Hurricane Irene and the benefits of Big Government

Hurricane Irene and the benefits of Big Government

Don’t expect anybody to throw a tea party, but Big Government finally got one right.

On Monday, six years to the day after Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans and obliterated the notion of a competent federal government, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate offered an anecdote that showed just how different things were with Hurricane Irene.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ ... story.html

And everywhere, FEMA, given new authority by Congress after Katrina, didn’t have to wait for states to request help.

That is the key. Rather than assisting the state and local governments to become better prepared to take care of their responsibilities, the Federal government has taken over those responsibilites.

Is that good or bad? In the long run, I think it is bad, as we get closer to an all-powerful (and much more expensive) Federal government. Those who are in favor of that goal of course see it differently.

IMO most of the failures in the Katrina response were not the fault of the Federal government, but rather of the state and local governments. Rather than working to fix those problems, we have just created a bigger and more expensive 'solution', and actually encouraged state and local governments to become even less prepared.