It's just a coincidence, I'm sure, but every major event that happens in the United States seems to be read as showing that we need more intervention from the federal government.
The Katrina disaster is an excellent case in point. As soon as it happened and people in the region had to put up with the consequences of having chosen to live in an area long known to be vulnerable to just such a catastrophe, the complaints rang through the press regarding the alleged slowness of the federal government in responding. Relatively little attention was paid to the disgracefully slow and inept response by the governments of New Orleans and Louisiana, and likewise to the fact that the federal government stepped in as soon as was legally permitted.
No, the federal government was responsible for everything, including the weather and the choice of people to live in places sure to be inundated at some point or other. And of course the blustering, handwring, and investigations followed. The White House report on the federal response to Katrina, released today, predictably calls for more federal control over such matters. As the New York Times reports:
The federal government, the report said, failed to sufficiently appreciate that there are certain types of disasters, like Hurricane Katrina, where local and state governments will be so overwhelmed that they will largely be unable to help themselves.
Perhaps, but in this case the state and local governments were not competent and overwhelmed; they were overwhelmed because they were grotesquely inept, disorganized, and unprepared. The way for that to be handled is for the voters to replace their inept leaders with competent ones. If they refuse to do that, that's their choice, and they should have to accept the consequences.
The federal report proceeds from this faulty premise to the expected conclusion. The Times continues:
The Department of Defense, as was proposed by President Bush and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, would play a more active role in major disasters, the report suggests, perhaps leading the federal response to help accelerate search and rescue, evacuation and the delivery of supplies.
The report does not detail exactly when such a takeover might be appropriate, or how it would happen, suggesting only that the Departments of Homeland Security and Defense study the matter and come up with a plan. But it does offer examples of the types of incidents that would merit such a step, including perhaps a nuclear attack or "multiple simultaneous terrorist attacks causing a breakdown in civil society."
The latter certainly merit a central role for the federal government, as they would come under that government's responsibility for protecting us from foreign threats. When it comes to natural disasters, however, it is decidedly unclear when the federal government would have to be the main responder and when states and local governments should. What makes a disaster "federal"?—we should have to ask. But we will not do that, you can be sure, because the answer is that what really makes a disaster federal is the reaction of the media.
What will most certainly happen, then, is that the federal government will become the default option for management of the response to any significant disasters, natural or otherwise, occurring within the U.S. borders. That, of course, will require a huge, permanent bureaucracy to be established at the Department of Homeland Security, a bureaucracy that will inevitably become much bigger and vastly more expensive over time, as is the norm for federal departments and programs.
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I am reminded of a Henry Rollins joke:
"It's like when you see all those people down in the Mississippi delta after El Nino came through. They're all standing there, 'Why? Why, God, did you take my house away?'
"'Because you built it on a %@$@^&@ floodplain, you idiot!'"
There are two flaws with your argument, Mr. Karnick:
Most glaring is that one of the largest single federal agencies is devoted specifically to this type of situation: the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA). FEMA dwarfs, in size, scope of duties, and mandate, almost every other agency. Until the creation of the Department of Homeland Security it was an independent entity, so large were its duties. When the federal government creates a giant bureaucracy and response system to cover such eventualities, and it does so quite well (such as during Hurricane Andrew) in past years, and then suddenly manages to not only drop the ball fail in its assigned task quite spectacularly, that merits questions, investigation, and criticism. Especially when it fails its first major test after having been folded into a brand-new, larger bureaucracy enacted by the sitting president.
The second is that it is a question of resources and resource-sharing. When a disaster overwhelms a municipality, a governor declares a state of emergency and sends in the national guard. Other cities and counties from across the state that are not dealing with the disaster send aid in the forms of trained personnel, volunteers, and materiel. When a state’s disaster response system is overwhelmed - whether through sheer scale of the destruction, incompetence, or both (as is the case with New Orleans and its environs) - why shouldn’t the federal government respond with the aid it is capable of giving in supplies and trained responders? Other states send aid, but there is a massive infrastructure, at least part of which is supposed to be devoted to national defense, across state boundaries. Isn’t the toll of a natural disaster a threat to the nation? To do otherwise, to shrug off a disaster as, “Oh well, you chose to live there and didn’t devote the proper resources,” is callous and uncaring of human suffering and ignores potential dangers to the nation as a whole.
Federal governments - nations - are formed to pool and share resources, to minimize the effects of catastrophe (drought, famine, disasters both natural and man-made) upon fellow citizens, even if they’re in California and you’re in Rhode Island. I do not begrudge my federal tax dollars to the citizens of New Orleans, despite their incompetent leadership. I do so with the knowledge that I, living in the Bay Area and having lived through the Loma Prieta earthquake, may need theirs once again.
On a related note: There are very few places suitable for human habitation that are not unstable in geological and/or meteorological terms. New Orleans was in a delta. You might as well ask why San Francisco and San Jose sit atop fault lines, why New York is on an island, and why people live in tornado country. Because those very meteorological and geologic dangers are what makes them valuable economic places: they give us fertile soil, minerals, and good ports and so on.
With the exception of equating Andrew with Katrina (more-or-less) I agree with what you have to say James.
However, ST does not appear to be arguing *against* federal involvement (as hyperbolically inferred by Tlaloc). I think his point is about the *expansion* of a federal program because of a single data point.
If you want to equate Andrew w/ Katrina, then you'd have to at least partially agree that the expanding beauracracy under Bush's Homeland Security has not made things better.
Thus, the sensible "solution" is not MORE beauracray but LESS.
CLA, you are correct when you say, "However, ST does not appear to be arguing *against* federal involvement (as hyperbolically inferred by Tlaloc). I think his point is about the *expansion* of a federal program because of a single data point." That is correct and answers all the quibbles quite succinctly. For a person to quote me as observing that "the federal government will become the default option for management of the response to any significant disasters" in my post and leave out the crucial conclusion that follows in the next sentence is either careless or disingenuous or both. The key fact I'm bringing out is: "That, of course, will require a huge, permanent bureaucracy to be established at the Department of Homeland Security, a bureaucracy that will inevitably become much bigger and vastly more expensive over time, as is the norm for federal departments and programs."
Anyone who likes that prospect is free to stand up and say so. Personally, I find it repugnant. Chacon a son gout.
That's right; I don't.
Some observations that appear not to have been considered adequately:
1. FEMA was one of the best-run, efficient federal agencies up to the current Bush administration. Failures of FEMA can squarely be laid on George Bush's lap, and past successes show that federal involvement can be lifesaving, and appropriate.
2. The states were overwhelmed? Don't forget that Alabama and Mississippi also got hit, with similar results to New Orleans -- even where Republicans hold office. A few weeks later Texas was hit, and with Republicans holding every state-wide elected office, the same problems arose EXCEPT at the city levels. Houston, most notably, and other cities rose to the occasion. Federal screw-ups have diminished the overall effectiveness since then.
3. State response? Traditionally we've used the National Guard for that stuff. Our National Guard units are out of the country because of poor planning for an invasion of another country. With our out-of-country National Guard units are most of the helicopters and big trucks used in past disaster relief and rescue efforts. Our nation stands more vulnerable to natural disasters because President Bush has made it so.
But, Mr. Elliott, FEMA is a shrimp among federal agencies. It does great work with a small budget, and a small staff.
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