Wednesday, September 28, 2011

FEMA Funding

IN today's 2302 we covered budgeting and specifically the recent conflict over FEMA funding, as well as the role the budgeting process has begun to play in setting public policy. If you can;t terminate a program you do not like (like Amtrak) you can just cut its funds. This has the same effect.

After discussing the nature and age of the agency - mentioning also the disaster relief has a long history in the US - we pointed out that a big problem with funding FEMA is that we never know ahead of time how much has to be spent on disaster relief. We don't know what disasters will happen until they happen. I guess that's why the are called disasters. Global warming models suggest that rising world temperatures make climate related disasters more frequent ans costly. The Washington Post has a graphic that seems to support his: