Politico reports that Speaker Mike Johnson appeared on Fox News the other day to say that Congress "'will have to address' passing more disaster aid at some point in the wake of the devastation across the Southeast."
Not with Trump in office, you won't. He'll be exercising fiscal responsibility by reducing or eliminating outrageous government expenditures such as disaster relief while he's racking up another $5 trillion of national indebtedness via tax cuts for the 1% with dry, high-rise penthouses.
Before the Trump administration's Reichsleiters are let loose on vital federal programs that assist in natural disasters, they'll be put through a rigorous course on the assorted splendors of the 920-page Project 2025. Just the gist is all they'll need, and that can be covered in a few seconds. Joshua Sewell of Taxpayers for Common Sense described the Project as the essence of "ideological desire [overpowering] political pragmatism."
With that mission in mind, the Reichsleiters can then go about gutting the kind of crisis support that Speaker Johnson had in mind. Scientific American recently wrote an overview of what Trump's guiding ideological document would unpragmatically do. The points are in the magazine's words.
* Weaken the government's response to disasters by slashing public rebuilding money
* Phase out the program that provides almost all of the nation’s flood insurance under the Federal Emergency Management Agency
* Replace the flood insurance program "with private insurance starting with the least risky areas currently identified by the program"
* Terminate disaster-preparation grants to states
* Stop or reduce aid after smaller and more prevalent disasters
* Shrink or dismantle the National Weather Service
* Commercialize the forecasts it now provides for free
Why was the National Flood Insurance Program created in the first place? Private insurers wouldn't cover flood damage. Trump would take us back to those pre-1968 days. Chad Bargains of the Association of State Floodplain Managers said Trump's goal is "unrealistic. There are areas where the private market [for property insurance] is all but nonexistent because of the hazards that are there.”
There would, however, be one poetic justice in thousands of rural homes being flooded and swept away without hope of rebuilding. Virtually all the former, Trump-rallying homeowners would have seeded their own destruction when they pulled that lever on 5 November.