One of President Donald Trump’s first trips after his January inauguration was to North Carolina, where residents were struggling to recover from the massive floods Hurricane Helene left behind. For months, social media was full of complaints that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was passing over Republicans in distributing aid, and that the Biden administration had been getting ready to condemn the entire town of Chimney Rock so they could seize control of a lithium mine.
Trump himself had claimed three months earlier that “they’re being treated very badly in the Republican areas … They’re not getting water, they’re not getting anything,” he charged. So when he came to North Carolina early in his presidency, he said he was considering “getting rid” of FEMA. “I’d like to see the states take care of disasters,” Trump proposed. “Let the state take care of the tornadoes and the hurricanes and all of the other things that happen.”
The Trump administration’s talk about shutting down FEMA echoes the most important and most enduring questions about federalism: Why don’t we just get the federal government out of the state and local governments’ hair? That’s just what Project 2025, the conservative policy blueprint, recommended.
Read the rest of the opinion story at Governing.