Hurricane Helene Exposes Breakdown of U.S. Physical Economy
On Sept. 27, a devastating storm, Hurricane Helene, hit the Florida Gulf Coast as a Category 4 hurricane, and quickly moved north, dropping near-record amounts of rainfall. An emergency was declared in five states, with more than 3 million homes losing power.
As the situation on the ground deteriorated, and aid was slow in arriving, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas reported Oct. 3 that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was running short of funds. “FEMA does not have enough funds,” he said, “to make it through the season.” This announcement was made as a new powerful storm, Hurricane Milton, was headed toward Tampa, Florida.
That this announcement coincided with an appropriation of $20 billion more in emergency funding to FEMA provoked a nasty partisan blame game — not unexpected as the presidential election is now 30 days away. Republicans accused the Biden-Harris administration of prioritizing spending on wars and aiding immigrants rather than helping Americans, while Democrats accused Republicans of blocking funds for needed infrastructure. Congress will not be in session to allocate the funds agreed upon.
Both sides’ claims have merit, but are missing the real point: The U.S. economy is operating below breakeven, and lacks the physical capability to address emergencies. Instead of upgrading infrastructure as a priority, delusional monetarist economic axioms favor schemes such as Public-Private Partnerships over investment by government in infrastructure, giving wealthy constituents opportunities for private profit in a return to a feudalist mentality; or “Pay-as-you-Go” plan, where expenditures must be recovered by user fees. Add to this the lunacy of Green regulations — a major cause of the decline of the industrial base needed to upgrade the economy — and one can expect more disasters to come.
Compare the response to Helene under the dysfunctional management of both parties with the efforts made by President Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) during flash flood events in 1937-38. After a week of little progress, the Biden administration deployed 6,700 emergency workers to supplement small National Guard units mobilized by the states. In contrast, Harry Hopkins, appointed flood relief commissioner by FDR, deployed 200,000 Work Progress Administration workers to aid in recovery in the January 1937 flooding in the Ohio River Valley; and 100,000 WPA workers in September 1938 to place sand-bags to stem flooding, do dam repairs, and aid in evacuations in New England flooding, within 18 hours.
For FDR, such emergency aid, along with major infrastructure expenditures, was viewed as an essential part of recovery from the Depression. Today’s officials refuse to acknowledge that inadequate relief funding and lack of skilled personnel, along with the collapse of aging infrastructure, are symptoms of the breakdown of the U.S. physical economy. For a more thorough report on the approach taken by FDR, see here.
