Originally posted by jtma508
reply to post by madnessinmysoul
I answered that. Because it's more efficient to handle functions on a state and regional level. Placing authority into one federal agency makes it
susceptible to corruption (only one agency to 'own'), creates a massively expensive bureucracy, is out-of-touch with local conditions.
It would be a good argument, except that the smaller the government body, the more corrupt its bound to be. Ever dealt with your local county
government? Ever watched the way the mayor runs your town? The problem is, the smaller you get, the less oversight there is and the more vulnerable
the government is to outside influences. I lived up in Alaska for a few years, and let me tell you, the state government there makes the 109th
congress look squeaky clean. To say nothing of the way the towns are run. The one I lived in was completely sold out to special interests from outside
the state.
On the federal level, there are a
lot of eyes turned towards them. Corruption is actually less of a problem because there's actually less to
bargain with - A mayor can be bought off for a few bucks, but a senator is far harder to influence simply because he already has more to start with.
Now it's far from perfect, but if I have to choose between the corruption of Congress, and the corruption of the local school board? Well... it's a
choice between taking it dry, or taking it with lube, isn't it?
Take hurricane Katrina. FEMA. Drove millions of dollar of ice around the country for a month or so. Did little else. Had the resources been
under the control of MO and LA it would have been more responsive and more easily deployed.
Had the resources been in the hands of Louisiana, ice would have been sold to Mexico. For starters, the state government ranks up there with Alaska
and New Jersey in terms of corruption. More importantly though, there would have been no way to Louisiana to get supplies to New Orleans. The roads
were totaled, the national guard was shall we say "busy", and all sorts of other logistical problems.
The issue with FEMA is that it was set up to fail. Let me break it down for you.
You have a organization created by the feds to help out in case of a disaster. As I noted, the states can't always handle these things by themselves,
either due to logistics (the aftermath of hurricanes in the south or earthquakes in the west, for example) or because the state is poor and can't
divert the funds in the first place, as is the case in places like Alaska or North Dakota. So this is actually a good idea.
Naturally, this group would need decent funding and training. This was not received. FEMA's funding at the time of Katrina was absolutely anemic.
Training was at a minimum, resources were nil, and there was little organization or preparedness, due to the lack of money to do anything. The
Republican congress, in typical republican style, had declared it "Welfare" and cut funding since there had been no recent disasters.
And then there's the question, who do you put in charge of this organization? Well, personally, I would have hired on a guy who's done this sort of
work before, and is good in crunch time. What we
got instead of that was a horse breeder who's qualification was that he played polo with the
president.
So we have the Republican president putting a clueless crony in charge of a rather crucial organization, and the Republican congress refusing to fund
it (though said crony received a nice salary, go figure huh?) and then, when wonder of wonders, the program fails due to these flaws, the Republicans
congratulate the crony for "doing his best" and then tell the rest of us that this is clearly why federal programs should be abolished.
Pardon me if I have trouble believing this is in the least coincidental.
In the general sense, keeping power distributed among the states precludes the possibility of a tyranical government. That is a major problem
internationally and a serious one here at home.
Not really. What it does is open the door for fifty competing tyrannies.