This troubled economy is no time to face rebuilding from disaster with inadequate funding—especially if you’re the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

In the wake of Hurricane Irene, FEMA has had to make some tough choices about where to put its dwindling disaster response dollars. Last week, the agency said it would put selected rebuilding projects in tornado-stricken Joplin, Missouri, on hold while funneling funds to immediate response needs on the East Coast, according to the Washington Post.

Although individuals and emergency response agencies will still be paid, other long-term rebuilding projects and mitigation efforts will be temporarily scrapped for now. The announcement understandably riled those affected.

“Recovery from hurricane damage on the East Coast must not come at the expense of Missouri’s rebuilding efforts,” Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt (R) stated in different Post article. “If FEMA can’t fulfill its promise to our state because we have other disasters, that’s unacceptable, and we need to take a serious look at how our disaster response policies are funded and implemented.”

Others agree that a second look at disaster funding is called for, but rather than eyeing more and better FEMA funding, they suggest making cuts elsewhere—or even axing the agency altogether.

“It's a system of bureaucratic central economic planning, which is a policy that is deeply flawed,” Texas Rep. Ron Paul (R) said in a Fox News interview suggesting it was time to end the agency. “We've conditioned our people that FEMA will take care of us and everything will be okay.…”

On a slightly less extreme note, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), whose own district was heavily damaged by Irene, has said that any additional disaster spending will need to be offset by cuts in other programs, according to the Post. The move, which could indicate the extent to which new federal austerity measures will be pushed, has left other lawmakers nonplussed.

“To say that the only way you can come up with funding to rebuild devastated communities is to cut back on other desperately needed programs is totally absurd,” Vermont Senator Bernard Sanders (I) told the New York Times. “Historically in this country we have understood that when communities and states experience disasters, we as a nation come together to address those.”

In the meantime—while FEMA shifts funds, politicians push agendas, and Americans from coast to coast struggle to rebuild from various disasters—a bill to refill FEMA’s fading Federal Disaster Relief Fund is languishing in the Senate. The measure would add a much-needed $1 billion to the fund this year and another $2.65 billion next year, according to the Post.

Alas, with that money tied to cuts in other FEMA programs, it seems as if the agency might still be held hostage to the political infighting. In the end, as Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) points out, that could leave us even more ill-prepared.

“Does it really make sense to pay for response and reconstruction costs from past disasters by reducing our capacity to prepare for future disasters?,” she asks.