Shot In The Dark: Adios FEMA?

April 27, 2006

Adios FEMA?

Critics insist that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is corrupt, incompetent, and combines the worst aspects of unthinking, irrational bureaucracy with the exigencies of dealing with huge natural and man-made catastrophe.

It was the early 1990s, and the critics were regarded as "right-wing wackoes".

Of course, they were right, according to Senate investigators.

FEMA is a bureaucracy; bureaucracies don't react to fast-changing situations well.

The solution? Another bureaucracy:

It would replace FEMA with a new National Preparedness and Response Authority whose head would report to the homeland security secretary but serve as the president's top adviser for national emergency management, akin to the military role served by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It would reunify disaster preparedness and response activities that Chertoff decoupled. It also envisions a stronger national preparedness system with regional coordinators, a larger role for the National Guard and the Defense Department and more money for training, planning and exercises.

That should fix everything.

Posted by Mitch at April 27, 2006 07:07 AM | TrackBack

Comments

The old right-wing squeeze play: appoint unqualified cronies to office; botch the execution of their functions; dodge accountability; call for the abolition of the newly discredited agency. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Posted by: angryclown at April 27, 2006 07:36 AM

Except the name. FEMA isn't too bad as an acronym. But NPRA, what is that, nip-rah?

I'd like National Preparedness Interagency Entity: nappie.

British for diaper, a nicer name for a sack of shit.

Which is pretty much what conservatives think of FEMA.

Posted by: nathan bissonette at April 27, 2006 07:45 AM

Only one word needs to be spoken to replace FEMA...HALLIBURTON!

(that should stroke out PB)

Posted by: Chris at April 27, 2006 07:45 AM

Actually, merely as a thought exercise, tell me what FEMA can do better than, say, the Red Cross, Salvation Army, and WalMart.

In the short run, those are the entities who made the biggest difference for most of the people after Katrina. And they're a hell of a lot more mobile, more responsive, more flexible.

Sounds like a great opportunity to replace a government program with a voucher system.
.

Posted by: nathan bissonette at April 27, 2006 12:33 PM

"Actually, merely as a thought exercise, tell me what FEMA can do better than, say, the Red Cross, Salvation Army, and WalMart."

Fundraising. Contributions to those three are all voluntary.

Posted by: Kermit at April 27, 2006 02:07 PM

And Bush doesn't get to appoint any of their leaders.

Posted by: angryclown at April 28, 2006 08:36 AM

I haven't trusted FEMA since it was revealed that they were behind all the conspiracies in the X-Files movie....

Posted by: Pious Agnostic at April 28, 2006 01:18 PM