Shocking figures reveal Biden admin's spending on Ukraine, COVID and migrant shelters instead of hurricane relief

The Biden-Harris administration faces scrutiny over its priorities, after spending just $137 million dollars on relief after Hurricane Helene while doling out many times that on migrants, Ukraine and COVID. 

A government watchdog has slammed US federal disaster chiefs for failing to adequately help  Helene's victims because too much of their funding is tied up in COVID and other bygone crises.

Christopher Neefus, a spokesman for OpenTheBooks, said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) was scrambling to raise cash to help hurricane victims even as it doled out a staggering $171 billion on the pandemic.

His criticism comes amid fears that those affected by Helene and the looming Hurricane Milton have been left behind by a government that's spending lavishly on sheltering foreign migrants and a costly war in faraway Ukraine.

'The immediate shortfall at Fema is part of a much broader problem with the way the agency is managing its books, extending old projects in perpetuity without obvious rationales,' Neefus told The Mail.

'It's led to billions that are tied up on paper and unavailable to help folks today.' 

Fema's biggest problem, he said, are the 'enormous' $104 billion-and-rising sums already devoted to the pandemic response and how that's 'strained their budget for hurricanes and other natural disasters.'

'That number is expected to balloon even further through 2026.'

Fema did not answer The Mail's request for comment.

The US is battling a deadly hurricane season, with Helene wreaking havoc from Florida into the Appalachian Mountains and claiming at least 230 lives, making it one of the worst storms in the nation's history.

Families across the storm-battered southeast complained that Fema was offering little help as they tried to rebuild their lives and repair shredded and flooded-out homes, often without power or cell phone service.

Robby Starbuck, a conservative activist in Tennessee, said Fema was largely absent from his state's hurricane-hit areas, and that he and others had stepped in to help victims with everyday essentials and Starlink internet devices.

'As a taxpayer, I'm disgusted,' Starbuck told The Mail.

'The government is giving all this money to illegal immigrants and foreign conflicts. It just seems to be a rule of thumb now that American citizens can expect that we don't come first in our own country anymore.'

Meanwhile, Milton has intensified and is set to become a major hurricane heading for landfall in the Tampa Bay area on Thursday, raising fears of further devastation across Florida, the nation's most disaster-prone state.

Against this backdrop, the Biden administration's Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has said Fema can meet immediate needs but does not have enough funding to make it through the hurricane season, which runs June 1 to November 30.

Mayorkas said the agency is being stretched as it works with states to assess damage from Helene and delivers meals, water, generators, and other critical supplies. He did not specify how much extra cash was needed.

So far, more than $137 million has been given to communities affected by Hurricane Helene, says Fema.

The agency has also shipped more than 14.9 million meals, 13.9 million liters of water, 157 generators and more than 505,000 tarps, and had more than 7,000 federal personnel on the ground assisting the survivors.

President Joe Biden and some lawmakers have called for a supplemental spending bill this fall to plug the gap, while former president Donald Trump and others have railed against lackluster support for hurricane victims and largesse overseas.

At a campaign rally in Michigan on Thursday, Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, accused his rival, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, of diverting emergency cash to the record-breaking number of migrants who have entered the US in recent years.

'Kamala spent all her Fema money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal migrants, many of whom should not be in our country,' Trump said.

'They stole the Fema money, just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season.'

At another rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, Trump said the Biden-Harris administration had offered those who had seen their homes 'washed away' by floodwater just $750 to rebuild their shattered lives.

'And yet we send tens of billions of dollars to foreign countries that most people have never heard of,' he added.

His running mate JD Vance said it was 'insulting for people who have lost their homes and nearly everything to have somebody swoop in and talk about $750 like that's a big sum of money.'

Meanwhile, Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr, has called it 'madness' for billions of dollars in foreign aid to be sent to Ukraine, instead of to American citizens who had lost everything in the storm.

US agencies have authorized $176 billion to provide arms to Ukraine, aid civilians, impose sanctions, and more, according to the Government Accountability Office.

But many of these criticisms have been rebuffed.

The White House has said the $750 payouts are only a stop-gap measure for survivors to buy food, water, medications, baby formula and other essentials — and that they can apply for more over the long term.

And while FEMA has spent $640 million on housing migrants, administration officials have said this was money allocated by Congress specifically for that purposes, and was not taken from disaster-relief funds.

Fema manages both the Disaster Relief Fund, which is used to respond to emergencies like Hurricane Helene and Milton, and the Shelter and Services Program, which issues grants to communities impacted by a large influx of migrants.

They are separate pots of money that were assigned by Congress to Fema for their specific purposes.

The Disaster Relief Fund was given $35 billion in the 2024 fiscal year, and a further $20 billion in a short term spending bill on September 25.

Brian Riedl, an expert from the Manhattan Institute think tank, told The Mail that Trump was 'flat-out wrong on disaster assistance.'

'Fema's disaster relief fund received a $20 billion emergency appropriation two weeks ago, which should be sufficient to fund hurricane relief until Congress returns in a few weeks to appropriate more,' he said.

'They can always return sooner if the money runs out more quickly.'

Harris called Trump 'incredibly irresponsible' and accused him of spreading 'mis- and disinformation' about the crisis, just weeks a before a general election that may hinge on the results from Helene-hit Georgia and North Carolina, two swing states.

But according to Neefus, Fema's exorbitant Covid spend and founding requirements for other bygone emergencies is likely to leave the agency scrambling around to make ends meet for the rest of hurricane season.

The extra $20 billion that Congress recently allocated for disasters is 'already partly spoken for and unlikely to be sufficient,' he says — with $6 billion of it earmarked for the Maui wildfires, flooding in Vermont, and other recovery efforts.

'It's tough to imagine being in Helene's wake — or Milton's — and wondering if and when enough resources will be at the ready,' he said.

'Until there are some systemic fixes to their budgeting, FEMA risks being caught in a repeating loop of emergency funding requests to Congress.'

Though the US Department of Health and Human Services declared the end of the pandemic in May 2023, Fema spending on it and reimbursing states for vaccinations, testing sites, protective gear funeral costs and salaries has continued