{"id":59048,"date":"2025-07-12T07:47:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T07:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/59048\/"},"modified":"2025-07-12T07:47:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T07:47:15","slug":"fort-worth-congressional-leaders-weigh-in-on-federal-cuts-texas-floods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/59048\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Worth congressional leaders weigh in on federal cuts, Texas floods"},"content":{"rendered":"

Statewide, Texans have mobilized to help in any way they could<\/a> after heavy rainfall led to disastrous flooding in the Hill Country, leaving at least 120 dead. Some have taken to online platforms blaming federal funding cuts<\/a> for the immense loss of life<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gov. Greg Abbott announced Wednesday that during the July special session, legislators will discuss new bills<\/a> related to relief funding for the Hill Country, flood warning system improvements, strengthening flood emergency communications and natural disaster preparation and recovery.<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Craig Goldman, a Republican from Fort Worth, said the Department of Government Efficiency cuts on wasteful government spending were not to blame.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst of all, it\u2019s been proven that there were plenty in the National Weather Service office to give enough warnings about the potential flood warnings,\u201d Goldman said. \u201cThose did go out, those offices were fully funded and they were fully occupied.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flooding on Legislature\u2019s special session agenda<\/p>\n

Typically following natural disasters, the government holds a review of what went right and what went wrong, Goldman said. He said he feels assured that if anything went wrong in the emergency response to the flood, proper solutions will be put in place by the Texas Legislature to ensure future safety.<\/p>\n

Had anyone been able to predict the magnitude of the July Fourth natural disaster, Goldman said precautions would have been put in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you\u2019re also talking about a 100-year storm,\u201d Goldman said. \u201cIf anyone was concerned that there would be a flash flood to the point of 20 to 30 feet above current levels, they certainly would have taken precautions. I mean, you had the head of the camp lose his life trying to save those girls\u2019 lives, and no one, no one wants that amount of loss of life. We don\u2019t want to lose one life.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, a Democrat from Fort Worth, said it\u2019s too early to tell how the DOGE cuts impacted the flood response and the warnings beforehand. He said he is going to join Rep. Julie Johnson, a Farmers Branch Democrat, in asking Homeland Security to investigate the situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of it probably did have to do with DOGE and just again, the sledgehammer-type response that they took to cutting government which was terrible, and people in Central Texas, they\u2019re the ones that are having to pay the price for this, and it\u2019s really unfortunate,\u201d Veasey said.<\/p>\n

The representative said he believes a lot of deaths could have been avoided had people known ahead of time, but that communication isn\u2019t as effective or efficient when so many services have been scaled back or cut down.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to be 100% frank with everyone,\u201d Veasey said. \u201cSomething like this will happen again if we continue to go down this road and no one says anything about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

DOGE cuts<\/p>\n

Max Stier is the CEO and president of Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan nonprofit that it says advocates for a better government and stronger democracy. Stier said he doesn\u2019t think there will be proof of a direct connection between DOGE cuts and people being unnecessarily hurt.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the reality is that the risk sides are clearly enhanced quite dramatically when you see the kind of arbitrary and non-strategic cuts that have taken place across the entire government,\u201d Stier said.<\/p>\n

In his 24 years working toward a more effective government, Stier said he knows that the government can do better.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a legacy organization that hasn\u2019t kept up with the world around it,\u201d Stier said. \u201cA DOGE-like effort can make a lot of sense. What we saw, however, with DOGE as it was implemented, was sheer and utter destruction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goldman said the majority of his constituents want to stop seeing the government spend so much while having a trillion dollar deficit. As the \u201cfirst government audit in American history,\u201d DOGE is answering that call, Goldman said.<\/p>\n

Veasey said that though his constituents are also concerned about wasteful spending, he sees no benefit for Texans in DOGE\u2019s cuts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a right way and a wrong way to do everything,\u201d Veasey said. \u201cI am 100% for eliminating any sort of waste, any sort of fraud, any sort of abuse, but I\u2019m not for cutting just for the sake of getting rid of something, particularly if it helps people. Like what probably was the case in Central Texas \u2014 just getting rid of something so you can stick a feather in your hat. I think it\u2019s stupid. I think it\u2019s reckless. And I think it\u2019s deadly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Statewide, Texans have mobilized to help in any way they could after heavy rainfall led to disastrous flooding…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":59049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,19265,18716,30886,7371,7372,42900,42901,6231,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-59048","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-craig-goldman","10":"tag-cuts","11":"tag-flood-warning","12":"tag-fort-worth","13":"tag-fortworth","14":"tag-marc-veasey","15":"tag-max-stier","16":"tag-national-weather-service","17":"tag-texas","18":"tag-tx","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114839161630313607","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}