Let's talk about Trump's chance to dismantle FEMA.... - Belle of the Ranch

Well, howdy there internet people. It's Belle again. So, today we're going to talk about Trump's chance to dismantle FEMA.

Trump wants to cut disaster assistance. He's promised it repeatedly. Well, now he's got a chance. He created a panel last year to make recommendations and it's now released its report. It's a lengthy 70 plus pages. The report calls for major changes to the agency. There are changes big enough to make the agency unrecognizable. The change that would make the agency a shell of its former self relates to how it would determine which disasters qualify for assistance. Today, FEMA estimates monetary damages to decide whether or not aid is warranted. The recommendation from the panel says to look at atmospheric conditions instead. So it would look at things like wind speed or flood depth.

This is a Chesterton's fence moment in the making. It wasn't that nobody thought of this before. It's that it's a metric that doesn't work. A cat 5 hitting where I live will need less help than a cat 3 hitting a major city in South Florida, but because of the infrastructure features, population isn't actually a good standing for a real estimate of the area in question.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said, "We need to refocus FEMA and get it back to what its mission originally was."

Um, I feel like they might not know what that was. FEMA was pushed into existence via reorganization plan number three of 1978 and in presenting it, President Carter wrote it, "Will assigned to the Federal Emergency Management Agency all authorities and functions vested by law in the president and presently delegated to the Defense Civil Preparedness Agency in the Department of Defense. This will include certain engineering and communications support functions for civil defense now assigned to the US Army.”

If they're taking it back to what it was, it would be maintaining fallout shelters, helping local jurisdictions plan for attacks, managing radiological defense, providing in-person training, making horrible training films, as well as doing natural disaster assistance under a dual mandate. But that is absolutely not what the report recommends. In fact, it suggests that “federal assistance should only be reserved for truly significant events.”

They will of course determine what is significant. Remember, Trump has repeatedly refused to approve disaster assistance already. Don't expect FEMA assistance in the future for infrastructure repairs, temporary assistance, reimbursement, and so on. This is Trump running the country like a business. He's taking as much as possible from you while giving you as little as possible in return.

I'm sure it's just an added benefit for the real estate developer and his family that properties in disaster hit areas with damaged infrastructure can be bought at a fraction of their actual value and then be resold while pushing the working class out.

Natural disasters are one of those things that cut across socioeconomic lines. Many people in the middle and upper middle class who have been able to feel like Trump's other policies haven't impacted them won't be so lucky when the next hurricane, wildfire, or flood hits their area.

Anyway, it's just a thought. Y'all have a good day.