Staff Reports
President Biden has thrown a substantial request into Congress’s lap—$100 billion in aid for Americans battered by natural disasters, specifically Hurricanes Helene and Milton. This lengthy shopping list demands a staggering $40 billion just to prop up the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Disaster Relief Fund. To put this into perspective, that’s over five times more than what Congress typically allocates in their annual budget. It seems Biden is quite the fiscal acrobat, considering he recently drained an additional $20 billion from Congress to tackle other disasters, including tornadoes, wildfires, and floods.
The rest of Biden’s wish list includes $24 billion for the Agriculture Department to cushion farmers who lost crops or livestock, $12 billion to bolster HUD’s disaster funding, $8 billion to patch up the Transportation Department’s roads and bridges, a tidy $4 billion for the EPA’s water system upgrades, and a mere $2 billion for disaster loans to small businesses and homeowners. Biden’s letter to Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, reads like a comprehensive plan for a second Great Society initiative. Who knew disaster relief could feel so much like a buffet for government expansion?
Biden asks Congress for $100B to fund disaster recoveryhttps://t.co/Jd5U8cdqAF pic.twitter.com/8I4zeue80s
— The Washington Times (@WashTimes) November 18, 2024
As if to underscore the urgency of his request, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Shalanda Young, revealed that a number of federal agencies have reached a breaking point financially following the storms. One can’t help but wonder how federal agencies were managing their budgets before the storms hit. Did they throw all their money into high-stakes poker? Now Congress must weigh the options: should they pass Biden’s request as a standalone bill or tie it to an end-of-year spending bill? With only weeks left in the current legislative session, and the Republicans set to reclaim both chambers of Congress next year, it promises to be quite the juggling act.
A nod to history might be the only way to persuade Congress to act quickly. Biden is leaning heavily on past bipartisan responses to environmental calamities, citing the north of $120 billion provided after Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria in 2017. Of course, with the political landscape shifting, it’s unclear if Congress feels an overwhelming obligation to fulfill this request, especially given the recent criticisms levied against FEMA.
Recent controversies haven’t made it any easier for the president’s pitch. FEMA is facing backlash from Republican legislators over reports that an employee was fired for instructing her team to skip homes with Trump signs while canvassing Florida post-Hurricane Milton. Perhaps Biden should focus on reassuring conservatives that their tax dollars won’t be funneled to disaster relief efforts that turn political; after all, it’s an uphill battle trying to unite a Congress divided by rhetoric and policy. All in all, the stakes in this fiscal game just got a lot higher, but as always, only time will tell how well Biden’s grand plan weathers the storm in Congress.
