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President Bush is re-elected in 2000.
Bush  asks Mitch Daniels from Indiana
to serve as his
Director of  OMB, the Office of Management and Budget


Early in his presidency, George W Bush downgraded the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the body designated to cope with national emergencies.   In 2003, FEMA was demoted from a Cabinet-level agency reporting directly to the President, and buried in the new Republican bureaucracy, the Department of Homeland Security.  

FEMA-type rescue operations, the reasoning went, are for feeble folk looking for government handouts (and that often meant blacks).  Scale them back!

 In the words of Bush's budget director Mitch Daniels in 2001: "Many are concerned that federal disaster assistance may have evolved into an oversized entitlement programme . . . expectations of when the federal government should be involved, and the degree of involvement, may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level."
--New Statesman, a British publication  

Let faith-based charities provide FEMA's budget, the wealthy rulers said, and Mitch Daniels carried out their wishes.  

Mitch Daniels is now running for Governor of Indiana.  You may visit his campaign Website, which reports: "Mitch made a significant personal and financial sacrifice when he answered the call from President George W. Bush to serve as director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)."

The OMB Director's salary was $150,000 at the time Mitch made his significant personal and financial sacrifice to answer the call of public service.  He served the public  by setting out to fix the oversized entitlement program that FEMA had become.  Hurricane Katrina makes it clear that Daniels succeeded. 

-----=o=-----
POSTSCRIPT, August 2011

GOVERNMENT HELPS PEOPLE,  I WANT TO HELP ONLY MYSELF   

"Because of such deep ideological distrust of government, the Katrina debacle ... was not due to administrative malfeasance but to deliberate design.  Conservatives cannot govern well for the same reason that vegetarians cannot prepare a world-class boeuf bourguignon: If you believe that what you are called upon to do is wrong, you are not likely to do it very well."
    --Alan Wolfe, "Why Conservatives Won’t Govern"
    http://www.democracyjournal.org/19/6785.php


THE HEAD OF FEMA ATTACKS HIS OWN AGENCY

Allbaugh's Congressional testimony on 16May2001 as the new director of FEMA.
http://www.fema.gov/about/director/allbaugh/testimony/051601.shtm

LET THE STATES DO IT, WE WON"T PAY FOR IT.
DESTROYING FEMA HELPS RESTORE AND BUILD THE STATE SYSTEM.

"The original intent of Federal disaster assistance is to supplement State and local response efforts. Many are concerned that Federal disaster assistance may have evolved into both an oversized entitlement program and a disincentive to effective State and local risk management. Expectations of when the Federal Government should be involved and the degree of involvement may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level. We must restore the predominant role of State and local response to most disasters. Federal assistance needs to supplement, not supplant, State and local efforts."

THE STATES DON'T NEED ANY HELP EITHER.
MONEY WILL FLOW  FROM THE GOODNESS OF PEOPLE'S HEARTS

"We will pay special attention to volunteers and non-governmental organizations responding to disasters.... Faith-based groups at the community level, like the Salvation Army and the Mennonite Disaster Service, play critical roles in disaster relief, as does the American Red Cross. "

Can this man comprehend the size of a national disaster?

"On a recent visit to Hoisington, Kansas, to view the effects of a tornado that ripped through... that small prairie town, I viewed firsthand ... The Baptist Church mobile feeding kitchen ... The Salvation Army... The Adventist Disaster Services... The American Red Cross .... Lutheran Disaster Services and the United Methodist Committee on Relief, ... "

"President Bush's compassionate conservatism is ....President Bush's new approach to helping the poor, homeless and disadvantaged."

I SAY:  FAITH-BASED CHARITIES, YES;  AND FEMA TOO.

Bush (the son) appointed a head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency who advocated faith-based charities for emergency relief in place of  the Federal government.  Instead of arguing "Which?", let's just have both.

The rich and powerful praise strong religion, self-reliant people, control over ballooning entitlements.  Many of us want what they preach, but for them it is just talk.  It is their way of betraying the people and the country they claim to love.  As they talk, they advance their grip on money and power. They talk to distract us.  They talk of religion, self-reliance and budget control while they dismantle civic society.  The results are what you see in the Katrina photos here.  When destruction lies all around them, they hand public money to private corporations to patch things up.  

Next, the rich and powerful must control the photos.  Make sure that no one can take photos of bloated corpses floating in the water -- forbid access to "security areas" for "your own protection", remove camera memory cards or smash them if anyone gets in, keep out reporters, turn off Facebook, be careful whom you invite to be interviewed on TV.  After the Deepwater Horizon well blew, scientists had trouble getting data, and the press had trouble getting photos. When the rich and elite seek to control the vast majority of us, lack of information becomes the foundation of their power.  

--14 Aug 2011



REFERENCES  for the "Executive Salary" pay scale

Table 1. Executive Schedule (ES; also called EX)  Salaries, January 2002
 Note: Members of Congress receive an annual salary equivalent to ES Level II, or $150,000.

Sources: U.S. Office of Personnel Management (2001)
http://www.opm.gov/oca/02tables/ex.htm

Reprinted here from:

How Much is Enough?
Setting Pay for Presidential Appointees
Gary Burtless
The Brookings Institution
March 22, 2002
(funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts)
www.appointee.brookings.org

Time marches on. 
As of Jan 2005, the ES scale  (also called EX) has increased, and Mitch would have gotten $162,100

Executive Schedule:
Level I $ 180,100
Level II 162,100
Level III 149,200
Level IV 140,300
Level V 131,400
RATES OF PAY FOR THE EXECUTIVE SCHEDULE (ES)
EFFECTIVE JANUARY 2005


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Rev 13Aug2011 better FEMA text and links