While Texans are still reeling from Hurricane Beryl’s effects, a familiar refrain about Texas’s dependence on FEMA in the face of natural disasters is again making the rounds. Any notion that Texas needs FEMA is misinformation at best and a blatant lie at worst.

It is important to remember that FEMA does not provide actual immediate disaster relief. That is handled by the Texas Military Department, as well as local and State law enforcement and volunteers. FEMA’s primary role is logistics and administration. In short, they come in and take control of what Texas is already doing well.

In the aftermath, FEMA coordinates the distribution of some, not all, of the resources being funneled into the areas affected by the disaster. That includes cots for shelters, some bottled water, and some ice. However, this is an extremely small percentage when compared to the outpouring of donations from private relief organizations, churches, and individuals.

As anyone in Texas can tell you, FEMA gets in the way more than it helps. During Hurricanes Rita and Ike, they refused to distribute ice collected for the disaster zones until county sheriffs ordered it done with or without FEMA authorization. During the Bastrop wildfires, they turned away firefighters who came from all over Texas to help fight the fires. These are just two examples that show how the same bureaucratic cancer that infects every other Federal agency is at its absolute worst in FEMA.

What FEMA really does is hand out money. Looking at FEMA’s assistance in the wake of Hurricane Ike makes for a solid comparison. FEMA approved 121,666 Individual Assistance Applications and spent $532 million on individual assistance. It spent another $2.2 billion on Public Assistance Grants. For Hurricane Ike, FEMA assistance in Texas totaled approximately $2.7 billion.

Annually, Texans pay approximately $120-160 billion more into the Federal system than we receive. Since Hurricane Ike in 2007, over $1 trillion in overpayments have been made. This is over 300 times what FEMA spent on Hurricane Ike. This has the same negative economic impact as an event the magnitude of Hurricane Harvey hitting Texas every 9 months.

The bottom line is this: every dollar that FEMA spends in Texas first comes from the pockets of the Texas taxpayers. FEMA is only in the picture to retroactively justify the theft of our tax money by the Federal Government under the guise of a natural disaster.

Texans take care of Texans. The world saw this during Hurricane Harvey, and we’re seeing it again right now. Texans could do it much better if we kept the money we overpay.