Thanks to the efforts of conservative lawmakers, a recently passed funding bill did not allocate additional funds to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) despite knowing that the agency’s funds had run low before the peak of hurricane season. Congress is now in recess until November 12, and while Biden had considered calling Congress back into session early to approve more FEMA funding, there has been no progress.
Yet, somehow, conservative leaders and media are attempting to pin the blame of lack of FEMA funding on migrants crossing the US-Mexico border to seek asylum. “Feds say there’s no money left to respond to hurricanes — after FEMA spent $640M on migrants,” read a headline in conservative paper the New York Post following Mayorkas’ announcement.
Communities in the southeast of the country, across the Gulf Coast and from Florida all the way to Virginia, have been forced to fend for themselves with grassroots and mutual aid organizations filling in for the state in terms of relief and aid efforts.
Nah, this is not what is happening at all. Every single news source (including right-wing) has been reporting on the Biden administration issuing a blank check to all states making FEMA requests.
What in the fuck is this rag ranting about?
Edit: I read through the other articles. Biased junk, slanting on “socialism” with hard quotes. Lots of circlejerking about Iran in the mix.
Congress has the power of the purse. Biden could approve requests from States for FEMA funding that had already been allocated to the FEMA bucket from the previous spending bill - and thus preapproved by Congress, but that bucket has now run low.
So if a winter hurricane somehow came and ruined more places, FEMA may not have the funds to pay out.
Agree with all your points otherwise. The odds of the above are nil, and it’s typical for a continuing resolution for spending to just continue with normal levels of spending without specially allocating extra funds. The idea being, the new finished spending bill - once fully hashed out - is the right place to discuss how much funds should go in. Adding it to a short term spending bill requires additional discussion and negotiation, which takes time - meaning the gov’t might have shut down while the details were still being hashed out.