We ignored the great lessons of NYC's official city-and region-level planning and reaction to 9/11, the lessons of the many private citizens and organizations who mobilized on the spot, yet with great self-order on 9/11 (for example the flotillas of boats that evacuated NYC), the lessons of the private citizen heroes of Flight 93, the historic lessons of the power of free citizen action throughout history and especially in the United States. All of those -- including NYC's official planning -- were places done on tight or no budgets. It wasn't money being thrown at a problem -- it was the intellectual and personal resources of free individuals.
No grand "somebody else" who magically handles all problems -- such as a FEMA, such as Homeland Security, such as the Red Cross, such as the Federal Government. Rather free individuals individually and in associations of various kinds and scales. The power of WE.
And yet we (govt. bureaucracy) still throw the money into Homeland Security agencies. Quo bono?