Convention of States President Meckler says FEMA shouldn't exist, states should handle disasters

Convention of States President Mark Meckler said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) should not exist and that natural disaster matters should be left up to individual states. 

"We really don't need it and we shouldn't have it," Meckler said on the "John Solomon Reports" podcast. "The way that our country was intended to work is, especially around disasters, things are actually based in a particular fixed location [and] local authorities are meant to handle these things."

Hurricane Helene hit Florida last week as a Category Four storm, and caused disastrous damage in Georgia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Hurricane Milton also hit Florida this week as a Category Three storm.

FEMA has previously spent approximately $650 million on grants to nonprofits and local authorities that resettle and aid illegal immigrants so far, and has sent employees down to the border to help address the increase in unaccompanied minors that began in 2021, Fox News reported. 

Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas told reporters earlier this month that FEMA does not have adequate funds to manage disaster relief for the rest of hurricane season.

"FEMA was intended to do this on a national basis," Meckler said. "It's never lived up to its mandate and I would argue that it never will. So what we ought to do is take all that money that FEMA wastes, essentially, that we now see also that they're using for housing illegal migrants and things like that, we ought to just block grant all that money back to the states."