The flash flood of July 4 along the Guadelupe River in Texas has claimed at least 119 lives. As of July 9th, 2025, another 160 people are still missing. In our highly partisan politician environment, it didn’t take long for the blame game to begin. But the “bottom line” here is that public goods, long demeaned and even vilified by some politicians, are essential to the health and safety of our society. Other advanced nations know this; only in “America” do politicians routinely knock the importance of government agencies like FEMA, the National Weather Service, or the FDA as “inefficient,” or corrupt.
But when FEMA and the NWS work, lives are saved, and damages are repaired. No corporation in the private sector wants to fill that void; public goods are, in essence, everything that private enterprise finds either too unprofitable or too difficult to scale up to efficient levels.
A good summary of why public goods matter for our nation can be found here:
People don’t really notice public goods when they are working well –– highways that don’t have potholes, lighthouses that keep marine vessels from running aground, and (to bring back the Texas flooding) accurate national weather forecasting and government-funded relief to people and areas that experience disasters through no fault of their own. It turns out, we use public goods all the time but tend not to notice or appreciate them.
With Texas flood, however, the public goods deficit was noticed, and not appreciated. The blame game was about whether the NWS did its job, whether recent cuts by DOGE and others in Trump 2.0 made matters worse, and whether local public officials did theirs in warning people about the flash flood.
Political parties, individuals, and news outlets are pointing fingers at different entities for the Texas flood disaster that occurred in early July 2025:
- Democrats and some media outlets are blaming the Trump administration’s budget cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for potentially hindering the ability to issue timely and adequate warnings, according to the New York Post and Fox News.
- Critics are also linking the devastation to Trump’s approach to climate change, according to Fox News.
- Trump and his supporters are pushing back against these claims, stating that the NWS issued timely alerts and the administration shouldn’t be blamed for the disaster. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the flooding “an act of God,” and others argue that the budget cuts aren’t scheduled to take effect until October 1st, 2025.
- Meteorologists and experts have offered differing opinions. Some argue that the NWS did a “solid” job in warning about the flooding, but questions remain about whether staffing shortages or the effectiveness of the warnings in reaching people were factors. Others believe that while the NWS issued timely warnings, budget cuts could still have long-term impacts on the agency’s effectiveness.
- Right-wing social media users have spread conspiracy theories blaming the floods on cloud seeding, according to the Tampa Bay Times and Yahoo. These claims have been debunked by meteorologists and experts, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
But the larger, long-term trend makes one thing crystal clear; the GOP has been far more inclined, ever since the Reagan years, to see government (and public goods) as a problem rather than a benefit to the public good.
The GOP generally favors limited government intervention in the economy, advocating for reduced government spending and regulation. This approach often extends to public goods, with a preference for privatization or reducing federal involvement in areas such as education, healthcare, and environmental regulation. Recent Republican budget proposals have included significant cuts to federal programs that fund public goods, such as nutrition programs, public safety, and veterans’ hospital care. Some plans have even proposed eliminating funding for certain public goods entirely. Republican leaders and platforms often frame government programs supporting public goods as inefficient or as overreach, emphasizing individual responsibility and market solutions instead.
“Those demonic Democrats,” by contrast (see our recent PLBW posting) generally support a more active government role in providing and funding public goods. Their platforms often advocate for increased investment in infrastructure, public education, healthcare, and environmental protection.
Democratstypically argue that government intervention is necessary to ensure equitable access to essential services and to address market failures in the provision of public goods. The Democratic Party has promoted expanding funding for public services like the U.S. Postal Service, public health, and education, and has resisted efforts to privatize or cut funding for these services[4].
Texas Governor Greg Abbot is now caught on the horns of a dilemma; while welcoming FEMA help, he is also a GOP politician that has criticized even the need for the agency.
In the wake of the deadly floods in Central Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott praised President Trump for quickly approving a major disaster declaration for Kerr County, the hardest-hit area.
“The swift and very robust action by President Trump is an extraordinary help to our response,” Abbott said.
The declaration unlocked federal money to assist with the disaster response. That includes paying for debris removal, for search and rescue experts who are working around the clock, and for housing, food and other immediate necessities for those who lost homes in the floods.
But such assistance may not be available in the future.
President Trump has proposed eliminating the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which provides billions of dollars in assistance to communities hit by disasters. He argues that states should take on more responsibility for responding to and preparing for extreme weather and other disasters.
Texas leaders are helping Trump realize that goal.This spring, the president appointed a council of Cabinet members, governors and emergency management experts, tasked with recommending changes to FEMA. Gov. Abbott and the top emergency official in Texas, W. Nim Kidd, are both on that council.
“FEMA is slow and clunky and doesn’t solve the needs of those who need it the most,” Abbott said at the first meeting of the FEMA Review Council in May. “States have proven that we can move more nimbly, more swiftly, more effectively.”
In the specifics of the blame game that is going on, we could easily lose track of the bigger blame: the long, tedious argument (usually from GOP politicians) that public goods are not needed, and that privatization and “the market” can do it all.
Utter nonsense, but not only is it legal to say it, but it’s legal to gut both the NWS and FEMA, even without Congressional input. So says our Supreme Court as of July 8, 2025. Perhaps elections can be stolen, but so (quite legally) can rational governance be stolen or debased by insisting that public goods are a breeding ground for “waste, fraud, and abuse” or that individuals and the private sector can supply public goods.