Federal outsourcing of state functions worsened disaster response after Hurricane Katrina

Evidence

Alongside these cuts, since the onset of the Bush administration in 2001 the federal government has almost doubled federal contracts worldwide with private contractors, looking increasingly to outsource military, state, and homeland security operations. The revenue cuts and private contracting have had a debilitating effect on disaster preparedness and reconstruction, undercutting the agency’s ability to sustain support for those most in need, as witnessed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The cuts increasingly ceded to uncoordinated private charities the responsibilities of evacuation, clean-up, reconstruction, and care. The results, abundantly evident, have been disastrous. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 404

Categorization

• XREF: Channels the nonprofitization/contracting literature on state retreat (e.g., Salamon; also connects to the reader’s ongoing work on the hollowing of public infrastructure).