Disaster Relief and Foreign Aid

The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season (June 1 through November 30) has so far resulted in 15 tropical storms, 10 of which became hurricanes (winds exceeding 73 mph), and four of which were classified as major hurricanes (category 3, 4, or 5 — with winds over 110 mph). Many residents of North Carolina, Florida, and other southern states are still recovering from the devasting effects of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.

Many Americans, especially Republicans and conservatives, have been harshly critical of the response of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to these two recent natural disasters.

From 1979 to 2003, FEMA was an independent agency of the federal government, but prior to that, federal disaster relief was appropriated by Congress on an ad hoc basis or dispensed by other government departments or agencies. Since 2003, FEMA has been under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which was created by the Homeland Security Appropriations Act passed by a Republican-controlled Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush.

Although FEMA is headquartered in Washington, D.C., it has 10 regional offices located across the country. It employs more than 20,000 people, but its workforce “can swell to over 50,000 active members during major disasters.” FEMA’s mission is “helping people before, during and after disasters, and our core values and goals help us achieve it.” FEMA also manages the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).

This will probably sound shocking to most Americans — and members of Congress as well — but there is no constitutional authority for the federal government to have an agency dedicated to disaster relief, provide flood insurance, or appropriate money for disaster relief. In fact, President Grover Cleveland once vetoed a bill passed by Congress to provide financial assistance to farmers suffering from a drought. In his veto message, he said he opposed the bill to aid farmers because he could “find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution.”

If it is unconstitutional for the U.S. government to provide aid to Americans, then it stands to reason that it is even more unconstitutional for the U.S. government to provide aid to foreigners, NGOs, or foreign governments, which is what makes foreign aid so terrible.

FEMA recently announced that “federal assistance for Hurricane Helene victims had surpassed $344 million, split across Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee and Virginia.” The funds, “split across six states and 375,000 households, have been used to immediately provide food, power and shelter for the survivors.”

And yet, although that sounds like a lot of money, it is a pittance compared to what the United States has sent overseas to Ukraine this year:

On October 2, USAID Administrator Samantha Power announced that the U.S. would be providing $237 million in humanitarian funding to “support the most vulnerable conflict-affected populations in Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees in the region.”

The announcement brings the total humanitarian assistance to Ukraine since February 2022 to around $3.8 billion.

In April, President Joe Biden signed a $95 billion aid package that included $481 million in supplemental funding for the Office of Refugee Resettlement. According to the bill, the agency is intended to use these funds to provide resettlement assistance to Ukrainians who arrived in the United States after September 30, 2023, and through the rest of the fiscal year, as well as refugees from other regions.

And then there is the aid to Gaza:

On September 30, USAID announced a new package of humanitarian assistance worth nearly $336 million to “support Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.”

This followed Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s June announcement of $404 million in humanitarian assistance during a conference in Jordan, bringing the total to just over $1 billion since October 2023.

And also the aid to Lebanon. The Biden administration announced on October 4 that it was giving “$157 million in humanitarian assistance to Lebanon, which is caught in the crossfire of Israel–Hezbollah fighting.” That “brings the total humanitarian assistance provided to support vulnerable populations in Lebanon and Syria to nearly $386 million as of fiscal year 2024.”

Millions and billions for Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, and Ukraine, but where is the money for Americans? This is what many Republicans and conservatives have been saying. Many others have pointed out that the Shelter and Services Program (SSP), which is administered by FEMA, spent over $1billion to provide food, shelter, and supportive services to “non-federal entities that provide humanitarian services to noncitizen migrants following their release from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).” They argue that this money should go to Americans for disaster relief.

Republicans and conservatives do make a valid point. Money taken from U.S. taxpayers should be spent “to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States” (Constitution, art. I, sec. 8, cl. 1). But disaster relief or no disaster relief, not a penny of U.S. taxpayer dollars should be spent on foreign aid.

Foreign aid is nothing less than the looting of American taxpayers. It has nothing to do with providing for the common defense and general welfare of the United States. It is not authorized by the Constitution and therefore is not a legitimate purpose of the U.S. government. It also has nothing to do with protecting the lives, liberties, and property of the American people.

Why don’t the American people have a say in whether the U.S. government should send their hard-earned money to 170 different countries? Foreign-aid spending is not something that Americans want to spend their money on. How do I know this? How many doors would a government official have to knock on before he found one American willing to write a check to the U.S. Treasury for foreign aid? I think the answer is obvious. All foreign aid, like all domestic charity, should be individual, private, and voluntary.

Another terrible thing about foreign aid is that many of the same conservative Republicans in Congress who are criticizing the Biden administration and FEMA always vote for foreign aid. Every penny given away to foreign countries had to first be appropriated by Congress, and many conservative Republicans had a part in that as much as anyone else.

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