{"id":56822,"date":"2024-10-08T07:22:12","date_gmt":"2024-10-08T11:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=56822"},"modified":"2024-10-08T07:22:12","modified_gmt":"2024-10-08T11:22:12","slug":"fema-isnt-really-broke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=56822","title":{"rendered":"FEMA Isn’t Really Broke"},"content":{"rendered":"

FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) isn’t really out of money. According to a Real Clear Investigations<\/a> article posted on Sunday, FEMA has billions of dollars leftover from previous disasters.<\/p>\n

The article reports:<\/p>\n

While FEMA is expected to ask Congress for new money, budget experts note a surprising fact: FEMA is currently sitting on untapped reserves appropriated for past disasters stretching back decades.<\/strong><\/p>\n

An August report<\/a>\u00a0from the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s Office of Inspector General noted that in 2022, FEMA \u201cestimated that 847 disaster declarations with approximately $73 billion in unliquidated funds remained open.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Drilling down on that data, the OIG found that $8.3 billion of that total was for disasters declared in 2012 or earlier.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Such developments are part of a larger pattern in which FEMA failed to close out specific grant programs \u201cwithin a certain timeframe, known as the period of performance (POP),\u201d according to the IG report. Those projects now represent billions in unliquidated appropriations that could potentially be returned to the DRF (Disaster Relief Fund).\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

These \u201cunliquidated obligations\u201d reflect the complex federal budgeting processes. Safeguards are important so that FEMA funding doesn\u2019t become a slush fund that the agency can spend however it chooses, budget experts said, but the inability to tap unspent appropriations from long-ago crises complicates the agency\u2019s ability to respond to immediate disasters.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The article concludes:<\/p>\n

Portnoy (Jeremy Portnoy of OpenTheBooks, a nonpartisan watchdog of government spending) first called attention to FEMA\u2019s unspent funds<\/a>\u00a0in conversations with RealClearInvestigations on Sept. 8. He said it seems bizarre that federal officials would have a pot substantial enough to cover a projected shortfall while adding billions to the Disaster Relief Fund, but fail to draw on it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThere is all that money just sitting there,\u201d Portnoy said. \u201cThey\u2019re saying they don\u2019t have enough money but when you juxtapose it with the more than $8 billion, well, why not use that right now in Florida and other places?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The \u201cunliquidated obligations\u201d have stayed on FEMA\u2019s books because it \u201csubjectively\u201d extended the deadlines on some projects. The deadline for 2012\u2019s Superstorm Sandy has been extended to 2026.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAs a result, the potential risk for fraud, waste, and abuse increases the longer a program remains open,\u201d a DHS report concluded.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although DHS could probably reach into such unliquidated obligations to help restore order in areas devastated by Helene, experts note that bureaucracies are loath to resort to such tactics when budget negotiations are near, as they are when the fiscal year ends this month.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe bridges that have been washed out, that\u2019s not something FEMA will have to pay tomorrow,\u201d Cavanaugh said.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Please follow the link to the article for further details. This is outrageous. The bureaucracy grows and covers its tracks, and the taxpayers pay the price.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) isn’t really out of money. According to a Real Clear Investigations article posted on Sunday, FEMA has billions of dollars leftover from previous disasters. The article reports: While FEMA is expected to ask Congress for … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2058,735,8843,1579,611,16295,8702,172,1619,11786],"class_list":["post-56822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-budget","tag-congress","tag-emergency-management","tag-federal-budget","tag-federal-emergency-management-agency","tag-fema","tag-funding","tag-government-spending","tag-inspector-general","tag-real-clear-investigations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56822"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56823,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56822\/revisions\/56823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}