Comment by Brybry
5 months ago
You can ctrl+f 'shelter' in the bill. It was not really FEMA's money, it was U.S. Customs and Border Protection money that was transferred to FEMA to disburse (probably for efficiency because FEMA already did similar work).
"I-don't-want-to-fund-sex-changes" is an emotional and possibly moral argument, it's made to get people angry at how their money is being spent.
Not wanting to spend money on foreigners at all is a completely different argument, that's generally not made probably because you get similar emotional arguments of feeding starving children. Or you get non-emotional arguments like projecting soft power and fighting disease epidemics before they reach us.
We're a nation of laws. The USAID and FEMA money is set in law by Congress. I disagree with how a lot of money is spent too. But that's why we vote and communicate to our representatives and have them change the law.
Bill Clinton's administration reduced the deficit and had a surplus. It reduced the federal workforce. It decreased spending and increased revenue. But it was done legally by working with both parties and unions and passing bills in Congress.
Money is fungible. All the hand waving about “it was really X agencies money” falls pretty flat when Americans go without.
Yes Congress sets spending, but the executive is responsible for executing on the law. Biden should have gone back to Congress (if needed) and said “no, this money is for Americans”. But he didn’t even try.
Which is why nobody should be surprised so many voters support what Musk and Trump are doing - they are doing what many voters think is the right thing to do.
Americans are just tired of politicians excuses.
If Trump is our fiscal savior then why did he let Congress create that spending under his administration?
There's a FEMA program, created in 1987 for Americans, call the Emergency Food and Shelter Program.
In 2019, during the first Trump administration, Congress passed additional funding for EFSP-H (Humanitarian) to expand the program to migrant families.[1]
Then in 2022, under the Biden administration, Congress decided to move that into a new separate CBP/FEMA program which is the Shelter and Services Program.[2]
I would be all for an administration that forces Congress to create a budget that decreases spending and increases revenue (or at least maintains revenue) in order to decrease the deficit (or at least decrease the rate of deficit growth).
So far there's no evidence this administration is doing that. But we don't have a fleshed out budget bill to look at yet either.
Americans might be tired of politicians' excuses but it's my opinion, from the (lack of) evidence so far, that we're being misled: the rich will get richer, government services will be worse, our democratic rules will be weaker, and the national debt will still increase. Hopefully my opinion is wrong.
[1] https://www.fema.gov/grants/emergency-food-and-shelter-progr...
[2] https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47681