This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
While I don't agree with SS's strident anti-Jewish take, he is directionally correct.
Hiding being bureaucratic procedures is the last refuge of the scoundrel. If this was viewed as actually important by the administration, the money would be found.
Judge a system by what it does.
I'll accept your concession that the administration views this as actually important.
The claim that FEMA is out of money derives from the remarks of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas had in a press conference on Wednesday, 2 October. Specifically-
Money is being found. Money was always being found. There was never a point where the money was not being found. Ergo, the issue was, is and always has been viewed as Actually Important by the Administraiton.
So where is the money shortage narrative deriving from?
This is not a claim that FEMA does not have money. This is a claim that FEMA does not have sufficient funding on-hand for the hurricane season, with another hurricane in sight, when you factor in the recovery efforts of the one that just hit.
Which is completely normal, as FEMA isn't funded on the front-end to cover the full cost of future disasters. The normal model for FEMA funding by Congress is enough money to handle immediate response- the point that Mayorkas is explicitly saying they have funding for- and to then re-top it off before adding in what is needed for tail-end costs.
Can Congress add in more if there's a need?
This funding for response deriving from-
So to recap-
-The head of the head of FEMA says there is money for the immediate crisis
-The Democratic administration is saying there is money on hand for the immediate response
-The Republican House Speaker agrees there is no issue on response funding for the immediate response
-Congress appropriated $20 billion as FEMA needs but to last the entire year as part of a short-term spending bill
And in future prospects
-The head of the head of FEMA says there is another hurricane on the way and they may need more money by the end of the hurricane season
-The Democratic administration is signaling that they may ask for additional FEMA funding later this fall
-The Republican House Speaker is non-committal on stopping election campaign fundraising to support an earlier refill
-Congress critters of both parties are considering coming back in October to pass more funding
And in this context, the $300 million grant, allocated in an entirely different funding context and thus not in contest with the $20 billion fund top up last month, is raised as directionally correct of there being a lack of funds to provide immediate help.
Now, while I am sure that some people find 300,000,000 a really impressive number, and all the more if written out, this itself is against a 20,000,000,000 pot of money that is the pre-Hurricane amount for a roughly 3-month period. Do some basic division structure, and you reach a staggering..
300,000,000/20,000,000,000 = 3/200 = 0.015 = 1.5%
1.5% of the short-term budget, allocated an entire fiscal year before, is truly all the difference in the handling of the current crisis.
Meanwhile, if we bother to look at FEMA's Monthly Disaster Relief Fund report which it provides to Congress monthly... let's take July 24 since that's before the current funding questions and would have helped feed the Congressional top-off decision...
Annex B identifies FY costs by event, by month, and with a cumulative by the year. On page 9 of document (12 of PDF), you will see that Hurricane Sandy- all the way back in 2012- has a current FY24 obligation of... 334 million dollars.
To reiterate- the entire number raised as Jewish swindling creating a current response shortage is insufficient to cover the ongoing DRF obligations of a single hurricane from a decade ago.
And sure, Hurricane Sandy is larger than some of these old ones... but it's nowhere near the top of the list either.
Hurricane Maria, from 2017, has a fullyear-obligation of 11,450... million. Which is to say, 11.45 billion.
COVID-19 is charging the DRF 20.45 billion in FY24. A single line item for a year is more than the entire budget for a quarter of a year.
Of course, those are full-year totals, and we're talking a 3-month coverage of 20 billion.
If we take the 3-month totals of July and then the estimated August/September obligations as a frame of reference, we'd see that for JUL-SEP FY24, FEMA thought it would need... a bit over 15 billion for 3 months.
And Congress allocated 20 billion for 3 months, before a historic hurricane hit a region ill-prepared for it.
So to bring this around-
In September 2024, Congress passed a $20 billion disaster relief fund budget for 3 months.
It did so with a reasonable expectation that about $15 billion would have been needed for all already existing expenses.
This would leave about 5 billion for all new disasters.
In the end of September 2024, a new disaster hit.
It is a historic hurricane in an area much less adapted to dealing with them or mitigating loss. Damage costs are likely to be very high.
On 2 October, the Administration warned that another hurricane could also hit.
1-2 hurricanes are warned to possibly go through enough of the $5 billion buffer to warrant additional appropriations for the unforeseen costs.
No one at any level of government alleges there is actually a lack of funding for the immediate response of Sep-Oct.
Directionally correct response:
The government doesn't care about spending money on people in America.
We know this because of $20 billion allocated for a 3 month period to help victims of natural disasters in America.
$15 billion is already allocated to American victims of past incidents.
The government is actively spending the $5 billion for new American victims of a historic disaster.
And the government is warning that reconstruction aid for American victims and a potential further disaster may warrant more money for American victims.
And that's bad.
Truly we should judge them by what they do.
Sure. And the system is doing what it has been doing for years if not decades without being scandalous: having enough money on hand to deal with immediate issues, and Congress then appropriating more after new disasters come about to cover the recovery.
Similarly, we could judge people by what they do... or do not do, in the case of checking available information the nature of a problem.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link