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Robbing Peter to Pay Wall

Disaster funds are always an easy target.

The latest permutation of the border wall, government shutdown and declaring an emergency is that President Trump has stated that he will declare a national emergency so he can access already-appropriated funds (dedicated to other purposes). All this, in order to fund the construction of the USA/Mexico border wall.

No doubt that if all this comes to pass, it will end up in United States Courts to be settled there — eventually. 

Before that, we'll get an inkling of where the money will come from. Disaster funds are easy targets since they can be large sums of money, that get appropriated and then sit there waiting many years for disaster recovery projects to be completed. We've had a series of large disasters in 2017 and 2018 — from multiple hurricanes to the wildfires of 2018. That pot of money is huge!

I fully expect that these funds "for emergency purposes" will be very enticing to use for "other emergency purposes."

Stand by for news, and be prepared to defend Peter. 

2-15-19 Update:

It appears, although with this administration it is not over until it is over--that disaster funds are not on the block for robbing, which is good for the emergency management community and the people the funds were targeted to help. 

Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.