Katrina? Unless your complaint is that we spent too much money on Katrina, than I don't know what you mean.
Katrina convinced a lot of people that President Bush wasn't a "the buck stops here" kind of guy. At least I got that feeling.
Technically or formally you could say that what went wrong in the early stages was the responsibility of city and state authorities, but given that we have a Federal Emergency Management Agency, it wasn't out of place to expect more federal coordination or oversight of the evacuation.
As far as I know, money was also wasted or stolen afterwards, and there have been ongoing FEMA scandals. Maybe emergencies should be local or state responsibilities, but where you do have a federal agency, people aren't out of place in expecting it to respond to a crisis.
Anyway, my feeling was that the hurricane was a chance for Bush to win back the sceptics through prompt and forthright action, and he didn't take it. Ordinary citizens might have more respect for the President's abilities and committment today if he'd taken more responsibility then.