Rep. Burchett floats restructuring FEMA funding so states decide how to use the money

Congressman Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said Tuesday that federal funding that goes to organizations like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), should be distributed by the federal government but handled by the states. 

"When we start talking about moving the funding around for this organization, I think we ought to seriously look at its management structure and that it should possibly just be a flow through for the states to receive these funds and let them handle it," Burchett said on the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show. 

Multiple Republican lawmakers in Tennessee voted against a spending bill that would have funded FEMA and Burchett was one of them.

Burchett explained that there were other things in the bill that had nothing to do with FEMA. 

"There's money in there for COVID," Burchett said. "There's billions of dollars in this ... spending package for COVID. COVID is over."

He added that legislators need to actually start reading bills before voting on them. 

"It ... behooves Americans to force their legislators to start reading these bills.....not just get what you need out of them, but find out what the rest of the country is going to be stuck with, because our great grandchildren are going to be paying these bills," Burchett said.