Rogue Agency: The Case to Shut Down FEMA

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an organization that has gone past its sell-by date and should be shut down. That may seem a surprising statement to some; the primary (I would say, only) legitimate role of government is the protection of the liberty and property of the citizens, and surely the "protection" portion of that includes warnings of, and recovery from, natural and man-made disasters, yes? And isn't that what FEMA does?

Supposedly. If that's the case, of course, then every natural disaster before 1979 must have gone ignored and unattended, as before then, FEMA didn't exist. But that's not the primary argument for shutting FEMA down; the primary reason is that the agency has gone rogue, and they are committing horrendous wastes of taxpayer money.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has mismanaged tens of billions of dollars over the years, according to numerous government reports into its spending.
The government agency’s response to COVID, hurricanes, floods and housing migrants have all come under fire for being wasteful and going largely unchecked — as the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been sent in to analyze its spending.
The most recent audit of the embattled disaster response agency claimed it mismanaged nearly $10 billion during the COVID pandemic between 2020 and 2023.
FEMA even approved a grant of $1.1 billion despite it only being supported by only a single piece of paper with no itemized costs, the Jan. 30 audit by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General found.
The request was also “not prepared by a licensed professional engineer or cost-estimating professional,” according to the 36-page report.

Now, mind you, the COVID panic was the source of a lot of wasteful spending by multiple branches of the federal government. But FEMA's malfeasances didn't begin or end there.

First, on Monday, RedState's own streiff documented how the Department of Government Waste (DOGE) under Elon Musk caught FEMA staffers openly defying their boss - you know, the President of the United States - in persisting to dump millions into luxury hotel rooms for illegal aliens.

Streiff writes:

Elon Musk's DOGE team busted Federal Emergency Management Agency bureaucrats in the middle of a covert mutiny against President Trump. Despite orders to the contrary from the White House and a revocation of any previous executive authority, FEMA managers directed $59 million to luxury hotels in New York City to house migrants.

Earlier on Tuesday, my colleague Bonchie brought us added information; the defiant FEMA staffers have been fired.

Bonchie writes:

Four DHS officials working for the sub-agency FEMA are being terminated after they violated one of President Donald Trump's executive orders. As RedState reported, a payment of $59 million was sent to luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal immigrants during the first week of February. That came after the White House ordered a stop to such spending, with the intention being to redirect the money to disaster relief for Americans.

That's all to the good - but it's only the tip of a big, rotten iceberg.

FEMA has handed out more than $1.4 billion in housing and aid for migrants over the last two years, according to earlier audits.
A 2023 report by the DHS Office of the Inspector General investigated $110 million in humanitarian relief funds given to local organizations. It concluded those organizations didn’t use the funds in the way they were required to, couldn’t provide required receipts or documentation and that some of the aid went to illegal migrants.

Add to that the fact that at least one FEMA supervisor has been fired for political discrimination; namely, in the wake of Hurricane Helene, FEMA workers were ordered to bypass damaged homes displaying Trump signs or flags.

These are not the acts of an agency whose primary concern is the liberty and property of American citizens. These are the acts of bureaucrats grown arrogant through years of non-supervision. No one in the previous administration made much of a much out of FEMA's malfeasance, but the shoe's on the other foot now.

FEMA's mission can be handled elsewhere. The National Guard has traditionally - and effectively - provided valuable aid in natural disasters. The states all have their own emergency management divisions. The Department of Defense can help. The Army Corp of Engineers has a long history of civil engineering, both in building and rebuilding, and one might take note that in any natural disaster in another part of the world, such as Indonesia after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, some of the first rescue efforts came in the form of a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier task group.

At the very least, FEMA must be scaled back, perhaps to a cadre of a few actual dedicated experts, not to provide aid, but to coordinate it.

But one thing is readily apparent: FEMA can't continue as it is, a statement we could say about much of the federal government.