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Mark Schmitt’s post here isn’t to be missed. A number of self-described conservatives in this country, especially out West, are under the impression that they’re all highly self-reliant and don’t need government assistance for anything. Idaho’s governor recently said: “Here in Idaho, we couldn’t understand how people could sit around on the kerbs waiting for the federal government to come and do something.” But he then goes on to cite an example—a dam breaking in 1976—in which, as Schmitt explains, the federal government did have to come in and do something. Curious delusion, that.
