Mitch Berg notes that there are calls to end the Federal Emergency Management Agency and replace it with a new, more independent agency.
It made a certain amount of sense for FEMA to be part of the Department of Homeland Security. The whole point of the DHS was to facilitate information sharing between agencies and coordinate efforts better – and there’s no doubt that FEMA would have a role in the aftermath of any future terrorist attack. However, it was clear that after Katrina, FEMA was no longer capable of doing its job in its current form.
If we’re going to replace FEMA, we need to do a better job. The federal government needs to support local first responders first. First responders need to have the tools and skills to deal with disaster situations, and the federal government can and should have a supporting role, but too often the federal bureaucracy hinders, rather than helps, disaster recovery. We can’t federalize everything – and the best way to save lives is to have the people whose jobs it is to protect a specific area be training and supplied with everything they need to do their jobs.
Unfortunately, we all know that government tends to inject itself everywhere, whether it is wise or not – which is why the replacement agency for FEMA will undoubtedly have twice the budget, four times the waste, and ten times the bureaucracy.
The fact that we’re even having this discussion speaks volumes about the fundamental incompetence of the Bush administration (you know, the guys we specifically elected to “keep us safe”) which got us here. Ultimately, replacing FEMA is a pointless idea…..and rather stupid. We’ll be replacing hundreds of employees who have done their jobs admirably over the past decades, but have been trapped under the bureaucratic bootheel since the ill-advised marriage with Homeland. Beyond that, we know “The Decider” will install whichever Texas crony that happens to be holding up a “Will Work for Food” sign outside the White House gate….and he or she will be no better-suited to run the new FEMA than Brownie (and Chertoff) was at running the old one.
This fema deal is a real mess, I am not sure it is not to late to fix now with this administration.http://dam-nation.blogspot.com/
Only to some. Apparently some people can’t order a ham sandwich without blurting out “AND BUSH LIED!”
FEMA has never been a particularly effective agency. James Lee Witt did a decent job of making it work better, but even then FEMA’s press was better than its on-the-ground performance.
No federal agency can do the job of local first responders, which is why it would be better to have a very small coordinating agency that had a primary responsibility of training local units in emergency management techniques and providing block grants for disaster recovery. The entire idea of FEMA is flawed to begin with.
Personally, I’m all for the abolition of FEMA – the National Guard is the one that does the vast majority of the real work on the ground, and money would be better spend making sure they had what they needed rather than creating another federal bureaucracy.
“The entire idea of FEMA is flawed to begin with.”
I call this the “even when we’re wrong, we’re right” defense. Conservatives look at their own mind-blowing incompetence in managing a government agency, and declare it a validation of their “government sucks” worldview. Kind of defeats the whole purpose of electing conservatives in the first place.
Of course, I mean obviously the entire federal bureaucracy is controlled by Republicans just because the White House is… we have civil service elections every four years, right?
Give me a break. The federal bureaucracy remains dysfunctional regardless of who’s in the White House – the difference is that at least the Republicans think about doing something about it, while the Democrats want even more of the same.
“The federal bureaucracy remains dysfunctional regardless of who’s in the White House”
It’s never been worse than under the Bush administration. I can’t see James Lee Witt leaving thousands of empty trailers sitting idle in Arkansas for months because of easily amendable zoning regulations on the Gulf Coast.
“we have civil service elections every four years, right”
As many civil servants as possible are seeking early retirement to lift the paper bag of shame off their head over what FEMA has become since being absorbed by Homeland. Nice try in making the $35,000 administrative assistants at FEMA headquarters the villains though.
“the difference is that at least the Republicans think about doing something about it, while the Democrats want even more of the same”
Doing something about it? Dismantling an entire agency because their own people bungled it? Only on the bright red planet can that logic apply.
Which is your opinion, and not a very good one. FEMA’s response to Hurricane Andrew was atrocious – the difference being that FEMA didn’t have to deal with a thoroughly corrupt and utterly incompetent set of local authorities like they did after Katrina.
Source?
Another straw man. FEMA under Witt was better than it had been, but even Witt was a Clinton crony who used FEMA as a political patronage system. Witt’s saving grace was that he was a very well qualified crony, which Brown was most certainly not.
No, because FEMA is the wrong system.
But of course, everything is Bush’s fault to some people. Those sort of kneejerk reactions are much easier than thinking.
“FEMA’s response to Hurricane Andrew was atrocious”
What an astounding parallel between FEMA being atrocious and guys with the last name Bush living in the White House.
“the difference being that FEMA didn’t have to deal with a thoroughly corrupt and utterly incompetent set of local authorities like they did after Katrina”
I’ll grant you that they were incompetent, but who’s corrupt?
“Source?”
ABC News’s “Nightline”
“But of course, everything is Bush’s fault to some people. Those sort of kneejerk reactions are much easier than thinking.”
Ahhhh. So talk of dismantling FEMA and creating a new bureaucracy of Decider cronies a couple of months before the next hurricane season passes for “thinking” these days?