{"id":43743,"date":"2024-10-09T06:18:07","date_gmt":"2024-10-09T10:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/angry.net\/blog2\/?p=43743"},"modified":"2024-10-09T06:18:07","modified_gmt":"2024-10-09T10:18:07","slug":"mayorkas-says-that-fema-is-out-of-money-ig-says-whoa-hold-on-their-pardner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/angry.net\/blog2\/?p=43743","title":{"rendered":"Mayorkas says that FEMA is out of money. IG says \u201cWhoa! Hold on their pardner!\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good day all. The ongoing scandal that is FEMA\u2019s incredible levels of incompetence continues. Recently, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland (in)Security, Alejandro Mayorkas announced that FEMA had run out of money.<\/p>\n

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The ongoing crisis is about to get a lot worse with Hurricane Milton, as of this writing, a category 5 storm, bears down on Florida. Florida is doing all it can to get ready but there is little doubt that federal help will be needed. In the mean time, funds for the relief of people devastated from Hurricane Helene may have been misappropriated by Mayorkas and he\u2019s started crying poverty. However, a report by the Inspector General reports that FEMA is sitting on over $8 BILLION dollars. Here are the details from Fox Business News<\/b><\/a>:<\/p>\n

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas faces a new firestorm of criticism for claiming FEMA is out of disaster funds right as the DHS’ Inspector General released a report saying FEMA is sitting on at least $8.3 billion in untapped, unspent funds.<\/b><\/p>\n

On Oct 2, Mayorkas said, “We are expecting another hurricane hitting. We do not have the funds. FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season and what is imminent.” <\/b><\/p>\n

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So why hasn\u2019t FEMA started using those funds? Isn\u2019t that what the money was appropriated for in the first place?<\/p>\n

Analysts say FEMA cannot tap unspent appropriations from long-ago crises, so the money sits frozen as 600 people are reportedly still missing from Hurricane Helene, at least 220 died, and entire towns were wiped off the map. Helene is the most catastrophic hurricane to hit the U.S. since Katrina in 2005. <\/b><\/p>\n

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Excuse me? What do you mean the money can\u2019t be spent? Are you saying it\u2019s been sitting there, unused since Katrina? I wonder of Congress is aware of this?<\/p>\n

Budget experts warn that this new firestorm shows that FEMA has been turned into a slush fund that the agency and the Biden-Harris White House can spend at will.\u00a0 <\/b><\/p>\n

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Why am I not surprised that the most incompetent and corrupt administration in at least a century has been stealing<\/i><\/span> misusing funds meant for disaster relief and recovery.<\/p>\n

An August 2024 report from Homeland Security\u2019s Office of Inspector General noted, “As of October 2022, FEMA estimated that 847 disaster declarations with approximately $73 billion in unliquidated funds remained open.” The report also says “$8.3 billion in unliquidated obligations” was “for disasters declared in 2012 or earlier” that analysts say could be returned to help people battling for survival in disasters now. <\/b><\/p>\n

The IG report concurs, saying, “More than $7 billion in unliquidated funds… could potentially be returned to the Disaster Relief Fund.”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/b><\/p>\n

So why hasn\u2019t it? What is required to release the funds for the purposes for which it was appropriated in the first place, major disasters?<\/p>\n

Jeremy Portnoy, at the watchdog group Open the Books, notes that the way FEMA has set it up, the agency has locked in grant money that it must use during and before a “period of performance” deadline. That means the funds are obligated for that time period.\u00a0 <\/b><\/p>\n

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However, the Inspector General report finds that FEMA has been extending deadlines by up to 16 years for $7 billion worth of grants, sometimes without explanation. For example, FEMA is still sitting on $4.5 billion in unused, frozen funds for Super Storm Sandy, which happened 12 years ago, in 2012. FEMA officials have to justify and explain why they\u2019re extending deadlines in writing, but it\u2019s unclear what they\u2019re saying to justify freezing the funds for so long. <\/b><\/p>\n

They aren\u2019t justifying it, they\u2019re just making it up out of whole cloth.<\/p>\n

The IG report also notes that FEMA officials extend spending programs based on “subjective” criteria and that “as a result, the potential risk for fraud, waste, and abuse increases the longer a program remains open.” <\/b><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the whole idea. Would you care to guess how much of that money was \u201cMisplaced\u201d right into some bureaucrat\u2019s offshore Cayman Island\u2019s bank account? Perhaps the smarter ones are using Malta instead. Then, of course, is the Biden-Harris maladministration using that money to hide illegal aliens in the United States.<\/p>\n

Congressional Republicans are already hammering the Biden-Harris administration\u2019s response to Hurricane Helene. FEMA is under fire for spending $1.1 billion on sheltering and aiding illegal aliens, according to details in government documents.\u00a0 Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., introduced a bill to end FEMA\u2019s shelter program for illegal migrants.<\/b><\/p>\n

That was a billion dollars that should have been used to help Americans. More and more, I think that there are quite a few senior level people in the Biden-Harris maladministration that need to face a jury for their actions.<\/p>\n

It raises the question: with the Biden-Harris White House turning disaster agency FEMA into an adjunct agency on the border crisis, is that a tacit admission its manufactured border crisis really is a disaster? <\/b><\/p>\n