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Originally Posted by Poppinjay
Anecdotes do not equal data. If anything, Katrina proved how ineffectual it is for random people to provide the rescue effort. After previous disasters, FEMA operated extremely well. Now that Bush has placed them under homeland security, they are extremely ineffectual.
I guess if his whole plan was to destroy FEMA, that was the perfect way to do it. Otherwise, it was one of the few truly decent agencies that did good work before Bush, Chertoff, and Brownie got their mitts on it.
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Yes I gave anecdotes, but all you gave was an opinion.
Here is another anecdote. I lived in Southern California during and after the '94 Northridge earthquake. FEMA added no value then either. The result was rampant fruad with many people taking advantage of grants and low interest loans. And now we still have most people without earthquake insurance, sitting back waiting for the next earthquake and remembering that FEMA will come to the rescue with "free" money. I call that a big negative, and certainly not adding an value.
I also remember after the earthquack people coming together and helping one another in ways that had never happend before and has not happened since.
Here is some data. California gets back $.75 for every dollar sent to the federal government. What if California got to keep a protion of that $.25? Then the state might not need federal government dollars to help repair highways after a big earthquake. If the state doesn't have to deal with the federal government then things get done faster. Now how can you argue with that? I guess you have to assume the folks in Washingto are smarter than the folks are locally. I don't believe that for one second. Do you?
P.S. I just looked at your sig, you are in Washington. I guess I know the answer to my question.
