A Stitch in Haste

"Say what you want about New York -- we don't have earthquakes, we don't have hurricanes and we don't have tornadoes!" --My Father

"No, we just pay for them..." --Me

Conceptually, if not economically, FEMA is perhaps the single most insidious government program in America. If you buy a house, then buy insurance -- especially if you choose, voluntarily, to live in an area susceptible to such phenomena. Federal disaster aid only serves to create moral hazard and agency problems and a general misallocation of resources.

But if you're going to engage in such an inefficient and unfair reallocation of resources, then at least do it, um, efficiently and fairly (efficaciously and intelligently?):

Four months after a string of hurricanes ravaged sections of Florida, the Federal Emergency Management Agency remains under attack -- for giving out too much money.
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"There was no significant weather pattern in Miami Dade at the time there was $30 million distributed to the people," said U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla. The eye of Hurricane Frances missed Miami by more than 100 miles. FEMA checks, however, paid for more than 5,000 new televisions, 1,000 microwaves and nearly $8 million worth of storm-related rent.
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FEMA officials originally said they used weather charts from the government's National Weather Service that showed 85-mile-per-hour winds. Government meteorologists say the charts weren't theirs and their information shows winds topped out at 53 miles per hour in Miami Dade.

For perspective, here's a reprisal of a post of mine from August, showing the flip side of this nonsense, called "We're from the Government and We're Here to Help" --

One day after Donald Seither's mobile home was ripped up by Hurricane Charley, the 74-year-old retiree picked up a friend's phone and pleaded for federal aid.
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About a week later, a check from the U.S. Treasury came in the mail. Here, Seither figured, was the hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollars he and his wife would need to help rebuild their lives. Then he opened the envelope and read the fine print. The check's value: $1.69.
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For residents who spent much of the past two weeks living amid rubble without electricity, it can feel less like help and more like a slap in the face.

"I fell to the floor and I started to cry," said Seither, recalling his disappointment when he opened the envelope.
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He said he's not ungrateful but can't believe the federal government would go to the trouble to mail him a check for such a pittance. "It's an insult," he said. "I would rather have gotten nothing."
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[A FEMA spokesman] said it was impossible for him to say why a FEMA official decided to award Seither the exact amount he received. Aid requests are assessed case by case and are based on several factors, including the extent of a victim's insurance coverage and how much damage he or she can document.
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Seither said he's not going to cash his check. He's holding on to it as a novelty item. Someone already has offered him $24 for it, he said. Now he's considering auctioning it on eBay.

So in some instances the money is doled out on a "case by case" basis. In others, it's based on weather maps. And the bureaucrats are going to insist that the politics of pull has nothing to do with it?

Scrap, or at least overhaul, this failed agency now.