Taxpayers get dubious ‘return on investment’ from FEMA

While President Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns have promoted the call to “Make America Great Again,” President Joe Biden’s term in office has effectively taken America in an opposite direction. The reality under Biden is that the individual interests of Americans no longer receive priority. The latest to hear this message loud and clear are the victims of Hurricane Helene.

In 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed Executive Order 12127, establishing the Federal Emergency Maintenance Agency (FEMA). Every federal agency has a mission statement detailing its purpose. Later that year, Carter signed Executive Order 12148, giving FEMA the dual mission of emergency management and civil defense. On its website, FEMA declares its history “is rooted in the story of a nation committed to finding strength in the face of unpredictable and devastating disasters.”

The FY 2023 budget for FEMA was $29.3 billion. The agency operates under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Immediately after killer Hurricane Helene cut its devastating path through the southeastern states, claiming more than 200 lives, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas announced FEMA “does not have the funds” to make it through the end of hurricane season (Nov. 30) and to meet the needs of the victims.

An irate Texas Gov. Greg Abbott responded that DHS should “immediately stop spending money on illegal immigration resettlement and redirect those funds to areas hit by the hurricane,” promoting the need to “put Americans first.”

FEMA’s mission is to “help people before, during, and after disasters.” However, as Biden opened our borders up to a massive illegal immigrant wave, more than a billion dollars, instead of used for FEMA’s intended mission, were applied to the Shelter and Services Program jointly administered by the agency and the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. FEMA’s website boasts to have spent “more than $1 billion on noncitizen migrant resettlement and other services over the past two years.”

This was done despite the fact there is no way to read into FEMA’s mission authority applying funds meant to benefit U.S. citizens suffering from disasters to instead providing shelter to non-citizens who have entered the country illegally. It is ironic that FEMA benefits are supposedly unavailable now for those whose tax payments have funded the agency in the first place.

Several weeks prior to hurricane season, Mayorkas assured us there were sufficient assets to deal with upcoming disasters – this before he told us we did not and had to call upon Congress to budget additional funding. His office put out a memo claiming “no money is being diverted” from Helene disaster response efforts and allegations that “funding for FEMA disaster response was diverted to support international efforts or border related issues” are “false.”

Yet during a press conference onboard Air Force One, Mayorkas distinctly said, “We are expecting another hurricane hitting. We do not have the funds. FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season. …”

Vice President Kamala Harris lingered before visiting the devastation in Georgia – arriving only after her presidential rival had been there – to tell victims FEMA was providing a whopping $750 for those with immediate needs. She failed to disclose – as a White House fact sheet did – not even that amount was guaranteed. Meanwhile, it is disheartening to know some illegals – like those in New York City (NYC) – are being given prepaid debit cards for thousands of dollars in a program unrelated to FEMA. (Also in NYC, as victims of Helene are offered a mere pittance, illegals there fully occupy 157 hotels.)

As President Joe Biden used a visit to Raleigh, North Carolina, to make a strong call for unity in the wake of the devastation wrought by Helene, he immediately made no effort to lead by example. He issued a sharp critique of anyone not recognizing global warming’s role in the hurricane surge as “brain dead.” While doing so, Biden, ironically, remains brain dead about the role his open-border policy has had in creating a myriad of domestic problems, including insufficient FEMA funding.

Biden’s brain dead comment was an uncalled for slap, at a time of tragedy, of global warming critics, coming from a president who chose to monitor Helene’s destructive path from the safety and comfort of his beach home in Delaware. Meanwhile, he too found himself backtracking on his initial declaration no further resources were needed to deal with Helene’s destruction to, “It’s going to cost billions of dollars to deal with this storm … and Congress has an obligation to ensure states have the resources they need.”

Meanwhile, for a FEMA that knew what was coming, it is moving frustratingly slow to meet victims’ needs. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., wrote Mayorkas that whistleblowers reported hundreds, “if not thousands,” of FEMA agents were deployed to North Carolina where they were lodged in hotels awaiting their “marching orders.” An engineer from Elon Musk’s SpaceX company informed Musk FEMA was holding up shipments of survival supplies his company made in North Carolina, seizing them to subsequently deliver them as their own. Shockingly, where FEMA agents have been deployed to help they have proven to be more of a hindrance to non-FEMA groups providing assistance.

Forced to give an unscripted answer about her economic plan to a questioner when campaigning in Pennsylvania, Harris served up her normal helping of word salad. Within the span of a very short time, she managed to use the phrase “return on investment” at least four times as if she had just learned it. One wonders if she understands that Hurricane Helene victims are getting a dubious return on investment for their tax dollars based on FEMA’s poor performance.