FEMA Means...

Failure to Effectively Manage Anything.

From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 - After Hurricane Katrina left hundreds of thousands of people homeless, the Federal Emergency Management Agency signed contracts for more than $2 billion in temporary housing, including more than 120,000 trailers and mobile homes. But the agency has placed just 109 Louisiana families in those homes.

A month after the disaster, the federal government's temporary housing effort is stumbling.

The inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday that FEMA was freezing many orders for trailers, although the agency disputes that. Members of Congress, complaining that a $236 million deal to lease three ships to house evacuees was far too expensive, are calling for an investigation. And under an alternative FEMA program to give victims cash to find their own housing, 332,000 households have been approved in just a week.

FEMA wasn't this inept or wasteful when Clinton appointee James Lee Witt was at the helm. What we're seeing here is the end result of an ideology that has an unhealthy focus on the size instead of the effectiveness of government.

When the Bush Administation relegates a crucial department to a sub-agency status, cuts it budget to bare bones and staffs it with incompetent cronies, is it any wonder FEMA is imploding?

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