Google Gemini was used to research this piece. This Essay was posted on 7/16/2025.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem argues that the states should take the lead in responding to severe weather events like the recent Texas storm or the massive fire in California, and FEMA should only provide support as directed by the individual State. Her views became actions in Texas where weather forecasting was reduced and emergency phone banks were dropped. And FEMA’s support took too much time to develop.
Reducing the role and responsibilities of FEMA don’t seem to be a good idea. Each State would need to increase its emergency support teams to deal with once in a decade events. Additionally, it would take extra time to get FEMA up to date on the disaster before it could move in and help. Keeping a State-based disaster-relief team trained and operational for a flood or fire that might occur someday is an inefficient use of money.
A better solution is to have a centralized team that could react to emergencies in any state quickly and effectively. The centralized team would be able to react immediately and provide life-saving assistance better than an under-staffed and under-trained State organization with help from an under-staffed Federal team. But isn’t that what we had before Donald Trump got into a money-saving gig to pay for his tax cuts?
Sometimes, cutting taxes doesn’t really save us any money.
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