I just heard a very interesting story on the news about the role of government in preparedness planning and response and wanted to share and get some feedback.
The story cited a study that was done that tracked government spending both in preparedness and in response after a disaster and how it affected the particular political party in the eyes of voters. The results should that when elected officials spent money on preparedness ahead of potential disasters it gave their party no lift in the polls or in votes during an election. However…if there was a disaster and elected officials spent money on response and clean-up….it was viewed very favorably by voters.
So… Besides the obvious….do elected officials really have the right incentive to spend money to help us get better prepared?
The study went on further to show that the costs were almost 15 times higher in terms of response and clean up when compared to the cost of preparedness before the event.
I am in no way stating that this study is accurate but I think it provides a great topic for discussion.