Posted on 01/25/2025 9:53:26 AM PST by bitt
President Donald Trump dismantled Democrat Representative Brad Sherman’s defense of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), arguing that state governments, not federal bureaucracy, should take matters into their own hands rather than waiting for federal incompetence.
President Trump did not mince words about FEMA’s shortcomings during a press conference on Friday with Los Angeles officials after touring the damage caused by the wildfires.
Pres. Trump: I do have to say FEMA is a big disappointment. We had it working well. We had great people, but FEMA is not good anymore. What FEMA did in North Carolina. They still haven’t even gone to certain areas. They don’t know what they’re doing. I say, You don’t need FEMA. You need a good state government.
When you have a problem in Los Angeles or when you have a problem even in the state California, you have your own, essentially, FEMA. You fix it yourself. You don’t have somebody coming in from a state where they have no idea.
Like Florida, they come in from hurricanes, they have people staying in Alaska, and now they see, Oh, this is very nice. But by the time they get familiar with it, they don’t know anything. The FEMA is a very expensive, in my opinion, mostly failed situation. We had great people. We did some great jobs.
But each state should take care of their problem and get money from the federal government. It would be so much better, so much more efficient. We’re looking at that because we have had, and you’re going to have problems with FEMA, too.
You’ve already had problems with FEMA. FEMA doesn’t even show up. It takes weeks before they even show up. What happens is the state then relies on FEMA, and nobody does anything because FEMA doesn’t show up.
It’s not a good situation, so we’ll make some recommendations on that. But you have to push like hell to get the permits because I’m just hearing things that I don’t like to hear. I think you’re not going to get your permits as fast as people are saying. We have to get them in mayor.
If I can help you at all in that regard, you’ll let me know. But you’re going to have all your federal permits. That’s going to be the easy part, which, by the way, is by far the hardest part.
You know who controls your water is Department of Commerce, and I already have that approval. That’s usually a very long process. The hard part was the federal, but we already have that done.
Sherman attempted to defend FEMA’s efforts, suggesting that the agency had been effective in his state by employing thousands of people through a disaster relief center.
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Yes. Employ locals, especially those whose businesses or jobs are gone because of a fire, earthquake, hurricane, whatever. There shouldn’t be a need to import people from other states. Unless it’s a truly tiny state without much resources.
Is FEMA a jobs program or is FEMA supposed to alleviate the effects of a disaster?
Both FEMA and local bureaucrats have no common sense. Stopping volunteers who were repairing roads by saying the road wouldn’t be stable for emergency ehicals is the height of stupidity. That was never the intent, it was to get food and water into remote areas and families stranded in those remote areas out to hospitals and Dr offices. They can always go back and repair the roads later.
It would help if CA’s water resources weren’t controlled by a rich friend of Pelosi and Newsom - and if HUGE amounts of rainwater and snowmelt from the mountains had been diverted to a reservoir rather than to the ocean...
You should all watch that briefing from beginning to end, it was seriously master class, never ever seen anything like it it was a total beatdown and they all had to sit there and take it..the ones applauding in the back were homeowners who lost their homes, you can bet some of them did not vote for Trump but like what they saw..the permit policy here in CA is AWFUL its true you have to wait FOREVER to get a permit, actually the permit is the easy part, try passing inspection, you wont, for the most part..some pimple face snot nosed 20 something will appear and start complaining about this and that it will take YEARS to actually start building
We are all familiar with Brad Sherman here in LA, he’s always been a prick
It needs to be de-politicized and re-prioritized in a complete reorganization, leaving an emergency management agency that's ready and able to respond.
While most observers fixate on the differences between liberal and conservatives, they frequently miss the differences between federalists, who want a large, dominate federal government, and anti-federalists, who favor more autonomy for the state. FEMA has always been a federalist project to preempt the police powers of the states. Managing natural disasters and similar emergencies is not what the founders intended as regulating interstate commerce. FEMA is constitutionally highly dubious. Only a federalist seeking to constantly expand the powers of the federal government at the expense of the states can love it.
Get rid of FEMA as an organization. Take a slice of the current FEMA budget, assign it to “National Emergency Office” in the Interior Department, to be used as block grants to states, as needed and only as needed, for emergenices on notice of a Presidential declaration. If some national office or agency can help in an emergency, such as Army Corps of Enegineers, DOD, Coast Guard, or use of the National Guard, their expense should come out of that budget for block grants to the states.
FEMA was never originally intended to provide direct assistance to individual citizens. It was designed to assist state-level recover assistance, not to come into a state and take over management and control trol of recovery efforts. Then, politicians discovered that it could be used to buy votes and build fiefdoms.....
“It would help if CA’s water resources weren’t controlled by a rich friend of Pelosi and Newsom - and if HUGE amounts of rainwater and snowmelt from the mountains had been diverted to a reservoir rather than to the ocean...”
Turn the entire valley into a national park.
This is the way. Return control and organization to the states.
Too much of “destroys this”, “demolishes that”, “eviscerates her” hyperbole going around these days.
This was the BEST meeting EVER in a time of disaster! President TRUMP brought HIS COMMON SENSE to that meeting!!! America is watching his leadership!!!!
Well said.
I think FEMA workers are waaaaay overpaid. A buddy said he was getting paid 4 times what he would normally make - 9-11.
“ You should all watch that briefing from beginning to end, it was seriously master class…”
I saw it. It was glorious.
L
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