Republicans frequently claim that the Democrats enjoy a sympathetic Press, which is true, but probably not the main problem. The problem is that Democrats are just better at playing the public perception game. Right now pundits and politicians are vociferously complaining that FEMA was placed within the Department of Homeland Security, a move which presumably made it less able to do its original job. But whose idea was it to do so? Here is John Tierney writing in the New York Times.
Suppose . . . investigators try to find out who had the
brilliant idea of putting the Federal Emergency Management Agency
inside a new department with an organizational chart modeled on the
Soviet Ministry of Agriculture and Food Economy. One Democrat, Hillary
Clinton, did question whether FEMA would suffer, but the idea was
originally championed by her colleagues, particularly Joe Lieberman.
Mr. Lieberman joined Mrs. Clinton this week in calling for a
"re-examination" of FEMA's status, but he was against independence
before he was for it. After the Sept. 11 attacks, he helped lead the
charge to create the Department of Homeland Security.
Republicans first resisted, as the Democratic National Committee
pointed out during the presidential campaign last year. Its radio
advertisement declared: "John Kerry fought to establish the Department
of Homeland Security. George Bush opposed it for almost a year after
9/11."
Likewise, many complain that FEMA lost out in appropriations to the war in Iraq. But of course it didn't. Federal Programs almost never lose funding. The question is where the money was going.
Overall spending [by FEMA] hasn't declined since the Clinton years, and there
has been a fairly sharp increase in money for flood-control
construction projects in New Orleans.
The problem is that the bulk of the Corps's budget goes for projects
far less important than preventing floods in New Orleans. And if the
investigators want to find who's responsible, they don't have to leave
Capitol Hill. Most of the Corps's budget consists of what are lovingly known on
appropriations committees as earmarks: money allocated specifically for
members' pet projects. Many of these projects flunk the Corps's own
cost-benefit analysis or haven't been analyzed at all. Many are jobs
that Corps officials don't even consider part of their mission, like
building sewage plants, purifying drinking water or maintaining
lakeside picnic tables.
The Corps is giving grants to improve New York City's drinking
water. In Massachusetts, the Corps offers BMX-style bike jumps at a
lake near Worcester and runs a theater next to the Cape Cod Canal
showing a video of "Canal Critters."
In rural Nevada, an area not known for hurricanes or shipping
channels, the Corps has been given $20 million for construction
projects. When I asked an official why so much was being spent in
Nevada, he said that the money was paying for wastewater treatment and
mentioned the name of Senator Harry Reid, the Democrat's leader in the
Senate. "Senator Reid is a great and good man," the Corps official explained, "and he is on our committee."
If FEMA was slow to respond in New Orleans (which, despite unaimous assuming by the Press, remains to be proven) the Bush Administration surely has to take the heat. After all, who else was in charge? But the greater scandal is that Congress, after it funds an agency like FEMA, immediately proceeds to plunder it for all manner of local goodies unrelated to its mission. This is, if not illegal, surely corrupt in substance. To its credit, the Bush administration did try to reduce some of this larceny, which was gleefully practiced by both parties. But any time an Administration tries to do that, Congress will shout that they are attacking this vital public agency, and starving disaster victims.
This week Mary Landrieu, the Louisiana Democrat, lambasted Mr. Bush on
the Senate floor. "Everybody anticipated the breach of the levees, Mr.
President," she said. But she and others from the Louisiana delegation
have been shortchanging the levees themselves. As Michael Grunwald
reported in The Washington Post, they've diverted large sums to dubious
Corps projects aimed at increasing barge traffic, not preventing
floods. Ms. Landrieu forced the Corps to redo its calculations when a
project to deepen a port flunked its cost-benefit analysis.
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