What to do with FEMA?

Since its creation in 1979 FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) has grown in government spending to absurd levels. Each decade more and more government funding goes to FEMA, some for good reason given the floods, hurricanes, etc. each year. However, how helpful is FEMA in managing emergencies when they are called to action? Having been in three different natural disasters where the state called on the federal government to send FEMA -fire, earthquake, and floods- I can attest to the lack of support or organization that FEMA provides to the disaster victims. According to CATO's latest research, FEMA is failing in all areas. CATO noted many examples of failures that occurred after Hurricane Katrina, since that was when the most glaring of the FEMA failures began. FEMA's mis-communication of delivering water, clothes, and ice, finally determining that many trucks drove cross country (instead of driving several hours from their original location) and never delivered the needed items to the correct location. FEMA ended up throwing out these items several years later as they had been poorly stored. FEMA kept other federal agencies from providing aid in time to affected areas or causing significant delays to the victims. The Red Cross was not allowed to go into the New Orleans Superdome to deliver emergency items. FEMA kept volunteers from getting to hospitals and emergency shelters, doctors were kept out as well. CATO mentions that even corporations such as Amtrak and Walmart were not allowed to successfully offer victims its donations due to FEMA red tape. FEMA mis-managed grants from FEMA's NFIP (National Flood Insurance Program) up to $1B in fraudulent claims. Claims were investigated by the GAO, the Associated Press, and New York Times. An analyst from the AP found that “people claiming to live in as many as 162,750 homes that did not exist before the storms may have improperly received as much as $1 billion in tax money.” CATO suggests that FEMA end its support of emergency's altogether, end FEMA's NFIP program by privatizing it, which would reduce their funding by 90%. State's are already starting to prepare their own stockpiles of emergency supplies given their experience, or what they have seen happen when an emergency occurs. Corporations whose headquarters are in some of these states are also stepping up to help in emergency situations, as mentioned in the research. The more prepared states are finding that they don't need FEMA's involvement. Unfortunately, FEMA is still called to support, and the money keeps coming. What I found encouraging was CATO's suggestion of what to do with FEMA after the budget cut: "flood mapping, continuity of operations, the public alert system, training programs, and technological and radiological hazards preparedness. Those activities should be moved to other agencies and FEMA closed down".

What is the Air Force's Space Fence? And why will it cost $2B for an upgrade?

In 1961 the Air Force created a Space Fence that tracks objects in space and is used to protect spaceships and satellites from being struck by "high-speed orbital debris". The Space Fence — also known by its formal name, the Air Force Space Surveillance System — consists of three transmitters and six receivers that stretch across the southern U.S., using radio waves to paint a picture of a slice of space. The items it detected ranged from satellites and debris to meteors. As the article explains, this debris could cripple satellites and cause damage as much as what was reflected in last year's movie Gravity. Since then the only time the space fence was shut down was in September 2013 during the budget cuts. The space fence is 40% of the network's tracking system, and has not come back online since September. A C-band radar was relocated to keep track of the area the space fence covered, but that is only a band-aid. "The U.S. military also uses the data to offer a close approach warning service for owner-operators of the more than 1,000 active satellites in orbit," Brian Weeden of the Secure World Foundation writes. "In 2012, satellite operators conducted 75 maneuvers to avoid potential collisions as a result of those warnings." This year the Air Force budget includes a new and improved space fence for approximately $2B. Why so much? The current space fence could track approximately 23,000 items in space. The new system has expanded its S-Band radar to track 480,000 items in space. The new space fence is expected to be operational in 2017, but due to the delays in award, it may not be operational until 2018.

Taxpayers, please bend over...again! Farm Bill 2014!!

Congress, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to create a 2014 Farm Bill that is much larger ($956B), than the veto'd 2008 Farm Bill worth $640B, over 10 years (or revised every 5 years as proposed). Taxpayers will pay big farmers more subsidies since they suffer so much...increased profit?? Farmers can process insurance claims under this new bill if their crops produce poor yields or declines in revenue. Why are food stamps and farming combined in a bill? It is all political, so that the bill can be passed faster, says Senator Thad Cochran (R–MS). How will food stamp recipients be tested and weaned off of this program? There will be no drug tests or work requirements for food stamp recipients. Don't worry, those requirements were removed from the 2008 Farm Bill. They can also have any amount of money in their bank accounts as long as they meet the minimum annual salary amounts based on the new bypass asset tests. Huh? How are taxpayers going to pay for all of this? Interesting tidbit: "Net farm income is expected to reach “a remarkable $128.2 billion this year – the highest level since 1973,” making the aforementioned farm programs all but insanity. The “farm” bill means more expenses for taxpayers and higher costs for consumers. It means more unnecessary government dependence for wealthy farmers and food stamp recipients."

If U.S. agriculture is doing so well, why subsidize the farmers? Time to eliminate the USDA?

The Cato Institute included the USDA in its "Downsize the Federal Government" series. The USDA was established in 1862 when we needed to have a federal agency help organize our agricultural industry. Nowadays the agriculture industry is as active as most other industries in the US, it is surviving and thriving. Begs the question of why increase government spending to cover the USDA? What are the taxpayers paying for? How about $20B in farm subsidies, $110B in food subsidies, $5M for oversight/administration, and over $1B of loss due to fraud and abuse. Because the USDA is involved in price regulating, they also set the prices on US farmed items, such as sugar, which is two times more expensive in the US than elsewhere. What if we eliminated the USDA? Cato proposes a cost savings of $140B! Not bad.

If you are bored, or curious...new Federal apps for your phone.

It must be because we are all coming back from the holidays that I thought this article was interesting. In any case, there are a few good apps worthy of downloading from the Federal government. If you are interested, the link is here. I have not tried to use any of the apps. Might pace myself and try them out tomorrow!

CIA + $3B = FLOP?

How is it that government agencies make enormous mistakes using money that we give them, and it is ok? This time the CIA admitted that its project titled GDI - Global Deployment Initiative did not live up to expectations. Matter of fact, it didn't do much of anything except waste more government (taxpayer) money. Interesting.

Is it time to PaaS!

The latest article in the Federal Times references a recent government study that confirms the use of maintaining platforms on the cloud would result in significant cost savings. Government agencies are looking to the cloud for software application development, which would reduce IT project development time by 31%. Using platforms as a service is a low risk and effective savings alternate to the current type of support provided. Estimates of the savings are in the billions of dollars ($20B) annually.