Abolish FEMA Says Senate Panel

Today a senate panel said that it would be best to abolish and rebuild from scratch, in order to prevent blunders like the Katrina disaster. The report says that FEMA simply cannot be fixed, after years of poor leadership and funding. A new agency has been suggested to be made called the National Preparedness and Response Authority.



I am split on this. It could be good or bad depending on how its handled. We could be even worse prepared then before if we handle this wrong and really end up messing up when a disaster shows up. I think that FEMA is inept and unable to do its job, but i dont know if scraping it rather then reform is such a good idea. Im unsure right now though.

Related News Links:
abcnews.go.com

[edit on 26-4-2006 by grimreaper797]

[edit on 26-4-2006 by parrhesia]

Sounds like a typical government public relations ploy to me. Right now the name FEMA has been made synonymous with incompetance, graft and corruption, whether it was or not. FEMA or what ever they are going to call the "new" agency needs to be a cabinet level agency that is empowered to act quickly and decisively in the event of an emergency. If all you do is to change the name on the stationary and the jackets, but leave the old structure in place nothing will improve. I still say that the local governments had more to do with FEMA's problems than they are getting credit for. If this new agency is to function correctly it is going to have to be able to take over from the State governments and run the relief efforts. First time this happens the media will be screaming that the Federal government is trampling on the State's rights. Any agency is going to be caught between a rock and a hard place no matter what they do.

HI

This is my first post, after months of reading, so please be gentle with me.

Very quickly - just to give my stance on this FEMA/NWO link.
I do think something outside of what we are being told is going on, based on some of my research (with many thanks to various ATSers who have provided insights and links to further my research).

I have spotted this news already, and was curious about one thing.
How much funding does FEMA actually get? Either as a % of GDP, or actual $$.

According to this post:
Single Post
FEMA uses 6% of its funding for disaster relief. (Actual source for this?)

From this source:
Single post
We have a quote:

Picking sides or parties only distracts from the fact that FEMA has a multi-billion dollar yearly budget, yet took days to drop food and water.

Based on what we saw with Katrina last year, it seems like they could've used the other 94% to help out in this case, but getting off point here....

However, in the news link above, it states that FEMA

is crippled beyond repair by years of poor leadership and inadequate funding

So this goes back to my main question :
How much does FEMA actually get?
How can these senators, who obviously know exactly how much FEMA is getting, claim that it is under funded, if we have other sources telling us otherwise!

My next point is if FEMA is abolished, how does impact on Rex 84 (maybe incorrect code) and the whole secret government plan? Does the Rex 84 allow for other organisations, such as FEMA potential successor, to implement the intended plan, or will it have to start again from scratch?

Hope I made myself clear - as I said above, this is my first post, and don't want to look dumb...

Budget Explorer

According to the website Budget Explorer FEMA's budget for last year was $14.6 billion dollars. This was just the budget for day to day operations. When needed, as in the case of Katrina, additional funds are diverted to FEMA who then administers these funds.

Such an interesting turn of events. I see a handful of possibilities here:

1) The Senate is proposing the disbanding of FEMA and establishment of a new agency (which I'll call *FEMA) in order to facilitate large scale government contract re-negotiatons. Such negotiations could both allow for new contractors to enter *FEMA's monied embrace and allow existing contractors to re-negotiate even more lucrative contracts with *FEMA.

2) This is an example of Problem-Reaction-Solution politics. FEMA bungled Katrina, creating a problem. There was a terrible reaction to FEMA's mis-management of the crisis. Now the Senate is proposing a solution...disband FEMA. Ultimately, it is likely that the problem was known for a long time before Katrina and Katrina was used to demonstrate the "problem" publicly so the GOP controlled Senate could show that they are not a bunch of corrupted 'pork farmers' and that they too want a functioning government.

3) This is part of an overarching effort to ensure that as this effort goes forward and FEMA is disbanded in preparation for a replacement agency, the nation is unprotected from any disaster relief agency, allowing the next "disaster" to be even more catastrophic. This scenario could be intended to facilitate an opportunity to magnify a disaster for political gain, or could be intended to allow the military to step into the void to declare Marshall Law to control the resulting chaos.

I don't know how comfortable I am with the notion of the current PTB in Washington creating a new uber-agency, especially in the wake of the clear and consistent mistakes which have resulted in a fractured and poorly operating DHS. In theory, when you start from scratch on something you did before that got outside your grasp, the second effort should be much more efficient and functional. Unfortunately, our government is not capable of behaving in this manner and we are likely to see a *FEMA which is even more incapable of providing basic assistance during a disaster, but has grown leaps-and-bounds in its ability to funnel cash out of public coffers and into the hands of no-bid contractors.

Not only will it effect the Rex 84 program but it would also impact their other plans.
Operation Cable Splicer and Garden Plot. Check out the following
http:/www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/FEMA-Concentration-Camps3sep04.htm
I've got to believe that the Military is really the most significant player in all these plans anyways. It also like Rumfeld said we may be made to change the name but we are still going to produce propaganda. It May not be FEMA but it will still smell like it.

It's nothing wrong with FEMA but the fact that was allowed to fall into the wrong hands in the bureaucracy of Home Land Security.

FEMA went from an independent agency to fall under the Administration new bastard child.

Bureaucracy is what doomed FEMA.

~~

I do hope FEMA will be around in some form or capacity for this fast approaching hurricane season.

any FEMA or newly created agency will still have the same diminished manpower resource which greatly reduced FEMAs effectiveness since the great rotation from many States National-Guards into the
War-On-Terror in the middle-east.

FEMA worked in the 1990s...because there were manpower & resources at the agencies request...

FEMA was a co-ordinator,
not a negotiator with NGOs, or hiring independent contractors, etc etc

heck fire...give the former FEMA operation over to the RED CROSS & the
SALVATION ARMY...pay them half of what a gov't bureaucracy would be funded
and "They" will get TWICE as much done, & more effectively!!!
~~ i gotta e-mail Sen. Lindsey Graham with that thought~~

Instead of a replacement for FEMA let's get a replacement for all the senators advocating this move.

RIGHT!!! Dispite all its flaws, it is still better than nothing, and without it and Bush in office, if FEMA no matter how flwed wasn't there, nothing is exactly what the people of the gulf coast would have gotten. Better to fix it than to fold its functions into another bloated agency.