Brown is merely a symbol of the problems at FEMA, experts say

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/12605633.htm

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown, who on Friday was sent back to Washington, is the poster boy for what's gone wrong with an agency once lauded for its lightning reflexes.

The nation's federal disaster agency has been politicized and dismantled over the past four years and Brown is a symptom of that transformation, said disaster- and government-efficiency experts.

The Bush administration has filled FEMA's top jobs with political patronage appointees with no emergency-management experience, cut disaster-preparedness budgets and marginalized the agency by merging it with the new anti-terrorism bureaucracy, according to those experts, which include four former senior FEMA officials. The number of career disaster-management professionals in senior FEMA jobs has been cut by more than 50 percent since 2000, federal personnel records show.

And late Friday, FEMA made another embarrassing change.

The agency said it would stop handing out its $2,000 debit cards to families displaced by Katrina, opting instead to give out money to victims by direct deposit into bank accounts or having the post office mail them checks, said agency spokesman Butch Kinerney.

[phantom power]

1. He's certainly a symptom as much as a cause.

The neocon approach to government: up with cronyism and corporate welfare, down with the public good.

[NNN0LHI]

2. This is what a Faith Based government gets us n/t

[sattahipdeep]

3. Some homeowners have hired Blackwater

Some homeowners have hired companies such as Blackwater USA, whose
contractors protected members of the U.S. occupation in Iraq and charge up to $1,000 a
day for their work.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/09/AR2005090901849.html

[tanyev]

4. Re: the debit cards.

Deposit the money into the accounts of people whose banks are underwater or mail a check to a house that's no longer standing.

Brilliant.

[supernova]

5. Isn't that the truth!

Fuckers!

I feel so bad for career FEMA employees who are still stuck their and want to do a good job.

[patdem]

6. You think they remembered to include their 'check books' when hacking

a hole in the roof to survive? AND MANY poor people simply do not have checking accounts...they cash their checks and buy money orders to pay bills...THIS IS ANOTHER ACCOUNT OF HOW OUT OF TOUCH THIS ADMINISTRATION IS WITH THE POOR OF THIS COUNTRY! :grr: Did I say :grr:

Oh, yes..and they give a 1-800 number to the people in the Astrodome to call...THEY GOT PHONES??? Idiots, the whole bunch of them! :grr:...Did I say :grr:

[teknomanzer]

7. compassionate conservatism...

I think the idea was to give the victims two grand and then kick them out into the world and say "see we helped them."

These people need more than that... they need assistance with resettlement, employment, and counseling. That would take much time and cost more than $2000... and Bushco needs that money to payoff their cronies and bomb the hell out of oil bearing countries.