Nobody Does It Better – Red States Sucking Out FEMA Relief

 USAID to impoverished people overseas 

FEMA assessing hurricane damage here

FEMA assessing hurricane damage here

Our “Obey my commands” Special Government Employee Elon Musk, unelected and oblivious to federal statutes and regulations, is focused on anything that provides money to poor and desperate people, wherever they may reside. As he drills down on the US Agency for International Development, which provides support to the overseas world, effective immediately, Musk and his rubber stamp Co-President are furloughing USAID personnel, foreign and US-based, and have shut down the faucet that provides food, medicine and sustenance to millions of desperate and impoverished people around the world.

As most of Congress knows, and certainly Musk, who has his largest Tesla manufacturing operations in China, is aware, Russia, China and a number of other global of our enemies are smiling… and lurking, They have long taken advantage of any US reduction or cessation of such human aid, ready to step in and replace the United States, with cadres of diplomats already heading to those desperate people betrayed by this aid cut. Assuming they are successful in replacing the United States, these enemies will extract all kinds of concessions from the nations that used to be grateful to US shipments of food and medical supplies in their time. One has to be suspicious of Musk doing China such an enormous favor… Tesla China is now safe!

But in order to implement what looms as largest possible federal tax cut, a financial reality that if passed, will not create solid new jobs (sorry, that trickle down economic theory is a scam) but will put more money in the pockets in the top 5% of Americans, in terms of income and wealth… while doing nothing to benefit the rest of us. The USAID number is not the 25% of the federal budget that MAGA conspiracy theorists tell us; it actually hovers around 1%. But they are also targeting mere US citizens who are receiving government support, either because of extreme poverty (the number of poor US citizens is growing) or because their world was shattered by natural disasters. Mssrs Trump and Musk are focused on eliminating the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), perhaps instead making less-than-needed grants to the states to let local governments manage the damage and recovery.

But states and local governments do not have the same infrastructure or the tax base to accumulate the massive pools of monetary support that are instantly required for most of these emergencies. As you watch MAGAns excoriate California with false blame theories for our wildfires, or believe that forcing California to accept antidemocratic mandates that red states apply to the bluest of blue states – like culling voter roles and requiring IDs which many poor Americans just do not have (e.g., if you do not have car, you might not have a driver’s license).

While there are red states, like Texas and Florida, where their contributions to federal income tax exceed their demands on the federal government, with very few exceptions, blue states generally contribute far more in federal income tax revenues than they receive in federal benefits. In the world of natural disasters, red states produce the reverse effect. If Trump wants to shift emergency support to states, red states will suffer far more. It should a bipartisan issue, but today, everything seems to be a red-vs-blue struggle. As Associated Press journalist, Seth Borenstein notes (on February 4th):

“Since 2011, more than $68.2 billion in FEMA aid has been spent on disasters that don’t include the pandemic or oil spills. And that’s payments just to governments, not people. Tens of billions more came — mostly from the Department of Housing and Urban Development — to people needing individual help to rebuild.

“States with Republican governors or two Republican senators tend to have more disasters and get slightly more money per person than states with Democratic governors and senators, according to an Associated Press analysis of Rebuild by Design’s data… States that now have Republican governors have received an average of $222 per person in FEMA aid since 2011 with 475 federal declared disasters in 27 states.

“The 23 states with Democratic governors average 15% less at $193 per person over 320 disasters... The six swing states that voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and Donald Trump in 2024 — and states with split U.S. Senate delegations — get considerably less FEMA aid per person, averaging only $35 per capita. Those purple states have 15% of the country’s population but get only 2.5% of the FEMA aid…

“The first thing that has to happen in any disaster is the state has to ask the president to declare it a federal disaster, which lets the money flow, [says Craig Fugate, once a county emergency manager in Florida, head of the state of Florida’s disaster office]… In general, the federal government pays 75% of the cost with state and locals picking up 25%. But in the biggest disasters the state share can shrink to 10% or even close to nothing, especially if Congress steps in.

“In disasters, government bills pile up quickly. States may have a hard time even making payroll and that’s where FEMA can step in early, helping with initial payments sometimes within 30 days…. And FEMA simply has specialized expertise. In California, for example, the state’s wildfires mean tons of debris — much of it toxic — has to be cleared, Fugate said. FEMA can ask the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers — experts who cleared World Trade Center debris — to take charge, making it faster and cheaper for taxpayers… Experts also worry that states will struggle to stop waste, fraud and abuse that are currently harder with FEMA due to federal procurement laws.”

Would you trust untrained and underpaid officials in Louisiana, Alabama or Mississippi, for example, to run such relief programs locally without waste or corruption? Instantly and properly? Me neither.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as mere billionaires eye trillionaire status with a lot of federal help (eliminate regulatory bodies, cut taxes and reward fat federal contracts to the good old rich white boys’ club), the rest of us can just sit back any watch our taxes pay for the interest carry on the resulting federal deficit.