Well, howdy there, Internet people, it's Bell again.

So today, we're going to talk about Trump denying FEMA assistance to North Carolina.

North Carolina is getting a taste of what it means for the federal government to shift emergency response to the states, per Trump's plan.

Here's a statement from the governor of North Carolina.

Quote, the first step to help Western North Carolina recover is to clean up all the debris.

So far, we have removed more than 12 million cubic yards of debris from roads and waterways.

But given the immense scale of the wreckage, we have only scratched the surface. FEMA's denial of our appeal will cost North

Carolina taxpayers potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up out west. The money we

have to pay towards debris removal will mean less money

towards supporting our small businesses, rebuilding downtown infrastructure, repairing our water

and sewer systems, and other critical needs. This is still spending from Hurricane Helene.

Remember, that was the hurricane Trump campaigned on and said FEMA under Biden wasn't helping.

Even this long after the storm and all the money spent, it looks like North Carolina still needs

$19 billion. $11.5 billion of that would be new appropriations. The numbers matter here

as Republicans in Congress sign off on the idea of letting states take over emergency response

and try to convince people that states can handle it. 19 billion doesn't even include all federal spending. You might want to pull up your

yearly state budget and consider whether or not your state actually has the resources to deal with

the disasters that are becoming more and more frequent. In some cases, your state budget has enough money. But remember, if it's being spent on

disaster relief, it's not being spent on schools, fire departments, and so on. Let's be real,

states aren't going to close schools. And I think we all know, the politicians aren't going to

stop paying themselves so you can get disaster assistance.

So what does that mean? It means that you're probably going to be on your own after the next disaster.

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