FEMA, Who Needs That?
Florida voters have done it again. They voted against their own self-interests by helping to elect Donald Trump, a guy who makes Rick Scott's conflicts of interest and contempt for average Americans look meager by comparison.
Every day there's a reason for buyer's remorse, and Trump just handed them several more.
This time it involves that "big, beautiful wall" that Mexico was going to pay for.
Spoiler alert: Mexico was never going to pay for the wall, but Americans were, and will. "Bigly."
You see, in order to find money to pay for that wall voters cheered for, Trump has found a solution. He's just going to shift some funds around. In order to "make America safe" with that wall, he's going to make America less safe in other areas:
The Trump administration, searching for money to build the president’s planned multibillion-dollar border wall and crack down on illegal immigration, is weighing significant cuts to the Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration and other agencies focused on national security threats, according to a draft plan.
The proposal, drawn up by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), also would slash the budget of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which provides disaster relief after hurricanes, tornadoes and other natural disasters. The Coast Guard’s $9.1 billion budget in 2017 would be cut 14 percent to about $7.8 billion, while the TSA and FEMA budgets would be reduced about 11 percent each to $4.5 billion and $3.6 billion, respectively.
The cuts are proposed even as the planned budget for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees all of them, grows 6.4 percent to $43.8 billion, according to the plan, which was obtained by The Washington Post. Some $2.9 billion of that would go to building the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, with $1.9 billion funding “immigration detention beds” and other Immigration and Customs Enforcement expenses and $285 million set aside to hire 500 more Border Patrol agents and 1,000 more ICE agents and support staffers.
It's a good thing that Florida never gets hit with hurricanes, never needs rescues at sea, isn't prone to drug smuggling, nor has any ports or airports to protect from terrorists, all missions the Coast Guard performs, am I right?
Florida Trump voters did a real number on themselves (not to mention the rest of us) and went with the guy who wants to protect us from imaginary threats by defunding the agencies that protect us from actual threats.
So the next time we're hit with a hurricane and FEMA doesn't show up, those same Florida voters in need of help can take comfort that they got a big, beautiful wall instead.
As Trump always says: Enjoy!
