Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Dismantling FEMA?

 So, now there's talk of dismantling FEMA and letting states deal with their own natural disaster relief. In the usual "Ready, Fire, Aim" process, there are no details yet as to how that might be handled.

Let's assume that this would incur giving money to the states to budget on their own, much like the partially envisioned demise of the Department of Education. I realize this is a huge assumption, since no such plan has been actually fleshed out, and it could be just as likely that states will be left to sort it out on their own. But if funds were to be given to the 50 states, how would that be decided? Would it be California, who has the most federally declared disasters (284) since 1953, get the most funds? Would it be Alaska, who has the highest disaster rate per million citizens (74.98)? Would they go by population? That way, New York would get as much money as Florida because they have very similar populations, even though New York has far fewer natural disasters?

There are two main reasons for FEMA to be federally situated. The first is that resources can be allocated from a wide variety of places to best suit the needs of a specific situation, The second is because each disaster can be dealt with financially based upon The particulars of the disaster itself. Dismantling FEMA is not something that immediately lends itself to efficiency, readiness or fairness, begging the question of why then it is being tackled in the first month of the new administration.

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