Foreign Aid Cutting Into American Disaster Relief
- Author: Mary Singleton
- Posted: 2024-10-04
Did you know that America has the best disaster relief program in the entire world? Well, it's more like America is the best at disaster relief for the entire world. When it comes to America actually providing disaster relief to American areas, it's really hit or miss and seemingly depends entirely on which way the political winds are blowing. The inadequacies of America's domestic disaster relief are really highlighted with recent news that Eastern Massachusetts will be receiving some federal aid from MAMA, courtesy of President Joe Biden.
Sounds great, right? On its face, sure, but then you realize that the disaster in Eastern Mass happened back in January, when the area was hit with a huge snow storm. Now, four months later, the federal government is just now getting around to doing something about it. To make it even more laughable, the federal government is only offering $13 million for the relief. Granted, while the snow damage is absolutely nothing compared to the wide-scale terror being inflicted on Ukraine right now from Russia, the American government has still giving a foreign nation hundreds of billions of dollars, and they've done so very quickly. For disaster at home, the federal government takes their sweet time to get to them.
The Endless Foreign Faucet
This has been a major issue for a lot of Americans of all political stripes; the fact that America hands out money like candy to foreign nations, while ignoring their own domestic issues, is something so glaringly obvious that not even CNN can put a positive spin on it. They just refuse to talk about it. Israel needing Iron Dome funding; Middle Eastern nations needing funding; Africa needing food; India needing medicine, and on it goes. America has no issue whatsoever in funding other nations' relief efforts. Though when it comes to your tax money being used to fix a disaster where you live, they may address the problem in a few months, if you're lucky.
It Matters Who's President
You might not think politics play a large role in disaster relief funds, or disaster relief efforts in general, but the way the government's response is treated by Americans is almost entirely predicated on how the mainstream media treat the political power during times of crisis. For instance, when Hurricane Katrina caused the levees to fail in New Orleans, it took FEMA multiple days to get water to people, much less to offer any other kind of relief. As you might remember, President George W. Bush was pilloried around the entire nation for his careless, possibly even racist attitudes toward the people of New Orleans and surrounding areas. Though fast forward a few years to another disaster you may have never heard of: The Tennessee floods of 2010. Over 20 people died, hundreds lost their homes, and the response time for federal aid was days longer than Katrina. But no one was told by the media to care, so few knew the disaster even happened.
The point is that it certainly matters who's in political power when these things happen. In California, potential governors running against Gavin Newsom took the angle that parts of the state qualified as disaster areas and needed government intervention. Under the power of Newsom, Nancy Pelosi, and other Democratic politicians, no such declaration has been made, and in fact they continue to offer free drugs and paraphernalia instead of cracking down.
In order for any disaster relief to be given, politicians first have to declare that something is a disaster. Almost every time this has happened, the public outcry and response is what dictates how much federal disaster aid is given to any area. This is why you see billions upon billions of dollars flowing to Ukraine for their overseas disaster relief, but only peanuts after the fact offered to American towns, cities and states for their disaster relief.
Everything is backwards in America in terms of disaster relief, unfortunately, and these problems only get worse the more polarized the citizens become politically. As of right now, there are dozens of areas affected by natural disasters that are not being assisted by federal aid, even though a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill passed just a few months ago. You would think that if anything could get American politicians to stop with partisan policies, it would be a disaster. Though this is not the case. America's disaster areas remain woefully underfunded, while the rest of the world receives dump-trucks of US Dollars every time they need help.
