Disasters as a way to spend extra-budget money
by
BenK
02/29/2008, 2:09 PM #
Yep. In reality, given how big state governments are, we should probably have 1 real 'disaster' every couple years or so. A couple thousand homes in California doesn't constitute a national disaster. A tornado that tears up a few dozen buildings and kills a few people - also not a disaster on the national level. Perhaps the county level - or even the state, if it hits a major industrial plant or something.
Losing a major city - San Fran, New Orleans - or an entire economic region - gulf coast fishing - or perhaps a major terrorist strike on several major centers and a mass transit grid, like 9/11 - could reasonably constitute an unforeseen disaster.
But there are three forces at work to make disaster declaration much more common than it should be. For one, it is a way for the federal gov't to spend money without it showing up in the budget. Second, the executive branch doesn't want to look heartless. Third, it is a way for the states to dip into federal coffers - once one does it a few times, they all want to join in.
None of these should be valid reasons for saddling the taxpayers with the expense.
It is complicated to fix this problem without making the system too inflexible to respond to real disasters. Part of the problem is elections - if we had a 'make it up next year' rule, parties would sack the budget as they went out the door. If we have a strongbox, people would raid it willy-nilly until a real disaster cleaned it out and extrabudgetary appropriations became the rule again. If it were broken down by state, then real disasters wouldn't go addressed because that state would empty the coffer right quick - and once again, states would just add their emergency allocation to their operating expenses by pleading to get every skinned knee and failing school declared a disaster area.
Perhaps the only way to solve the problem is have special 'disaster taxes' that pay only for disaster relief. Then people would see what was happening and hopefully protest heartily about unnecessary declarations.
