Who's To Blame?

TNR's Rebecca Leber sez the EPA is partly to blame for the Flint, Mich. water crisis. But her lede is awfully misleading.

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder in recent weeks has come under intense pressure over the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, which was precipitated two years ago when his administration, in an effort to cut costs, changed the city’s water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River. 

No doubt, state environmental officials fell down on the job of testing Flint's water after complaints were raised by residents. But it wasn't the Snyder administration that made the decision to go with Flint River water over Lake Huron. It was the city's elected officials who voted to do that. All were Democrats. And so was the man appointed by Snyder to oversee that bankrupt city who went along with them.

Here they are at the Flint Water Treatment Plant celebrating their brilliant move to save money and cut ties with the water authority in Detroit.

Here's the best account we've read about the matter.

Yes, there is plenty of blame to go around. But most of it rests with locally elected officials (overwhelmingly Democrats) who have, over the years, run Flint into the ground through mismanagement and corruption.

And somehow this is the Republican governor's fault? Well, he's taking responsibility for this fiasco. But probably more blame than he should. The fingers being pointed at him belong to mostly to Democrats and liberals who refuse to take blame for any of the plethora of problems their  cockamamie schemes have wrought.