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Townhall...
FEMA
Offsets Set Left Ablaze
By Mike Needham
9/5/2011
Another
hurricane is brewing in the
Atlantic and fires rage in Oklahoma and Texas.
Meanwhile, all across the country, Americans
are working to rebuild
after spring floods, summer tornados and Hurricane Irene. Enter the federal
government.
State
and local officials often look
to Washington for financial assistance after a disaster strikes. The Federal Emergency
Management Agency
(FEMA), a product of the Carter administration, is frequently a
governor’s best
friend, doling out federal money for various assistance plans and
reconstruction projects. And
because
that money is for disaster relief, it is usually designated as
“emergency
spending” and ends up adding to our national debt.
In
2005, after Hurricane Katrina – the
most expensive hurricane on record – ravaged the Gulf Coast a small
band of
conservative lawmakers did not object to the tens of billions of
dollars in
disaster aid that followed, but they did demand the additional spending
be
offset with cuts elsewhere. Our
nation’s
debt was less than $8 trillion at the time, and the group was described
as a
“fringe” element.
Following
Hurricane Irene, it became
clear FEMA’s disaster relief fund would soon run out of cash. The agency has already
announced a
prioritization plan (sound familiar?) while they await additional
funding. But with
our federal debt at $14.6 trillion
and counting, we cannot go down the business-as-usual path of deficit
spending. Last
week, House Majority
Leader Eric Cantor laid out the position of House Republicans, saying,
“those
monies are not unlimited. And what we’ve always said is, we’ve offset
that
which has already been funded.”
This
set the political left and the
White House ablaze. Words
like
“abhorrent,” “hostage” and “fiasco” were thrown about.
But notice Mr. Cantor never said Republicans
did not want to provide more disaster relief, he simply insisted those
funds be
offset with cuts elsewhere so we do not add to our nation’s dangerously
high
debt. If President
Obama is “very
committed to fiscal discipline,” as the White House insists, he should
support
this effort.
Considering
that federal spending
increased by $160 billion a year on average over the past decade, it
should not
be difficult to find cuts to offset additional aid for those affected
by this
storm. In fact, the
Republican-controlled House already appropriated an additional $1
billion in
disaster relief this year and another $2.65 billion next year. But the
Senate
has refused to consider the proposal.
As
with most fights in Washington, the
question over whether or not to offset the spending is only the tip of
the
iceberg. The real
question is what
should be the appropriate role of the federal government in disaster
response
and relief...
Read
the rest of the column at
Townhall
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