On the NYC mayor's presidential endorsement and the choice we have on Tuesday.
So Bloomy endorses Obama. Unless you have absolutely no prior knowledge of the New York mayor, this should be no surprise in any way shape or form. Some like to remind that Bloomberg ran as a Republican. That's true, and it's because the Dems already had a candidate that year. That Bloomy ran as a Republican was always an opportunity thing, and never an ideology thing.…
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76 - Glenn Contrarian
Clavos -
There's only three alternatives to FEMA: let the states do it, privatization, or the Ron Paul solution: you're on your own.
1. Let the states do it. The problem with this is that when it comes to multistate disasters, the infrastructure that any such state agency needs is overwhelmed. What's more, if the state underfunds their local emergency infrastructure (call it SEMA vice FEMA, I guess), then when disaster strikes, either their governor goes hat in hand to the surrounding states for help, or the people are SOL.
2. Privatization. Really, do I need to explain why this would be a bad idea of epic proportions? When people are wiped out by disaster, how would they be able to afford a privately-run aid service? By selling their kids?
3. Ron Paul solution. He once suggested that when disaster strikes, it's the peoples' fault that they live where it struck, and that they should just be able to rely on charity from local churches and the like. So...what church or group of churches is going to cough up $50B worth of donations to cover something like Sandy, or even the billions that Katrina cost? Ron Paul needs a reality check in the worst way.
The RIGHT solution, then, is to have a federal agency that is led and funded properly, and is thus able to get help where it's needed most even in multistate emergencies.
Yeah, I know, you won't agree to that since you are Absolutely Sure that anything the Feds can do, the state and/or Big Business can do better, but the reality is that the most efficient, most capable way to have a response agency for disaster is to have it on the federal level. Why is it the most efficient? Because not every state needs to prepare for truly large-scale disasters like hurricanes and/or Richter-scale 8 earthquakes and/or tsunamis. If there are 50 SEMA's, and each one has to be funded well enough to meet the largest expected disaster to hit that state, then in the big picture that would be FAR more expensive than a FEMA...because while large disasters hit almost every year, such disasters very rarely hit simultaneously. It is much cheaper to be prepared to respond to one or two large disasters than to be prepared to meet fifty...because each and every state would want funding to meet whatever large-scale disaster it's at risk for.
The most sensible and best solution, therefore, is a properly-funded and well-led FEMA.
77 - Clavos
It's all over but the shouting.
Crap. It won't be "all over" for weeks, possibly months.
Another dismal failure for 'privatization'.
Only in your senescent mind, Igor. Privatization did not even figure in the Sandy aftermath
78 - Zingzing
My commute this morning and this evening went smooth as butter, if anyone's asking. It's not quite ideal again (my normal commute is a breezy 25 minutes on express trains), but there were no lines and everything seems back to normal in the parts of town I visit on a normal day. A friend of mine just moved to low-lying Redhook, however, and his place is pretty messed up. I'll admit that my neighborhood and the places in the city I frequent were not the hardest hit, but the response by the gov't seems to now be proportional to the amount of damage in the area. Lower manhattan is still inaccessible by train from Brooklyn, and the flooded coastal areas are still having some troubles, but what the city gov't could get up and running again is up and running again. Really, other than public transportation being shut down for a few days and my internet being spotty, this storm has passed me by. I know it's worse for others in this city, but I'll not ask much more for myself. (other than my wages from last week, which I can supposedly get back because of the declaration of a disaster...)