With Sandy bearing down on us, it's important to remember that Romney thinks things like FEMA should be left to the states and/or privatized.

In this clip, Romney was asked at a debate for the Republican presidential candidates about emergency-response efforts, and he suggested FEMA should be shuttered, moving responsibility to the states.

"Absolutely. Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that's even better.

"Instead of thinking in the federal budget, what we should cut, we should ask ourselves the opposite question. What should we keep? We should take all of what we're doing at the federal level and say, what are the things we're doing that we don't have to do?"

Asked specifically about the federal government playing a role in disaster relief, Romney added, "We cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids."

Again, in context, he wasn't talking about debt reduction in the abstract; Romney was specifically talking about FEMA and the federal role in responding to communities hit by disasters.

He went on to say, by the way, that keeping FEMA and other federal programs is "immoral".

And this wasn't just Lying GOP debate talk; Romney's present budget plan would mean at least a 34% cut to FEMA's budget.

FLASHBACK:

During his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, Mitt Romney mocked Obama’s pledge to address climate change, turning it into a punch line.

“President Obama promised to slow the rise of the oceans — [bites lip and pauses for audience laughter(!)] — and to heal the planet. My promise is to help you and your family.”

Why was "rise of the oceans" so funny?