Based on my experience after Hurricane Ian I am calling BS on some of the Ryan Tyre link. I can imagine FEMA was bad, but I’m not buying that Florida stood by helplessly and allowed FEMA to prevent aid from getting in. I can’t imagine Florida allowing FEMA to run the show. Right after Ian Florida and Lee County restricted who went onto the destroyed barrier islands, but that was to insure that the search and rescue effort was not hampered. Florida got the bridge to Sannibel Island open in less than a week. That’s not a state that allows FEMA to hold them hostage and delay them.
Do I believe that FEMA has preferred vendors? You bet I do.
Did FEMA even come to Florida? They came to NC 8 days after Helene. DeSantis knows how to govern Florida. They handled the problems.
Every government agency has preferred vendors; if they fail to use them, they must get high level supervisors or agency heads to authorize a waiver. Even airlines and rental cars fall under this rule, as well as preferred lodging. The government competes these preferred contracts well in advance, to ensure they have capacity and fair rates for the next fiscal year. Reality is the preferred vendors provide horrible service, and the prices may actually not be so good in the new FY. This was not true fifteen years ago, and I feel the government saves no money this way. The problem with government is it is too powerful, and they never do analytics on the back end to prove that ideas were good based on objective measures. They just keep gaining power and wasting more money.