I don't know or care if he answers your very direct question. He wears very stupid looking and stupidly expensive shoes that hopefully got ruined in the storm.

I've never really considered privatizing FEMA but since you asked...I think it could be and would perform better but in this case would probably cost more but maybe not. A private contractor could not do this without thousands of people on stand-by, so a contractor would have to pay otherwise employed and pre-qualified responders a retainer that guaranteed they'd drop everything when FEMA called. This may or may not be less than paying a federal wage and benefits to their fulltime employees.

A better question is, FEMA a Federal responsibility? Nothing prevents Washington from transferring cash to an affected State to rebuild as it sees fit. 49 States help 1 or 45 help 5 as the case may be. Since LA mismanaged their crisis so badly, maybe next time the 45 unaffected States chose to help 49 and let LA go it alone. Kind of like I've done after learning abuses at United Way and Red Cross. In the event of War, it would fall to the military anyway so my biggest issue with FEMA is how large it's become and if it ought to exist in the first place.