective mitigation tactics that buy down risk, save lives and reduce financial strain.
When it comes to planning for the future and stopping this massive spending, the federal government should look to Florida where we proved that investments in mitigation work.
Before Hurricane Matthew in 2016, Florida’s Division of Emergency Management invested $19 million in mitigation projects. These projects later withstood a direct hit from Matthew, resulting in avoided losses following just a single storm of more than $81 million — a single-impact return on investment of 422 percent. Additionally, a study by the National Institute of Building
Oh, and Kobach wants to be hired at the highest White House staff salary level, have “walk-in privileges” to the president and a seven-member staff (including, naturally, his own media-relations person). One other item on the list: that the president “sits down individually with Czar and the secretaries of Homeland Security, Defense, Justice, Ag, Interior and Commerce, and tells each of the Secretaries to follow the directives of the Czar without delay, subject to appeal to the President in cases of disagreement.”
Uh huh. Perhaps Kobach’s next demand will be: “Mr. President, could you Sciences concluded that for every $1 spent on hazard mitigation, $6 are saved in future disaster costs.
Failing to prepare for storms by rejecting investments in mitigation for our roads and bridges has placed families at risk and caused astonishingly wasteful spending. Roads, bridges and highways identified by the states as repeatedly requiring repair and reconstruction because of disasters, like flooding, must be addressed with comprehensive solutions.
It’s time for Congress to allow the commonsense approach to prevail and sit on the couch for a bit while I move in behind your desk?”
Kobach has established himself as such a fringe figure that even the Trumpembracing Republican Party doesn’t want him around. He’s made rumblings about running for a U.S. Senate seat from Kansas, a specter that has prompted national party leaders to prepare a “stop Kobach” strategy. Kobach got shellacked by Democrat Laura Kelly in his bid for the governor’s job last year in a state where Republicans hold a 2-1 registration advantage. #WINNING. (c) 2019 Los Angeles
Times invest in the future strength of our country. By establishing a program at the Federal Highway Administration focused on pre-disaster mitigation investments, the federal government can give states the tools they need to implement long-term transportation strategies and stop wasteful spending by delivering safer infrastructure that withstands storms, keeps families safe and helps communities recover more quickly.
Wes Maul was director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management under Gov. Rick Scott.