Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post

raveneye · 09-13-2005, 06:32 PM

One of the top priorities this country needs to have is a complete reorganization of FEMA similar to what Clinton did in the early 90s.

Somebody needs to take a list of all FEMA employees, go down that list and get rid of every single political appointee, and replace them all with experts with the best credentials they can find. Then they need to make a list of all the internal bureaucratic regulations the agency has to follow, and go down the list and get rid of 90% of them. Then they need to make the head of the agency directly answerable to the president.

That's basically what Clinton and Lee Witt did, and the results were obvious. The agency won the 1996 Public Service Excellence Award, mainly due to its praised responses to the Midwestern floods of 1993 and the Oklahoma City bombing.

Bush's mistake was to sink the agency back into a bureacratic swamp after 9/11, after using it as a dumping ground for unqualified political appointees. That's exactly the same shape it was in back when his dad was president, and Hugo and Andrew and the Loma Prieta California earthquake hit. After Hugo hit South Carolina, the governor of South Carolina Ernst Hollings called FEMA a "sorry bunch of bureaucratic jackasses." After the earthquake, Congressman Norman Mineta said FEMA "couldn't manage a two-car parade." After Andrew, the Wall Street Journal ran a story saying FEMA was beyond repair and should be dissolved entirely.

Then came Clinton's reorganization, which made the agency not only functional, but award-winning. I don't think there's any doubt anymore that a similar revamping is needed now -- there will be another terrorist attack, and there will be another San Francisco earthquake, and there will be more hurricanes.

09-13-2005, 06:32 PM	#119 (permalink)
raveneye Born Against	One of the top priorities this country needs to have is a complete reorganization of FEMA similar to what Clinton did in the early 90s. Somebody needs to take a list of all FEMA employees, go down that list and get rid of every single political appointee, and replace them all with experts with the best credentials they can find. Then they need to make a list of all the internal bureaucratic regulations the agency has to follow, and go down the list and get rid of 90% of them. Then they need to make the head of the agency directly answerable to the president. That's basically what Clinton and Lee Witt did, and the results were obvious. The agency won the 1996 Public Service Excellence Award, mainly due to its praised responses to the Midwestern floods of 1993 and the Oklahoma City bombing. Bush's mistake was to sink the agency back into a bureacratic swamp after 9/11, after using it as a dumping ground for unqualified political appointees. That's exactly the same shape it was in back when his dad was president, and Hugo and Andrew and the Loma Prieta California earthquake hit. After Hugo hit South Carolina, the governor of South Carolina Ernst Hollings called FEMA a "sorry bunch of bureaucratic jackasses." After the earthquake, Congressman Norman Mineta said FEMA "couldn't manage a two-car parade." After Andrew, the Wall Street Journal ran a story saying FEMA was beyond repair and should be dissolved entirely. Then came Clinton's reorganization, which made the agency not only functional, but award-winning. I don't think there's any doubt anymore that a similar revamping is needed now -- there will be another terrorist attack, and there will be another San Francisco earthquake, and there will be more hurricanes.