Lies the government told you by Andrew Napolitano (big screen ebook reader .TXT) 📕

up programs to dominate us, correct every wrong, address every social need, and lie about it.

Lie #10

“I’m from the Government,

and I’m Here to Help.”

In a 1988 speech, President Ronald Reagan declared, “There seems to be an increasing awareness of something we Americans have known for some time: that the ten most dangerous words in the English language are, ‘Hi, I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.’”1 That day, there was laughter when a convivial Reagan uttered the words to the Representatives of the Future Farmers of America. As is usually the case, there’s a morsel of truth within humor. Or, in this case, a big chunk of truth.

President Reagan followed up by explaining, “. . . we need to look to a future where there’s less, not more, government in our daily lives. It’s that philosophy that brought us the prosperity and growth that we see today.” In that speech, Reagan put forth his best effort to debunk the monstrous myth that the government is here to help us. The federal government has trumpeted its ability to intervene during disasters and in times of emergency but, more often than not, the result is an explosion of federal power, wasted resources, frustrating red tape, and not much else.

Washington’s fondness for creating new bureaucratic departments in response to perceived domestic problems often makes those problems much worse. If it was not such a humanitarian disaster, the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana and Mississippi in the summer and fall of 2005 would provide an almost comic example of conflicting orders, crippling bureaucracy, and inept political appointees that led to a major American city being transformed into a third-world scene of death, squalor, and chaos. From natural disasters to recalls of food and drugs once touted as safe and tested by the FDA, to staging phony press conferences, it seems the feds never defuse problems, and only spread fear and confusion. And when people are afraid and confused, they often let the government get away with telling them what to do because they don’t know what else to do.2 Perhaps the federal government is so bad at doing these things because it is institutionally incapable and constitutionally barred from these functions.

FEMA: Federal Emergency

Mismanagement Agency

In 1979, President Jimmy Carter merged several disconnected aid groups into one large agency, thereby creating the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Yet, the new system proved to be disorganized and chaotic from the beginning. In 1985, after facing fraud allegations, FEMA Director Louis Giuffrida resigned. In 1989, after the agency’s poor handling of Hurricane Hugo in South Carolina, Senator Fritz Hollings (D-SC) commented that FEMA was the “sorriest bunch of bureaucratic jackasses I’ve ever known.”3

Conceptually, FEMA makes no sense. Why should the federal government oversee rescues from natural disasters? Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to leave these matters up to state and local governments who better understand the needs of their own people and land? As I said in my article, “Franklin Delano Bush”:

If a state government is not prudent, and a natural disaster strikes, why should American taxpayers bail it out? That would provide no incentive for prudence in the future. Why should American taxpayers cover for the blatant failure of Louisiana politicians to be prudent with tax dollars? The federal government’s debt is exponentially larger than Louisiana’s.4

There is no lawful basis for FEMA. And as is demonstrated throughout this chapter, FEMA is a disaster in and of itself, and repeatedly fails in its mission to help out the victims of natural disasters.

Several occasions arose over the years where FEMA was caught unprepared and lacking an appropriate response to disaster. Under the Clinton Administration, FEMA expanded and became a pit for taxpayer dollars. After 9/11, President Bush brought FEMA under the Department of Homeland Security, switching its focus from rescue to preventing terrorism. Yet, this change in the agency’s concentration left the country vulnerable to imminent natural disaster against the possibility that there could be another terrorist attack. This shift in gears, the incompetent leadership, and the inefficient bureaucratic red tape primed FEMA for the mess it caused after Hurricane Katrina.

When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in late August 2005, the storm was one of the most powerful to hit American soil. It would reveal failures—at the federal, state, parish, and city levels—to plan appropriately and to act quickly for this disaster. Yet, the magnitude of the storm is absolutely no reason to dismiss FEMA from all responsibility. Immediately after the storm hit and for long after, the streets of New Orleans were a chaotic, unrecognizable mess. Sure, the federal government was there, but it certainly was not helping. Drinking water and ice could not be found, evacuations were not efficient, and there was no plan as to how to evacuate sick or elderly people who could not necessarily transport themselves. The existence of FEMA caused many people to think they would not need to create their own evacuation plans because they thought the government would have it under control. Sadly, they were wrong. FEMA let New Orleans go to hell.

According to the Disaster Accountability Project (a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that collects data about disaster preparedness and acts as a watchdog over government agencies such as FEMA), several parishes (counties) in the New Orleans region had no evacuation plans drawn up at the time Katrina hit. And of the parishes that did, many had not updated their plans in years. Maybe the Louisiana parishes were under the impression that the federal government was there to help. Tragically, many lives were lost due to this huge lie the government told us.

It is not as though FEMA merely failed to act; it prevented people from taking action themselves. FEMA turned away private donors who wanted to deliver vitally needed goods to victims. One FEMA official turned away a Wal-Mart truck full of supplies. It was as though self-righteous FEMA was saying, “Hey, we have this under control.