Bush’s last use of FEMA

This is hard to believe, but, as reported January 19 by Mark Steyn at NRO, the week before Obam’s inauguration President Bush declared Washington D.C. a federal disaster area:

So what was it? An ice storm? A hurricane?

No, it’s the inauguration of his successor. The inauguration is scheduled to make landfall on Tuesday and wreak havoc all night long, as Category Five conga lines buckle highways round town and emergency busboy crews find themselves overwhelmed as they struggle to clear drained champagne flutes. So the mayor, Adrian M. Fenty, put in a request for more federal money, and, apparently, the easiest way to sluice the cash to him no questions asked was for the president to declare a state of emergency in the District and funnel however many extra gazillions he wants through FEMA—the Federal Emergency Management Agency….

The proposition that a new federal administration is itself a federal emergency is almost too perfect an emblem of American government in the 21st century….

Read what Steyn says about the kinds of “emergencies” for which states and localities now get federal emergency relief funds.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 22, 2009 09:11 AM | Send