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Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass cut the city’s fire department budget last year so she could spend more on the city’s endless homelessness crisis.

She allocated only $837 million for the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) last year but over $1.3 billion for the homelessness epidemic, according to Fox Business Network.

Meanwhile, this year she allocated $17 million less for the LAFD, bringing this year’s total to just $819 million.

Based on this, many now partly blame the wildfires engulfing southern California on Bass’ decision.

One especially notable critic is Ana Kasparian, the co-host of the wildly leftist “Young Turks” podcast.

Here’s what she tweeted late Wednesday evening:

“Our Mayor, who was in Ghana as fires exploded in our city, cut the fire budget by $17 million,” she wrote in the tweet. “Endless amounts of money funneled to bullshit scammer homeless nonprofits. We’re the highest taxed yet we have encampments and squalor everywhere.”

“Even worse, we don’t have enough firefighters to respond to the absolute disaster we’re experiencing right now. Rather than conserve the record rain we got last year, we just drained it into the ocean. We are a failing city run by a sick excuse for local government,” she added.

Ouch.

Another notable critic is Los Angeles Times owner Dr. Pat Soon-Shiong.

“Our hearts go out to those who have lost their homes and are seeking shelter,” he tweeted Wednesday afternoon. “Fires in LA are sadly no surprise, yet the Mayor cut LA Fire Department’s budget by $23M. And reports of empty fire hydrants raise serious questions. Competence matters.”

Look:

Soon-Shiong was incorrect about one thing. The budget was cut by $17 million, not $23 million. However, it’s reportedly true that Bass had originally wanted a $23 million cut.

Another critic, her Republican opponent in the 2022 mayoral race, told Fox News that he personally blames Bass for the wildfires.

“There’s no water in the Palisades,” former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso told Fox News. “There’s no water coming out of the fire hydrants. This is an absolute mismanagement by the city. Not the firefighters’ fault, but the city’s.”

“We have got a mayor that is out of the country, and we have got a city that is burning, and there is no resources to put out fires. It looks like we’re in a third-world country here,” he added.

Meanwhile, according to the New York Times, even local Los Angeles residents blame Bass for the wildfires.

“There was zero preparation,” resident Michael Gonzales, 47, told the paper. “There was zero thought here. It was an utter breakdown in leadership and it starts with the mayor’s office.”

Another California official facing blame is Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way,” he wrote on Truth Social this Wednesday.

“He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work!), but didn’t care about the people of California. Now the ultimate price is being paid. I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA! He is the blame for this. On top of it all, no water for fire hydrants, not firefighting planes. A true disaster!” he added.

According to the New York Post, Trump has long been an advocate of “diverting supply from California’s main water hub, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, to farmers who have struggled with repeated droughts.”

But this plan has faced resistance from Newsom-aligned environmental groups which have claimed diverting the water would hurt the “delta smelt” fish that live in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

Trump did manage to enact the plan through a federal memorandum in 2020, but Newsom then challenged the plan in court and won.

Vivek Saxena
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