“It’s like a Chinese finger trap,” Craig Fugate told The Atlantic magazine. He’s learned, the magazine wrote in its September issue, that “If the feds do more, the public, along with state and local officials, do less. They come to expect ice and water in 24 hours and full reimbursement for sodden carpets. But as part of a federal system, FEMA is designed to defer to state and local officials. If another Katrina hits, and the locals are overwhelmed, a full-strength federal response will inevitably take time.” Time will tell whether Fugate is able to stem the tide of disaster declarations.
Of course, disasters aren’t the only state responsibilities that have been taken over by the federal government. States are enjoying a windfall from the so-called stimulus package Obama rammed through Congress this year. The White House estimates some $144 billion worth of state and local relief will flow out of Washington.
But this will only put a bandage on a gaping wound. States have spent themselves into bankruptcy in recent years. Since 1998, states increased their spending by an average of 6 percent per year. That includes California’s planned $3 billion for stem cell research and New York’s $131 billion 2009 budget -- a 9 percent increase over last year. Did you get a 9 percent raise in 2009? Did anyone?
It should come as no surprise that the states with the biggest budgets turn around and elect the most liberal legislators -- Barbara Boxer and Nancy Pelosi from California, Charles Schumer and Charlie Rangel from New York, to name a few.
Still, the good times are over. “Only an emergency infusion of printed federal funny money is keeping most state boats afloat right now,” Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels warned last month in The Wall Street Journal. His state took drastic steps -- privatizing the Indiana Toll Road and letting go of thousands of state employees -- to make ends meet. Other states will need to follow suit.
“Natural disasters rarely, if ever, involved the federal government from 1787 to 1993,” Mayer notes. They shouldn’t in the future. Bank on it: It will snow in Syracuse this year. And it won’t be a disaster, no matter what Washington says.