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Government’s Warped Priorities Exacerbate Climate Disasters, Impede Recovery

By funding wars and fossil fuel subsidies instead of disaster recovery, the US punishes those who can least afford it.

Workers, community members and business owners clean up debris in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Marshall, North Carolina, on September 30, 2024.

This year’s hurricane season has been devastating.

Hurricane Helene left a trail of wreckage across the Southeast and Appalachia, where over 230 people have died so far. Barely two weeks later, Milton slammed into Florida, killing dozens more, destroying homes, and leaving over a million people without power. Insurers are predicting that losses from Milton could reach $60 billion.

Everyone suffers in a disaster, but the most vulnerable suffer the most. And our government’s warped priorities can often make that worse.

When people are told to evacuate but not provided any assistance, people without vehicles — disproportionately low-income, unemployed, young, and Black — are stranded. Homeowners recoup some losses through insurance, but renters are left without housing if their home is destroyed.

Low-wage workers, who often have no paid leave, lose their paychecks when their workplaces close, even though they’re the very people who can least afford it. They’re sometimes even forced to keep working in dangerous conditions — which reportedly happened at a plastics factory in Tennessee, where some workers died as a result.

Appalachia, which bore the brunt of Helene’s impact, is among the poorest regions in the country, with a median household income almost 18 percent below the national figure and poverty rates above 30 percent in some counties. Many people who’ve lost their homes and livelihoods lack the resources to fall back on in an emergency.

Government recovery efforts often reinforce these inequalities instead of counteracting them.

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) recovery assistance prioritizes assisting homeowners instead of renters. Consequently, people who receive meaningful assistance are disproportionately wealthier and whiter than people who don’t, exacerbating existing inequities.

Systemic discrimination is sometimes made worse by intentional discrimination. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, poor Black people were abandoned to die. When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017 and thousands died, officials tried to downplay the death toll even as they took unacceptably long to restore basic services such as electricity.

FEMA is also consistently underfunded compared to the need. The U.S. experienced $603 billion in costs for major climate disasters between 2019 and 2023, an average of $120 billion a year. Meanwhile, the annual budget for FEMA has hovered around barely a quarter of that.

Instead, a large share of the recovery cost is borne by state, tribal, and local governments, and by insurance payouts (for those who can afford insurance). And tribal and local governments in poorer regions lack resources because of their meager tax revenues.

Right now, FEMA faces a funding shortfall. With the added costs of recovery from Milton, it’s certain to run out of funds before the end of hurricane season.

The proximate cause of the shortfall is a budget deal to appease a few far right, anti-tax extremists in Congress who threatened to shut down the government. But the deeper reason is that the government simply doesn’t prioritize helping vulnerable communities to recover from disasters.

On the same day that Helene made landfall, Israel received a U.S. military aid package of almost $9 billion, on top of billions more since the start of Israel’s assault on Gaza, which the International Court of Justice has called a “plausible” genocide.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government continues to provide subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, which totaled $14 billion in 2022. Far from ending these subsidies as the climate crisis worsens, the government has enacted new subsidies for greenwashing scams.

These choices devalue lives from Palestine to Florida to Appalachia. For disaster-hit communities to get the resources they need and deserve in order to recover, we need nothing short of a complete reversal of our government’s priorities.

Help us Prepare for Trump’s Day One

Trump is busy getting ready for Day One of his presidency – but so is Truthout.

Trump has made it no secret that he is planning a demolition-style attack on both specific communities and democracy as a whole, beginning on his first day in office. With over 25 executive orders and directives queued up for January 20, he’s promised to “launch the largest deportation program in American history,” roll back anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, and implement a “drill, drill, drill” approach to ramp up oil and gas extraction.

Organizations like Truthout are also being threatened by legislation like HR 9495, the “nonprofit killer bill” that would allow the Treasury Secretary to declare any nonprofit a “terrorist-supporting organization” and strip its tax-exempt status without due process. Progressive media like Truthout that has courageously focused on reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza are in the bill’s crosshairs.

As journalists, we have a responsibility to look at hard realities and communicate them to you. We hope that you, like us, can use this information to prepare for what’s to come.

And if you feel uncertain about what to do in the face of a second Trump administration, we invite you to be an indispensable part of Truthout’s preparations.

In addition to covering the widespread onslaught of draconian policy, we’re shoring up our resources for what might come next for progressive media: bad-faith lawsuits from far-right ghouls, legislation that seeks to strip us of our ability to receive tax-deductible donations, and further throttling of our reach on social media platforms owned by Trump’s sycophants.

We’re preparing right now for Trump’s Day One: building a brave coalition of movement media; reaching out to the activists, academics, and thinkers we trust to shine a light on the inner workings of authoritarianism; and planning to use journalism as a tool to equip movements to protect the people, lands, and principles most vulnerable to Trump’s destruction.

We urgently need your help to prepare. As you know, our December fundraiser is our most important of the year and will determine the scale of work we’ll be able to do in 2025. We’ve set two goals: to raise $140,000 in one-time donations and to add 1469 new monthly donors by midnight on December 31.

Today, we’re asking all of our readers to start a monthly donation or make a one-time donation – as a commitment to stand with us on day one of Trump’s presidency, and every day after that, as we produce journalism that combats authoritarianism, censorship, injustice, and misinformation. You’re an essential part of our future – please join the movement by making a tax-deductible donation today.

If you have the means to make a substantial gift, please dig deep during this critical time!

With gratitude and resolve,

Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy