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FEMA May Be Eliminated

30 points| magic_smoke_ee | 1 year ago |pbs.org

45 comments

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taylodl|1 year ago

Awesome! If California residents weren't paying for all the hurricanes in the deep red South and tornadoes in the deep red plains states, then they'd have plenty of money to take care of themselves.

Does this guy ever think through anything before opening his mouth? Is he even capable of thinking?

basementcat|1 year ago

> Does this guy ever think through anything before opening his mouth? Is he even capable of thinking?

None of this behavior is new; the American people have been fully aware of this and a voting majority decided that he was the most qualified person for the job.

matthest|1 year ago

I don't know enough about how FEMA works, but I'm assuming it operates at a federal level?

Could eliminating it force states to strengthen their own disaster relief programs?

If that's the case, some potential benefits of this might be that states get more efficient with their overall budget (in order to support disaster relief initiatives). And maybe spurs more innovation in disaster relief tech/processes.

kcplate|1 year ago

Yeah…that must be the problem. They just don’t have enough money for themselves because of all the red states. Of course what little money California does have is mismanaged to hell by its state and local governments, but that will obvious not happen if there is a lot more money available.

dinkumthinkum|1 year ago

Does California take any federal money? Do any of those plains states provide food to California. I don't think you would like this game as much as you think.

Terr_|1 year ago

> Florida, Louisiana and Texas residents have received the lion's share of FEMA direct assistance since 2015, per newly gathered data.

https://www.axios.com/2024/10/08/fema-direct-payments-state-...

xnx|1 year ago

Would be slightly more informative as per-capita numbers since Texas and Florida are #2 and #3 most populous states.

jschveibinz|1 year ago

I'm not taking a political stance here, because that's not the purpose of this forum. But from an efficiency perspective, I believe the question is whether a federal "agency" (and its associated bureaucracy) is necessary to deal with local emergencies, not whether federal "financial aid" may be necessary to help support state and local governments. Most if not all states have their own emergency management programs.

Tadpole9181|1 year ago

And the answer to that question "obviously no".

Stronger apart, economy of small scale. These aren't the phrases.

legitster|1 year ago

From the article, it doesn't sound like FEMA will be eliminated, just incredibly politicized. So... yay?

> Trump has criticized former President Joe Biden for his administration’s response to Hurricane Helene in North Carolina. As he left the White House on Friday morning, he told reporters that “it’s been a horrible thing the way that’s been allowed to fester” since the storm hit in September, and “we’re going to get it fixed up.”

> “I’d rather see the states take care of their own problems,” he told Hannity, adding that “FEMA is getting in the way of everything.”

So to be clear, when it happened during the previous administration, it was the administration's fault. When it's his administration, it is the agency's fault and also not his responsibility. And it sounds like the president changes his tune based on whether the disaster was in a red state or a blue state.

Everything that has been said so far is so in conflict with itself so it's hard to guess what a policy change would even be. So my guess would be nothing happens and we don't hear about it anymore as soon as wildfires are out of the news cycle.

jaybrendansmith|1 year ago

Developers: America has been taken over by a bad, pointy haired boss. Suggestions on how to deal with him? Tell him what he wants to hear and continue doing what's needed? Ignore his insane announcements, just come in for work as usual and do the necessary things? Hope that he is ousted or removed somehow? Indeed.

Ekaros|1 year ago

Leave and start new startup? Solely bootstrapped.

xnx|1 year ago

I'm not a fan of the "chaos agent" style of politics, but sometimes it does bring up topics that would be taboo to talk about otherwise.

wmf|1 year ago

Chat, is it good actually to let the gulf coast degrade into a third-world shithole?

swatcoder|1 year ago

This seems a relevant time to remember that 90's-era conspiracy mythology saw FEMA as the big boogeyman agency whose emergency powers were essential to an authoritarian seizure of the nation.

Along with the ATF and IRS (for other reasons), its looming and certain villiany rallied sovereign citizen and militia types to organize and arm themselves.

Assuming some of those people now have more political influence than they have had in the past, it seems like the legacy of that mythos could be part of what's at play here.

krapp|1 year ago

I don't remember anyone bringing up the "FEMA death camps" during COVID but it wouldn't surprise me if it made a resurgence.