tax cuts kill

[Irvine511]

"Just last year, FEMA hired a private company, IEM Inc. of Baton Rouge, to help conduct an eight-day drill for a fictional Category 5 hurricane in New Orleans named Pam. It included staging a helicopter evacuation of the Superdome, a prediction of 15 feet of water in parts of the city and the evacuation of 1-million people.
But the second part of the company's work - to design a plan to fix unresolved problems, such as evacuating sick and injured people and housing thousands of stranded residents - never occurred because the funding was cut."



read more: http://www.sptimes.com/2005/09/03/Worldandnation/One_question_builds__.shtml

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Yes indeed

I heard the entire FEMA budget was cut in half in 04, I don't know if that's true

 

[U2democrat]

 

[elfyx]

Mike Brown was Joe Allbaugh's college roommate and Joe Allbaugh was Bush's first FEMA director. After Mr. Brown was fired from the Horse Association, Mr. Allbaugh immediately appointed him as his no.2 and the cosy relationship between the two was widely noted within the organization.

One of Allbaugh's primary goals was to politically cleanse FEMA of anyone associated with outgoing James Lee Witt, the former FEMA director under Clinton. He accomplished this, the primary motivation being the pevailing attitude that disaster relief should be more focused towards charitable organizations.

It's important to note that, despite the blatant nepotism, Allbaugh was caught by the GAO for using FEMA Boeing 737 aircraft for private purposes, a scandal which hit the NYTimes, and politically forced his "voluntary" resignation. The RNC ended up reimbursing FEMA.

Joe now works as a consultant that helps businesses get lucrative government contracts. Three businesses got contracts to develop catastrophic hurricane disaster plans for NO and LA: IEM, Dewberry, and URS. There has been some speculation about the relationships between them, and I can only hope they are fully investigated.

Interestingly, IEM lists James Lee Witt Associates as a partner on their website, a claim which James Lee Witt has distanced himself from.

To be clear, there's much more going on here than tax cuts...

 

[Irvine511]

tax cuts and white privilege kill?

 

[melon]

No. You know what's going on? Have you noticed now that we're having nationwide fundraisers to take care of something that, in the past, the federal government would have paid for?

And that's it. FEMA was gutted, because Bush WANTS all this kind of stuff taken care of through private charitable donations. Pretty soon, we're going to end up with "charity drives" for everything from highway repair to school funding.

Melon

 

[jay canseco]

What's a cynic to do? It's all true.

 

[dazzledbylight]

No. You know what's going on? Have you noticed now that we're having nationwide fundraisers to take care of something that, in the past, the federal government would have paid for?

And that's it. FEMA was gutted, because Bush WANTS all this kind of stuff taken care of through private charitable donations. Pretty soon, we're going to end up with "charity drives" for everything from highway repair to school funding.

Melon

yeah
Isn't THAT juuuuust dandy.

 

[elfyx]

No. You know what's going on? Have you noticed now that we're having nationwide fundraisers to take care of something that, in the past, the federal government would have paid for?

And that's it. FEMA was gutted, because Bush WANTS all this kind of stuff taken care of through private charitable donations. Pretty soon, we're going to end up with "charity drives" for everything from highway repair to school funding.

Melon

There's also the idea that government is primarily to be used as a feeding trough for cronies and their businesses.

Unfortunately these charitable organizations have been thoroughly rebuffed and impeded by FEMA through this entire debacle. So, which is it? Charity, or Government? Can't have your cake and eat it too, so they say.

 

[verte76]

No. You know what's going on? Have you noticed now that we're having nationwide fundraisers to take care of something that, in the past, the federal government would have paid for?

And that's it. FEMA was gutted, because Bush WANTS all this kind of stuff taken care of through private charitable donations. Pretty soon, we're going to end up with "charity drives" for everything from highway repair to school funding.

Melon

Good, great, wonderful. Makes me feel really good to be living in Hurricane Alley.