Presidential Candidates' Approaches to Emergency Management

I've watched most of the presidential debates, or cage matches, on the Republican side of the race. Now that the list of candidates has narrowed a bit it provides an opportunity to consider the approaches that each might take to disasters, emergency management and homeland security in general.

Donald Trump: Whatever it is (at the moment) it will be great, so great, so huge, we won't even be able to recognize what it is when we see it. And, I think the Canadians are going to pay for all of our homeland security grants — because the Donald says they will.

Ted Cruz: Emergency management will be consistently conservative in all aspects of what is delivered to the American public. You never know, FEMA might be eliminated, along with the proposed elimination of the IRS. If there are grant applications to be made, they will fit on one 5X8" postcard that we mail in. Most of those will go to a dead-letter file, since most programs will be defunded.

Marco Rubio: Perhaps not a factor after next week's election in Florida. But he can be expected to sign less than 60 percent of the bills forwarded to him as president, since his record on attention to details seems lacking. Like the two above, he believes that Barack Obama has destroyed everything about how America is supposed to work, so a clean slate agenda could happen — but not likely.

John Kasich: A somewhat normal person. Hard to gauge what he might do. Probably a "steady as she goes" president until there is a big disaster, a new FEMA administrator and then all bets are off.

Hillary Clinton: Might she bring back an era of James Lee Witt? He might at least have some influence on the approach the new president would take to emergency management in the post-9/11 era. If you like what you have now, expect more of the same, with less transparency.

Bernie Sanders: A "chicken in every pot" type of guy, he will revolutionize how we prepare as a nation for disasters. Government will provide what you need, when you need it, and more of it than you ever expected. This will replace the era of individual responsibility for disaster preparedness (if you can say there ever was one in reality) which will be gone. Wall Street bankers will be given community service in the expanded Citizen Corps. Just don't put them in charge of the finances. 

You have to admit, it is a crazy world we live in!