Where's Your Anti-Federalism Fervor Now?

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) – Texas Governor Rick Perry criticized the Obama administration on Thursday for not responding to a request for a disaster aid for the parched state, where wildfires have scorched nearly 2 million acres

This was the guy who was talking about the possibility of secession a while back when the democrats in D.C. were doing something he didn't like:

An animated Perry told the crowd at Austin City Hall -- one of three tea parties he was attending across the state -- that officials in Washington have abandoned the country's founding principles of limited government. He said the federal government is strangling Americans with taxation, spending and debt. ...Later, answering news reporters' questions, Perry suggested Texans might at some point get so fed up they would want to secede from the union, though he said he sees no reason why Texas should do that.

There's a big disaster, and suddenly all these "Don't tread on me" folks are demanding federal handouts. What happened to the idea that the Federal government is not the solution to local problems?

There's a big disaster, and suddenly all these "Don't tread on me" folks are demanding federal handouts. What happened to the idea that the Federal government is not the solution to local problems?

You've got it wrong. It should read:

"... the Federal government is not the solution to your problems."

My question is, in all honesty, how much money/resources did/does Texas have to bail themselves out of just such a natural disaster? I wonder if this is an issue of Texas government not planning for disaster relief and expecting said relief to come from Federal agencies, or if Texas has simply exhausted all their own resources and turned to Obama's deaf ear.

If the issue is the former, I might take issue with Perry's comments. If it is the latter, though, and Obama's administration has done nothing to help, I would feel like Obama's messed up, in that he should be helping the American people regardless of asshats talking of recession.

Everybody is a Fiscal Conservative Republican until they need something.

WipEout wrote:

If it is the latter, though, and Obama's administration has done nothing to help, I would feel like Obama's messed up, in that he should be helping the American people regardless of asshats talking of recession.

True, since not everyone in Texas voted for Perry or national republicans and so don't share their political outlook. But if you have leadership both trying to alter Federal policy, then demanding that the feds follow policies that the leadership rejects, where is the demonstration to Texas voters of the effects of those policies?

Funkenpants wrote:
WipEout wrote:

If it is the latter, though, and Obama's administration has done nothing to help, I would feel like Obama's messed up, in that he should be helping the American people regardless of asshats talking of recession.

True, since not everyone in Texas voted for Perry or national republicans and so don't share their political outlook. But if you have leadership both trying to alter Federal policy, then demanding that the feds follow policies that the leadership rejects, where is the demonstration to Texas voters of the effects of those policies?

No, you're right-- either way Perry is being hypocritical, since in either scenario his leadership had not planned accordingly to deal with such issues. In one case he tried to actively remove the need for federal aid in such a situation and simply failed, thus proving the necessity for federal government in such cases at least; or he's just a straight out hypocrite and is actually too weak to walk the walk. In so many words.

It's also possible that he's just talking out of his ass. This is the same guy who went on and on about how Texas didn't want, didn't need, and wouldn't take federal stimulus funds while at the same time taking and using a whole lot of federal stimulus funds.

Also - wasn't part of the recent budget deal a big cut in FEMA? Where are these emergency funds and aid workers supposed to come from?

That's kind of what I was thinking when I posited that such a failure in that kind of policy is in fact proof that federal aid like FEMA is necessary, and conservatives who are against funding such aid are flat out wrong.

billt721 wrote:

It's also possible that he's just talking out of his ass. This is the same guy who went on and on about how Texas didn't want, didn't need, and wouldn't take federal stimulus funds while at the same time taking and using a whole lot of federal stimulus funds.

Also - wasn't part of the recent budget deal a big cut in FEMA? Where are these emergency funds and aid workers supposed to come from?

That seemed to have been a murky cut. From the analysis by our fellow goodjer, there was a cut for "first responders" listed, but the overall funding for FEMA was increased. Whether that means they just made that money available with fewer limitations on what it could be spent on, or something else alltogether, didn't seem to be very clear to me.

billt721 wrote:

It's also possible that he's just talking out of his ass.

Oh, definitely. But I'm more interested in seeing Texas voters understand that when you vote to limit government and rely on the private sector, there's a reality involved with that they might not like.

Personally, as someone who lives in a blue state with very few natural disasters, I suppose I should be in favor of states taking over their own disaster relief and infrastructure funding. The Northeast has spent decades helping to fund the improvements that have been made to southern infrastructure, even as we've lost jobs to those same states because of that development. Texas is kind of a special case because they are, I think, a net contributor to the federal coffers, but I'd still like Texas voters to understand that this states right stuff should have consequences attached to it.

absurddoctor wrote:
billt721 wrote:

It's also possible that he's just talking out of his ass. This is the same guy who went on and on about how Texas didn't want, didn't need, and wouldn't take federal stimulus funds while at the same time taking and using a whole lot of federal stimulus funds.

Also - wasn't part of the recent budget deal a big cut in FEMA? Where are these emergency funds and aid workers supposed to come from?

That seemed to have been a murky cut. From the analysis by our fellow goodjer, there was a cut for "first responders" listed, but the overall funding for FEMA was increased. Whether that means they just made that money available with fewer limitations on what it could be spent on, or something else alltogether, didn't seem to be very clear to me.

I believe the overall funding for DHS was increased, but FEMA's budget got the axe. $786 million in cuts to First Responder Grants, $38 million in cuts for Flood Map Modernization, $50 million less for National Predisaster Mitigation, and $80 million less for Emergency Food and Shelter. Oh, that and their Disaster Relief Fund would only get $1.8 billion in funding even though we spent $3 billion last year.

FEMA's initial 2012 budget request had about a $175 million boost in funding, but by February their budget had been cut 4.6% from the previous year. I don't know what the final budget agreement did to their budget, but they were already down.

That was me that did the break down, from this source.

That source listed a $716 million cut to first response, but a $1.05 billion dollar increase for "expected and existing 2011 disasters" but it didn't specify what organization that meant.

It looks like OG has more recent data, and data that is more focused on disaster response in general.

From his source:

The FEMA Disaster Relief Fund would receive $1.8 billion under the request, which some in Congress called too low. The fund required $3 billion so far in fiscal 2011, the Democratic staff of the House Homeland Security Committee noted.

Could that increased 1.05 billion that they budgeted for "expected and existing 2011 disasters" actually just be the amount needed to get them up to the $3 billion they already spent on existing disasters, without actually accounting for any more expected disasters?

Elsewhere in that document the budget increases were always with respect to the 2010 budget, but their were other discrepancies in the formatting of their data, I wonder if that line was actually an increase over their expected 2011 budget rather than the 2010 budget.

I thought Texans would rather drink water from a horse's dirty hoofprint than ask for gov't help. Or was I just thinking of True Grit?

Texas should just cut more government programs to help pay for rebuilding.

Dirt wrote:

Texas should just cut more government programs to help pay for rebuilding.

Like the governor's salary.

Maybe Ron Paul would like to stand up and tell them to go f*ck themselves, it's not the government's problem?

I think he probably would. Whether or not you agree with the guy, he's very consistent. He returns something like 40 or 45% of his office budget every year. I'd be very surprised if he decried FEMA funding and then voluntarily accepted FEMA help afterward.

I don't know that he's actually done that; I don't remember him ever registering an opinion on FEMA. I don't follow the guy very much, so he easily could have without me noticing, but I don't think it's a particular pet issue for him or anything.

It strikes me personally that disaster relief is an excellent function for central governments, one of the things they'd be better at than almost anyone else. Not much room for abuse, not that large a total expense, and not a function that's shown much sign of being served by market forces.

Funkenpants wrote:

There's a big disaster, and suddenly all these "Don't tread on me" folks are demanding federal handouts. What happened to the idea that the Federal government is not the solution to local problems?

That's really not a fair way to look at this. It's like saying after I'd paid thousands and thousands of Social Security taxes for decades that I should stand up for my principles and refuse to take my benefits at retirement.

The counter to your statement would be that if I wasn't sending all that money up to the Federal coffers all along, I could have been handling disaster preparedness and relief planning with that money within my state. Then when this happened, I'd be able to handle it at least the vast majority of it internally.

So it's not as cut and dried to me if TX asks for funds now. To me it's not hypocritical.

I do think there are things that should be at a national central level and some things that have gone to that level that are probably better handled locally. Honestly not sure how I feel on things like FEMA. I think for me, it's probably somewhere in the middle. More of the smaller disasters should be able to be handled closer to the problems, but huge incidents might need more help that would be more readily handled federally because the local governments would never have the capacity to support the resources all the time.

MannishBoy wrote:

The counter to your statement would be that if I wasn't sending all that money up to the Federal coffers all along, I could have been handling disaster preparedness and relief planning with that money within my state. Then when this happened, I'd be able to handle it at least the vast majority of it internally.

Texas is certainly large enough to have its own emergency management system. The place is as big as a small country, after all. But that would require maintaining taxation consistent with maintaining everything they'd need in a disaster. For all the talk about Federalism, nobody on the right seems to want it when it involves higher taxes. And that's really what makes Perry such a hypocrite. Federalism carries with it both benefits and costs. But what he wants is all the benefits of political independence, while asking the federal system to pick up the big expenses involved with a high level of state independence.

Disaster relief, defense, border control, social welfare services- etc.- are costs that are spread across 50 states. There is a huge amount of efficiency involved in providing them at the scale allowed by federal system.

The place is as big as a small country, after all.

Belgium fits 22,80663653039832 times in Texas. :-O

Funkenpants wrote:

Texas is certainly large enough to have its own emergency management system. The place is as big as a small country, after all. But that would require maintaining taxation consistent with maintaining everything they'd need in a disaster. For all the talk about Federalism, nobody on the right seems to want it when it involves higher taxes. And that's really what makes Perry such a hypocrite. Federalism carries with it both benefits and costs. But what he wants is all the benefits of political independence, while asking the federal system to pick up the big expenses involved with a high level of state independence.

Again, if you reduced what was done at the federal level, the federal taxes would drop, allowing for state taxes to increase. I still see no hypocricy. You're assuming no changes on taxation, which would not necessarily follow more power and responsibility moving back to the states. A big part of the state's rights argument is that too much power AND money is controlled by the federal government.

Disaster relief, defense, border control, social welfare services- etc.- are costs that are spread across 50 states. There is a huge amount of efficiency involved in providing them at the scale allowed by federal system.

I'll generally agree with you on the first three. Not sure all social welfare is best handled federally.

And I'm not sure the federal government is that efficient at much of ANYTHING Same could be said of state governments, but I think the bigger the organization gets, the less nimble and adaptive it becomes. Same in the business world.

But in reality, you have to assume some inefficiencies in these large tasks. It's more of a question of where that inefficiency is minimized.

MannishBoy wrote:

Again, if you reduced what was done at the federal level, the federal taxes would drop, allowing for state taxes to increase. I still see no hypocricy.

Yes, Federal taxes would fall. So state taxes would need to increase, but that would change the political situation in the state as voters move to replace lost federal services with new state services. They'd move from a system in which the governor can argue against government spending while also benefiting from government spending, to one in which he either raises taxes or fails to provide popular services. It's a much tougher political trail to follow.

Funkenpants wrote:

Yes, Federal taxes would fall. So state taxes would need to increase, but that would change the political situation in the state as voters move to replace lost federal services with new state services. They'd move from a system in which the governor can argue against government spending while also benefiting from government spending, to one in which he either raises taxes or fails to provide popular services. It's a much tougher political trail to follow.

It happened in reverse. Things weren't always so centralized at the federal level. So again, to me it's not a logical failure.

A lot of time and honest (heh) political dialog required? Sure.

I guess my problem was the tone of the original post. Rubbing the nose of the governor of a disaster affected state in past statements he made that do not apply in this case because it assumes that nothing would have been different at a state level before this disaster. I can't see why TX wouldn't take the federal money they've been paying in for years. If they'd not have sent that money to Washington all along, then it would make more sense to tell him to pound sand.

dejanzie wrote:
The place is as big as a small country, after all.

Belgium fits 22,80663653039832 times in Texas. :-O

The European use of a comma where I would typically put a decimal really threw me off for a second.

Seth wrote:
dejanzie wrote:
The place is as big as a small country, after all.

Belgium fits 22,80663653039832 times in Texas. :-O

The European use of a comma where I would typically put a decimal really threw me off for a second. :)

Me too. "Wow, Belgium is really tiny! Wait a second..."

For reference according to here in 2005 Texas only received 94 cents of federal funding for every dollar of federal taxes, so while it's a slim margin Texas is a net beneficiary to the Federal Government. (I checked because if they weren't a beneficiary then the idea that a smaller federal government would give them more money to solve their own problems is greatly weakened.)

Alrighty, my interest has been piqued on the Federal Disaster Budget thing so I’ve been doing some looking. One very useful resource I’ve found is the DHS Budget & Performance page Every year from 2004 (up to 2012) has a “Budget in Brief” which is their requested budget that they hope to get from Congress that year. (And since most of the time they say things like “we request $1.9 billion, an increase of $300 million from last year” you get last year’s actual values as well. The more detailed breakdowns for each section also have more information on past funding.

Unfortunately these budgets don’t consistently show the first responder funds, they must be a subset of something else, here’s the values that they do have that I’ll be looking at:
*Pre-Disaster Mitigation (PDM): These funds are made available as grants to the individual states so that they can most efficiently use the funds to prepare for the disasters that commonly affect them.
*State and Local Programs: This one is a bit of a catch-all that is divvied up a little differently every year depending on priorities. I think that the majority of the first responder funds will also be in here every year. It’s basically all of the grants and support given on the state level for programs after a disaster has already happened, unlike the preparation monies in PDM.
*Disaster Relief Fund (DRF): This fund is responsible for most of the “total federal response” in nationally declared disasters and emergencies. The 2010 BIB includes the sentence “This increase will provide relief for non-catastrophic disaster activity”, which implies to me that the “catastrophic” stuff is a bit of a blank check policy, but who knows. This language is missing from the 2011 and 2012 versions, however it would mesh with how it seems like we used $3 billion in DRF this year when less than $2 billion was originally budgeted. If this is truly the case then lower amounts of DRF monies may not be a huge deal if “catastrophic” disasters will open the purse strings further.

Here is a breakdown of the requested and given funds in these three sections for the past few years.
Funds: (requested at start of year / Given at start of year / Given separately as year progressed in response to specific needs, all numbers in millions)

2008:
PDM: 100 / 114 /
State and Local: 1,896 / 3,068 / 150
DRF: 1,700 / 1,324 / 11,700

2009:
PDM: 75 / 90 /
State and Local: 1,900 / 3,131 / 130
DRF: 1,900 / 1,288 /

2010:
PDM: 150 / 100 /
State and Local: 3,867 / 3,015 /
DRF: 2,000 / 1,600 / 5,100

2011:
PDM: 100 / 100 / ?
State and Local: 4,001 / 3,015 / ?
DRF: 1,950 / 1,478 / ? (though at least 1,050 thusfar)

2012:
PDM: 85 / ? / ?
State and Local: 3,845 / ? / ?
DRF: 1,800 / ? / ?

What I thought was interesting was the simply enormous funds that are often allocated towards disaster relief later on in the year. In light of that I don't know if I have a problem with cutting the start of year funds a bit. It's also a demonstration of the sorts of shenanigans that the Congress does to "balance the budget" underfund a program significantly for political points for thrift, knowing full well that 6 months later you'll have to pump the remainder of the money into the program under less scrutiny (or in response to a disaster, once again get political points).

Yonder wrote:

What I thought was interesting was the simply enormous funds that are often allocated towards disaster relief later on in the year. In light of that I don't know if I have a problem with cutting the start of year funds a bit. It's also a demonstration of the sorts of shenanigans that the Congress does to "balance the budget" underfund a program significantly for political points for thrift, knowing full well that 6 months later you'll have to pump the remainder of the money into the program under less scrutiny (or in response to a disaster, once again get political points).

Classic budgeting tactic. If you don't spend your allocation by the end of the year, you're likely to have cuts in subsequent years because you probably got more than you need. So go buy a bunch of crap you don't really need before the end of the fiscal year to use up your remaining budgeted funds.

I am not sure how much of an impact this might make but one thing that we might need to consider is the benefits of having disaster relief at the federal level is that you are much more likely to have your relief outside of the site of the disaster.

Yonder wrote:
Seth wrote:
dejanzie wrote:
The place is as big as a small country, after all.

Belgium fits 22,80663653039832 times in Texas. :-O

The European use of a comma where I would typically put a decimal really threw me off for a second. :)

Me too. "Wow, Belgium is really tiny! Wait a second..."

We could always cut Alaska into two pieces and make Texas the 3rd largest state.

NathanialG wrote:

I am not sure how much of an impact this might make but one thing that we might need to consider is the benefits of having disaster relief at the federal level is that you are much more likely to have your relief outside of the site of the disaster.

That's certainly a benefit, but the only one that really matters has already been mentioned - economies of scale. By spreading the tax burden across the entire US, you minimize the amount that people pay, especially in states that are likely to be hit by a disaster and have small populations. Taxes on Hawaii residents (ranked 40th by population), for example, would have to increase a ton to cover emergency response funds and they're fairly likely to use those funds every year. And this is a state that already has a sales tax and an income tax.