Things Government Does Better Than You

The American Prospect lists five things (h/t Ritholtz).  Considering the drought and likely aid to farmers, this one stood out to me:

Disaster Relief

Conservative arguments against funding FEMA hold that local communities are better at cleaning up after widespread destruction than the government. After tornadoes tore through southeastern Missouri last May, FEMA was facing a funding shortfall and deficit-obsessed House Republicans, led by Ryan’s physical and ideological twin Eric Cantor, argued that lawmakers would have to cut money elsewhere before raising FEMA’s budget. Russ Carnahan, a Democratic representative from Missouri, responded in a way that nicely summed up the sentiment after Cantor’s comments when he said, “[T]o have that debate in the face of the suffering we’ve seen in Joplin is just plain wrong.”
The problems with disaster insurance are similar to the problems with health insurance: Only people who think their house might be flooded bother to buy flood insurance, so the insurance companies risk going broke paying out all of their customers every time it floods. In general, the federal government has many more resources at its disposal than states and communities do. Damage from catastrophic events runs in the billions of dollars and devastates local economies, so states not only have to step up their spending to help hurting communities, but take a hit in tax revenues as well. Keeping the federal government in charge of disaster relief spreads risk out over the entire country, and ensures that victims in poor states—basically every state in Tornado Alley—get as much help as residents of wealthier states would.

Spreading costs over the entire population makes sense, whether it is disaster relief or health care.  But it is clear that coastal areas with tremendous hurricane risk and towns in Tornado Alley benefit from this more than some other places.