The U.S. Southeast has recently been battered with two major storms: Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.
The devastation from these storms has been truly immense, costing millions of dollars in damage and resulting in losses of homes, assets and, unfortunately, lives. However, this is not the only impact of these disasters.
Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump implied money was stolen from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) hurricane disaster fund, spreading misinformation about the Biden administration’s handling of the situation. He used rhetoric to scare people into believing their initial disbursement of $750 was all they were going to receive. The story gets worse.
The U.S. House of Representatives is in a six-week recess from Sept. 30 to Nov. 11. Speaker Mike Johnson has been asked by President Biden to recall Congress and make emergency funding appropriations for FEMA, yet Johnson declined to do so before election day. In an NBC News article, Johnson said, “We’ll be back in session immediately after the election.”
“That’s 30 days from now. The thing about these hurricanes and disasters of this magnitude is it takes a while to calculate the actual damages, and the states are going to need some time to do that,” added Johnson in the article.
What is so infuriating about these people is their callous indifference to the consequences of their choices. If Trump could simply stop running his mouth and speaking every thought in his head, the world would be a significantly better place. Spreading misinformation and causing confusion in such a distressing time, when people are losing their houses and loved ones is inhumane. Johnson, however, does not hold the same influence as Trump. He more importantly has the power to make things move.
Johnson not having the spine to recall Congress for emergency FEMA funding to aid these disaster-stricken areas is beyond pathetic. Had any one of these hurricanes hit Louisiana, his home state of which he represents, he would have had Congress in the chambers so fast you would think someone lit a fire under him.
Why does it seem the American citizenry gets the short end of the stick when it comes to any meaningful help in resolving our issues? We are living in the richest nation in the history of the world and we still have hungry children, people dying of a lack of health coverage and an unaffordable middle-class standard of living. Now we have millions of people without homes, no stable access to food, no electricity and nowhere left to take refuge, except for a hotel hundreds of miles from home.
How does that square with the America we have been sold? We have been told our whole lives this American mythology that we are a strong and resilient nation, yet how can we as a people act in such a manner when the federal government leaves a part of the population behind in their time of need? We are merely the battered wife who pulls herself up after every altercation and it is unfortunate; the American people should be Congress’ primary focus.
Geopolitics and trying to stick it to whichever party is in power seems to be the only thing Congress even bothers participating in these days and it is disgraceful. This is not something the affected Americans are going to forget, the moment when their government is needed the most and the answer they get is, “It’s complicated.” Unfortunately, the quickest way to get Congress to move on aid might be to say the hurricanes were foreign proxies.
Timothy Fitzpatrick can be contacted at
tfitzpatrick@kscequinox.com
