Romney: FEMA is immoral

[cbelt3]

FWIW, swampy, the Sequester Plan was a 'punt' by Congress. Obama had no choice but to sign it. A 'plan' by Obama would NOT have included cuts to ANY entitlement program or FEMA.

[graylocks]

samintx wrote:
The churches and private organizations did a much better job and efficient.

there was more than one end of that load. FEMA's involvement keeps those organizations from being COMPLETELY OVERWHELMED by the volume of need.

[$tevie]

cbelt3 wrote:
I'm of two minds about this. Historically, government agencies like FEMA who exist to 'help in disasters' become unwieldly self-perpetuating bureacracies that lose the very flexibility that they need to have to fulfull their missions.

However, historically, when massive disasters strike, the local resources are quickly overwhelmed and go under without external help. That is the very syndrome that FEMA is supposed to resolve.

Snip away the BS and it's a good thing to have a centralized resource that the whole country feeds into to help locales that are affected. But when the bureacracy runs the show, stupid stuff happens. That's what happened in Katrina. The bureacracy won. Local responders were overwhelmed.

FEMA was never contemplated to be a 'first responder'. The media and politicians always get that wrong.

Why is the Red Cross successful ? Not because it's a 'private organization' or 'not a government'. Because it's an intelligently run distributed organization with a reasonable amount of local flexibility.

Remake FEMA with a more flexible and smaller organization. Give them the ability to repurpose national guard units for support.

I've been in a flood. The Salvation Army blows the Red Cross out of the water, pun intended. I am so over the Red Cross when it comes to disaster relief. Anyone who wants to contribute and know that their dollars are being used wise and well by folks who aren't afraid to get wet, please give to The Salvation Army and not the Red Cross.

FEMA is intended to help you recover from the storm. Which it does. Admirably.

[cbelt3]

$tevie-

True. The Salvation Army does a good job. I've been in an Epic floods (St Louis, 1972). Before FEMA ever came about. Our Catholic high school emptied out and all the boys went and filled and stacked sand bags for the better part of a week. Sleeping in garages and on living room floors in the houses we were protecting, eating donated food. It was amazing. The people we helped were SO thankful.

The Salvation Army came by and gave us each another set of clothes after day 3 (we were kind of rank by then), and the Red Cross brought some stuff for us.

And we watched those National Guard bums just driving around in their big trucks 'patrolling for looters'.

And the best part of it all ? NO SCHOOL ! :biggrin:

[Uncle Wig]

Nowhere in the quote does Romney say, or even suggest, that FEMA is immoral.

[Acer]

I can't believe disaster relief would be on the list of "things we can do without." I'd put ethanol, PBS and a couple battleships on that list ahead of disaster relief. Romney's answer is the kind of answer from someone who has plenty of personal resources so as to never get caught in a disaster (they think). I think he only gave that answer because his base likes to poop on FEMA, not because it truly makes sense.

[Lemon Drop]

Uncle Wig wrote:
Nowhere in the quote does Romney say, or even suggest, that FEMA is immoral.

Try again.

"KING: Including disaster relief, though?

ROMNEY: We cannot—we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before it’s paid off. It makes no sense at all."

[(vikm)]

Uncle Wig wrote:
Nowhere in the quote does Romney say, or even suggest, that FEMA is immoral.

He doesn't specifically single out FEMA, but it is included under his umbrella idea that it's "immoral" to run up debt in order to pay for programs such as Disaster Relief at the Federal level. His comment was another of his vague answers to a question that did mention FEMA by name. But no, FEMA doesn't come out of his mouth. Some have connected the dots.

(sorry, I was too slow, but was addressing the same thing Lemon Drop was apparently)

[Lemon Drop]

(vikm) wrote:
[quote=Uncle Wig]
Nowhere in the quote does Romney say, or even suggest, that FEMA is immoral.

He doesn't specifically single out FEMA, but it is included under his umbrella idea that it's "immoral" to run up debt in order to pay for programs such as Disaster Relief at the Federal level. His comment was another of his vague answers to a question that did mention FEMA by name. But no, FEMA doesn't come out of his mouth. Some have connected the dots.
Yes, but I don't think it's vague. He's responding to a very specific question - about disaster relief. He thinks it's immoral to provide "those things" at the federal level.
It speaks not just to a callous attitude but also to lack of knowledge about how disaster response works in our country.

[Lemon Drop]

Sketchy backpedaling his earlier FEMA comments today:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/101...z2AiDaWH20

What's missing is an understanding that states already are in charge of disaster management, FEMA responds to requests from governors.

Really as a former governor he should understand that. Most likely he does, just can't leave an opportunity to take a swipe at the institution he says he wants to lead.